This was our last storytime for the winter session and we decided to go with a dinosaur theme. This is always a theme that the kids love and is easy to find fun books on.
Lately, the bean bag song has not made the kids as enthusiastic as before and they are more excited about the books. This is an excellent thing, but I know the song needs to stay. It is great to see them get excited about the books and helps reassure me that I'm picking out the right ones for our group.
Our first story was The Three Triceratops Tuff by Stephen Shaskan. This is a tongue-twister take on The Three Billy Goats Gruff classic, but with dinosaurs. I always enjoy re-introducing a classic in such a fun way.
I shared a story called, Who Will Play with Little Dinosaur? with the group using the flannel board. It's a story about a dinosaur who can't seem to find anyone to play with him. He asks his mom, a fish, a bird, and a fern to play but they all have reasons of why they can't. Mom is busy gathering food, fish can't be on land, bird has wings and belongs in the sky, and a fern can't reply back. Little Dinosaur ends up sitting on a rock...a rock that turns out to be a dinosaur egg. Out hatches Little Little Dinosaur and he now has another dino friend.
The group liked this story, but they really miss being able to put up a piece onto the flannel board.
Next, was a reading of Rex Wrecks It! by Ben Clanton. Rex has some friends, but seems to wreck everything they create. Wrecking things becomes a lot more fun when they can wreck havoc together.
I wanted to get one more activity in, so we counted Five Little Dinosaurs using the flannel board and went over their different colors.
Stegosaurus: The Friendliest Dinosaur by Anna Obiols was our next book. I would say this was the least favorite. It tells about all the things a boy does with imagination and his toy dino. It wasn't a favorite of mine either, but somehow ended up as one of my choices.
I tried to squeeze a fourth story in, and barely made it to the end before the kids were getting antsy. If I Had a Raptor by George O'Connor had a somewhat similar storyline to the last book, but I felt the kids liked this one better despite it going on a tad too long for them. I had one child who commented on the illustrations saying they liked the way the dinosaur looked and how "she is so cute."
It was craft time! We made dinosaur mouths out of paper plates and green construction paper. This was more of an effort to get the group to practice their cutting skills than anything. I tried to encourage parents to let their children cut for themselves and they did a good job of balancing helping their child vs. just making the craft for them.
For February's Book of the Month, I chose That's Me Loving You by Amy Krouse Rosenthal.
Summary: Amy Krouse Rosenthal captures parents' desire to be ever-present in this simple and touching poem offering reassurance of their love. Signs of affection can be found in the natural world around us--from a soft breeze to a shimmering star. ~From Goodreads.com
Age Range: 3 to 7
"That feeling you always have in your heart? That's me loving you."
What originally urged me to pick up this book was the sweet illustration on the cover of a mom sharing an embrace with her child, surrounded by beautiful nature. This is a simple picture book about the love between a parent and a child, with the message being that they will always be loved by their parents no matter how near or far they may be.
This book would work wonderfully for a Mother's Day storytime, Valentine's Day storytime, or a storytime about love. I also think this would be a great picture book to use for a younger child who may have lost their parent too soon.
Amy Krouse Rosenthal sets out all what she was meaning to do, including writing a touching book that may tug at your heartstrings. I love how nature is used as a symbol of love.
Despite the weather being unusually warm for February, we had a fun storytime all about soup! I really liked this theme because as unique as it is, it has some great books to pair with it. I was thinking I could do winter foods (hot chocolate, stew, chili, etc.) if I couldn't find enough soup books, but using inter-library loan, everything came together perfectly and I had a variety of books to sample.
Surprisingly, the kids weren't so enthusiastic this time around to do the bean bag song. My guess is it had to do with them taking advantage of the nice weather earlier by playing outside and they became exhausted.
Our first soup story was Duck Soup by Jackie Urbanovic. This is a hilarious picture book about Max the Duck cooking his first pot of soup but is believed to be missing by his friends. Brody, Dakota, and Bebe can't find their quackie friend and their imaginations quickly spin out of control.
After hearing how Max prepared his soup, we had to make our own pot of imaginary soup. I brought a cooking pot in and after disappointingly finding out that my local dollar store ran out of plastic toy vegetables, we used laminated vegetable clip art to make our soup. I handed out a few veggies to each in the group and called out vegetables. We went over the colors and tossed them into our pot. I stirred the pot and we all pretended to slurp our delicious vegetable soup. The kids loved this and I was impressed with how much fun they had with their imaginations.
