Storytime, Spring

Spring break equals smaller storytime numbers this week. Only 3 people last night and 10 this morning.


This one is a little long for my storytime crowds, but Easter is in a few days and I wanted to share a secular Easter book. Love the theme of perseverance. This little pig won't let anyone tell him that he can't be the Easter bunny.

As a bonus, I discovered a bag of plastic eggs in the depths of my desk, so we incorporated those into a song.

I changed the words to this song from Perpetual Preschool.
Tune :My Darling Clementine
Yellow flowers, blue flowers,
red flowers I can see.
Pink flowers, orange flowers in the garden I can see.

I passed out plastic eggs and we sang:
pink eggs, pink eggs, pink eggs I can see.
Pink eggs, pink eggs, in the garden just for me.

We went through all of the colors of eggs and the kids handed them back to me when we got to their color.


This is the perfect book to start a discussion about activities that we can do in spring.

Preschool gardening

My library doesn't do a lot of programming on the weekends, since there is only one staff member per department and we are only open 4 hours on Sundays, so I like to come up with fun weekend programs when I am working. I try to find programs that require minimal set-up so that I can maximize my time on-desk.

Since this program was created for children ages 3 years to grade 3, we read a story to set the mood.


This story is a little long for the younger crowd, but includes all of the vocabulary associated with gardening, like root crops, perennials, and pollination.

Then we decorated our pots. I found a kit from Oriental Trading, and bought two packages of bean seeds. For some unknown reason, I discovered a bag of dirt in a craft cabinet, so I used that as well. I love these pots because they don't have giant holes in the bottom for dirt and water to spill out. Everyone got a pot and packet of foam shapes and markers to decorate. Note; the foam shapes do not have adhesive backs, so glue is necessary, plan accordingly for younger ones.  
When they were done decorating they could fill their pot with dirt. I placed a bucket of dirt with several spoons on a tarp on the floor. Once their pot was full I let them choose two seeds to plant, about 2 inches down. We had 20 children attend this Sunday afternoon program.