Family Storytime: Colors

For this week's storytime, we read about colors. This is always a great go-to theme because there are an unlimited amount of picture books to choose from on colors, as well as everyone's favorite classics. 

I had a smaller group probably due to spring break, but we still had fun having storytime together and one of my shy kids was able to be brave enough to participate a little more since the group wasn't so big. A win-win. 

After a much needed bean bag song dance to get our wiggles out, we read our first color story, Baby Bear Sees Blue by Ashley Wolff. I've read this picture book before for storytimes and it's great for the color theme. Bear notices all the different colors in nature while enjoying the company of his mom. The group liked announcing each color together while the story was being read.

I had handed out different colored felt band-aids and had a cute rhyme to go with the colors so when they heard their color in the rhyme, they could bring up their band-aid. They always love bringing up their piece to the flannel board.

Our next story was the classic, Mouse Paint by Ellen Stoll Walsh. In this story, we see what happens when some curious mice mix paint colors together and what colors they end up making. 

I jumped right into reading our next story, Yellow Is My Color Star by Judy Horacek. What is your favorite color? In this rhyming story, a young girl loves yellow. We talked about what our favorite colors were with most of us having blue as our color star. 

 Our next activity involved the flannel board, but we also had some movement exercises to do too. We followed along to a rhyme that told us what to do if we were wearing a certain color while I put up the colored square on the flannel board. A lot of us were wearing white somewhere on our body and had to stamp in place. 

The last story of the day was Little Green Peas by Keith Baker. Such a cute story where the kids always love repeating "little green peas." 

For our craft, I drew two lines on construction paper to make four squares on the page. I wrote colors and the group had to glue foam shapes, beads, and sequins of that color in the square. This was a great way to make use of odds and ends collected through other crafts while the kids practiced their color sorting. 
 
Have a colorful day!
 

Family Storytime: New Books!

We kicked off Family Storytime this spring with the theme of new books! Even though this is a great way to promote new books in the library, I was a bit hesitant with this theme because there are so many wonderful new picture books to choose from and because I thought it might make it difficult to come up with flannel board activities that matched the books. Despite my concerns, this was a great storytime thanks to the group!

After we followed along to the bean bag song, I dived right into our first story, Still a Gorilla! by Kim Norman. This was a silly story about a gorilla who wanted to be different animals, but always stays a gorilla. This is a great story that allows kids to participate in answering the question if Willy the Gorilla becomes another animal. All-around good storytime book that allows participation, learning of animals, and silly fun. 

Since our first story was all about different animals, I used different flannel board animals and handed them out to the group. I called for them to bring up their certain animal and then had the group make each animal noise. The group had fun and the loudest response was the lion's roar. 

It was after our animal sounds that one child in the group brought up a book from the display table to read. Since our theme was new books, all the books on the table were new to the library. I was happy to see an eager reader, so I quickly abandoned my lesson plan and got to reading. Well sure enough, all the kids wanted to choose a book from the display so we all had a turn to have our book read! 

I felt the kids were paying extra attention because they chose the books and I felt this was a good way to encourage them to read and let them know they have the choice of what book they can pick for both storytime and at home. 

Throughout my library career, I have seen parents express disappointment in what books their child has chosen to read, but I believe it is a good thing to see them reading, regardless of what the content is about unless of course it is age-inappropriate. I would rather see a child pick up a comic book, a book on vampires, a Harry Potter book than not pick up nothing at all. By letting a child choose what book they want to read, you are developing a future reader who knows his or her interests. Wasn't one of the worse things in school was having been assigned a book to read that you just couldn't get into? 

Because of their eagerness to read the books they chose, I was able to read a total of six books! I was thankful that most of the books on display happened to be shorter ones so that they all could each choose. I had a family or two come in late, but they were happy to just sit and listen to the stories that were previously picked.

We read The Magic Word by Mac Barnett, Pete Likes Bunny by Emily Arnold McCully, The Cookie Fiasco by Dan Santat, Your Alien Returns by Tammi Sauer, and Sweet Competition by Elizabeth G. Reed. 
 

What happens when Paxton C. Heymeyer says "the magic word?" It's not the magic word you're thinking of...

Pete has a crush on Bunny and the other kids tease him in class.

Four animal friends, but only three cookies...it's a fiasco! A fun math story.

What happens when you visit your alien friend's home? This is a sequel to Your Alien.

Unique illustrations paired with a story about competition among desserts.

Out of all these books, Pete Likes Bunny and Sweet Competition seemed to have fallen short for the group. The most fun to read out loud was The Magic Word and The Cookie Fiasco.

We ended our storytime with a bookmark craft. I had stickers and different shaped foam cutouts for them to glue on and we beaded the yarn to make a pretty bookmark.

Toddler Art: St. Patrick's Day

For this month's Toddler Art, I kept the holiday theme and all three crafts and sensory bin were centered around St. Patrick's Day. 

Our first craft was "Leprechaun Craft with a Fork Beard." I think this was my favorite craft and the group enjoyed it too. I liked the idea of using forks to make Leprechaun's beard and is a great craft to practice fine motor skills. We completed the craft by gluing a green top hat onto him. 