Our second story, Making Minestrone by Stella Blackstone and Nan Brooks, took care of our (ahem, or maybe my) rhyming fix. This is a story that step-by-step shows how a group of friends prepare minestrone together, complete with a grocery list and recipe.
Before we got to our third book, we went over some of the types of vegetables and their colors of those that I had laminated. It was supposed to be a guessing game where I take one veggie away and the kids have to guess which one, but the laminated pieces with felt on the back were not sticking to the flannel board for anything. An easy improvise and the kids still had fun. I ended this a little early so we could do some more reading together.
Slop Goes the Soup by Pamela D. Edwards and Henry Cole is a fun book about all the noises that we hear when we make, and sometimes get messy, with soup. The group liked making the noises along with me and found the book quite comical.
I happened to have two families show up after our third book, so I asked the group if they wanted to hear one more story. I got a resounding yes, so we read on and those who just walked in were able to get a story...or two in!
Soup for One by Ethan Long makes the idea of flies invading a bowl of soup entertaining as we count the flies as we go, noticing the curious spider who always seems to be watching. I liked the art in this one.
Our final story was Is that Wise, Pig? by Jan Thomas. Cow and Pig are making Mouse some soup, but Pig wants to add umbrellas and galoshes into the mix. "Is that wise, Pig?" You'll find out in the end of this silly story.
It was great to be able to read five stories without losing the kids' attention spans!
For our craft, we made alphabet soup. We had a bunch of leftover letter stickers so this worked out nicely and the craft turned out so cute. The younger kids tried spelling out their names and the other kids had fun coming up with words we could make from their alphabet soup.
This storytime was mmm, mmm, good!
For this month's Toddler Art, all three crafts were centered around Valentine's Day like Preschool Picasso.
Our first craft of the day was "Heart Shaped Bubble Wrap Painting." I cut the bubble wrap into heart shapes and the kids dipped them in paint and used them for stamping. I pointed out the texture of the bubble wrap and some of the kids had fun popping a few. We also used heart cookie cutters for stamping too.
Our next craft station was "Heart Prints." I think this was the favorite craft of the day. Everyone enjoyed seeing the colors blend and playing with the spray bottles. I cut out hearts from coffee filters and the kids colored them all with markers. They used the spray bottles filled with water to blend their colors and used it to stamp onto a piece of construction paper. The parents kept both the coffee filter and the stamped heart. The coffee filter hearts look beautiful when held up to the light.
For our final craft, we used puffy paint made out of equal parts white glue and thick shaving cream to make clouds and then added heart stickers for "The Day It Rained Hearts" craft. This is a craft based on the book by Felicia Bond. It would have been a great fit to do this craft in Preschool Picasso so I could have read the story, but it was checked out. The kids had a fun time playing with the puffy paint.
We had the same sensory bin for Toddler Art as Preschool Picasso. I filled up an ice cube tray with water, foam hearts, and pom poms. This time it ended up melting quick, but it still ended up being a good sensory activity.
There are always a lot of sweet books to choose from for Valentine's Day to read during storytime. I try to look for ones with a fun storyline as opposed to just describing what the holiday is about, but those are good too.
We followed along to the bean bag song and then read How Do Dinosaurs Say I Love You? by Jane Yolen. What a cute story with a sweet lesson...that no matter how naughty of a dinosaur you are, Mom and Dad will love you anyway. Dinosaurs are always a hit with my groups and we enjoyed the funny illustrations.
For our first flannel board activity, we played Matching Hearts. I used our die-cut machine to stamp out different colored hearts and then cut them in half. The hearts were broken and we had to fix them. I put up one half of the heart and the child in the group who had the matching color came up to the flannel board and made the heart whole. They always enjoy being part of the flannel board activity, so I really try to find ideas that get the kids involved and up to the board. It also helps those who are shy by giving them the option to participate.
After our color matching activity, it was time to read our next Valentine story, Valentines for Everyone by Cecilia Minden and Joanne Meier. Herbie Bear's class makes sure to include the new student during Valentine's Day. Another book with a sweet message.
Since we just got through reading a bear story, I used the flannel board to count 5 Little Valentine Bears. This group is pretty advanced in their counting, but they still enjoyed the activity before our final book.
What I Love About You by Susan Farrington is one of our newer books at the library. This one was mainly for the parents since it is about all the things you love about your child. Definitely an "aww" book with fun pictures.
For our craft, we made Valentine's Bears out of construction paper. I let my group choose what to write in their hearts, with some choosing "I love you" or writing their name inside.
Love is in the air!
We had our first Preschool Picasso program held this year in February. Some of the parents expressed an interest in having the group stick with holidays, so we did a Valentine's Day theme.
Preschool Picasso is much like Toddler Art, but for a slightly older age group. Since the kids are more attentive from ages 3 to 5, we also have fun dancing to a bean bag song and reading a story that goes along with the theme.
I started with "The Bean Bag" song by Hap Palmer. It seems like there is never a child who doesn't like dancing along using bean bags.
After our movement activity, I read Hugs and Hearts by Toni Trent Parker. This is a picture book with photographs describing what activities are done to celebrate Valentine's Day.
We jumped right into our first out of two crafts. The first craft was "Heart Cookie Cutter Prints." Different sized cookie cutter hearts dipped with purple, pink, and red paint were used as stamps. The kids quickly caught on how they could stamp a smaller heart inside a bigger heart, making it an educational activity understanding little to big. Some kids chose to use a paint brush to apply the paint to the edge of the cookie cutters.
The last craft we did was "Fingerprint with Love." We used out finger tips or q-tips to make dots around the letter die cuts and then pealed our die cuts off to see the word, "love." Some kids left their letters on, which looked just as good. They also got really creative decorating with paint in all different ways, adding a uniqueness to their art.
For a sensory bin, I froze foam hearts, felt hearts, pom poms, and other Valentine color pieces inside an ice tray. The kids had fun melting the cubes to get to the trinkets. There was a tad bit of splashing, but once they were told not to splash, they still had a fun time playing in the cold water and melting the hard ice. I got the idea from a pin on Pinterest, but for some reason the glove idea wasn't working too well for me and the ice cubes worked out just fine.
We had the same reporter who visited Toddler Art visit this class and the parents were just as excited.
Happy Valentine's Day!
This week's storytime theme was Elephant and Piggie's author, Mo Willems.
The kids enjoy these stories, but I find it hard sometimes to come up with activities centered around this theme. It is also a theme that I would say as a storyteller, you have to be extra animated in your delivery because most of the stories read out like a comic book. Regardless, this was a successful and fun storytime.
After doing our bean bag song and explaining the author and his well-known characters, we began with our first story, The Duckling Gets a Cookie!? The group liked this one and we all had a sudden craving for chocolate chip cookies.
For our flannel board activity, I went with counting and matching cookie shapes. I handed out cookies with different shapes on them and then had each child come up with their cookie that matched the cookie on the flannel board. Of course we went over our shapes, colors, and counted how many cookies were on the board.
Next, we read Pigeon Wants a Puppy! I think everyone enjoyed this book by Mo Willems a little bit more than the last one. We giggled when Pigeon realizes he may not want a puppy and recognized how sometimes we get upset if we don't get what we want.
Since Pigeon wanted a puppy, we counted some puppies using finger puppets. I don't think the kids would have been too excited for this one if it wasn't for the help of the book so it ended up being a good tie-in.
Our last Mo Willems story of the evening was That Is Not A Good Idea! This is a funny story with a surprise twist that the kids always laugh at and enjoy. They also like repeating, "That is NOT a good idea!" throughout the book.
It was time to make our Duckling Wants a Cookie craft! We had extra fun using black paint to make Duckling's pupil, feet, and the chocolate chips on the cookies.
"If you ever find yourself in the wrong story, leave." ~ Mo Willems
This was my first drop-in craft program of the year and we celebrated Valentine's Day. I usually make sure I have about forty crafts handy for this program without knowing how many participants there will be and usually have a few leftover crafts. This time around, I had only about five crafts left.
This is a great family program because it is a way for families to come to the library and enjoy a free craft together and for me, it's fun and quite easy to prepare for unless the craft is homemade and has many pieces. It is also a perfect program for eager, young crafters who may not have it in them to sit and listen to a story.
We had a fun time decorating Valentine's Day bags to use to hold our Valentines or to give to mom or dad as a present. I handed out some Minon Valentines and some chocolate heart candy while we listened to the Despicable Me Soundtrack. The kids had fun using a variety of stickers, foam hearts, and doilies to decorate their white bags.
One of my regular program friends gave me such a touching Valentine after she was done decorating her bag. It was so sweet and made my day! It was cute to see her tell her mom what to write on the card. That's what it's all about! Thank you, Neve!
Happy Valentine's Day!