This blogger has an easy option to purchase her printable hat and face template, but I chose to make my own being from a thrifty library. It really wasn't that much of a hassle to make using clipart from Google, but it's always nice to see a template option for a craft. 

Our second craft was a "Hand-print Shamrock." I knew that most of the kids would like dipping their hands in the green paint and pressing it onto the paper to make a shamrock shape, but there are some kids who need to feel more comfortable with getting messy with paint and this was a great craft for them. I decided not to have their hand prints cut out like in the original and it worked out just as well. I also noticed that the kids who had trouble making their shamrock shape decided to make their own art and that can be just as fun and creative. 

The last craft of the day was "Rainbow Chain Craft." I used this craft for my drop-in program, but I thought it would be just as beneficial for this group seeing as the construction paper chains are always good for fine motor skills and would be easy enough for this group. 

We ended class by experimenting with our "leprechaun rocks." This was such a hit with Preschool Picasso that I had to share this activity with this group. They have fun using the spray bottle, discovering for gold coins, and watching the concoction fizz and bubble. Use 1 cup of baking soda and 1/4 cup of water mixed with green food coloring dried overnight. Vinegar is put in spray bottles for the kids to try the next day. 
 

Drop-In and Get Crafty: St. Patrick's Day

I usually don't hold a drop-in craft program for St. Patrick's Day, but this year I did. I had a wonderful turnout and surprisingly, there are a lot of St. Patrick's Day crafts to choose from, especially if you count rainbow crafts.

I chose a  rainbow chain craft I seen pinned on Pinterest. You can find the direct link here. I liked this craft because I thought it would take a while for the kids to make and they could work on their fine motor skills and colors. It also makes a cute door hanger.

The craft worked so well, I ended up using it as one of my crafts for Toddler Art. Normally, I don't like to reuse crafts, especially so soon, but I figured that most of this group doesn't attend Toddler Art and there would be two new crafts anyway.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Book of the Month: Sun & Moon Sisters

For March's Book of the Month, I chose Sun & Moon Sisters by Khoa Le. 

Summary: The Sun and the Moon are sisters, and they rule the sky together peacefully. One day, however, each begins to wonder: who is more important? This friction leads them to make a powerful decision to switch roles, hoping that it will lead to a greater understanding of their powers. Soon, the Sun begins shining all through the night, and the Moon brings night to the day. In the end, the two sisters will learn an important lesson about the importance of harmony and the balance of their relationship. 

Age Range: 4 and up

"You are both important," shouted the children. "Don't envy each other anymore."

The 3D illustration on the cover is what urged me to choose this book. I liked how it had a lesson of not to envy anyone and to realize that everyone is important and is needed in their own way. I also liked how they used the symbols of sun and moon and siblings, specifically sisters, to convey this lesson. 

Author and Illustrator Khoa Le combines a unique fable with beautiful Asian artwork.  

 

Books are Egg-citing!

Here's the latest bulletin board display I put together. We have a lot of other work going on, so it isn't as elaborate or homemade as my last bulletin board, but I like how it turned out and I can keep it up for a while since things are busy. 

Spring will soon be here!

Preschool Picasso: St. Patrick's Day

Since the holiday themes are always a good way to go, we had a St. Patrick's Day theme for this month's Preschool Picasso. There are a lot of good craft ideas out there for this one and a bunch of rainbow ideas, which could be used as a theme of its own.

We followed along to our bean bag song and then I read Green Shamrocks by Eve Bunting. Rabbit grew some shamrocks so he can wear them for the St. Patrick's Day parade, but they end up going missing. He has to ask all his animal friends if they took the gold pot with his shamrocks growing inside. 

I chosen this book because it is a cute St. Pat's story that is just the right length for a program like this and it tied in with our crafts, specifically the St. Patrick's Day necklace craft.

The group enjoyed the story and then it was time to do some art! We used green and yellow markers and spray bottles filled with water to make tie-dyed shamrocks on heart shaped coffee filters. This group loves to play with the spray bottles and they seen how these two colors blended together compared to the red and purple we used for Valentine's Day hearts.
 
While we were waiting for this craft to dry, everyone worked on their St. Patrick's Day necklace. They wrote their names on the shamrock and threaded fruit loops through gold ribbon. They liked this craft and wanted to eat some of the fruit loops and smelled their fruity scent. This was a good craft to work on their fine motor skills. 

Our leprechaun rocks, St. Pat's necklace, and tie-dyed shamrock.

We ended Preschool Picasso by playing with Leprechaun rocks. These were "rocks" made out of 1 cup baking soda and 1/4 cup water mixed with green food coloring. The kids used spray bottles filled with vinegar to spray on the rocks. We watched how they fizzed, bubbled, and dissolved the rocks and discovered each rock had a lucky gold coin inside. They loved this one so much and the parents were asking for the recipe. The kids noticed the strong smell of vinegar and got introduced to some fun science. 

Happy St. Patrick's Day!