Another appropriate theme for summer, fish! This theme has so many possibilities it really is endless. I never get stuck on this theme when it comes to both finding books and crafts and it seems like new wonderful books and fun craft ideas are always around the corner.
Once we were done bean bag rockin', we read Fidgety Fish by Ruth Galloway. What child can't relate to a curious, fidgeting fish who likes adventure. This book has good flow with its wording and is a pleasure to read to a group.
We took our usual break with reading by going over some colors and counting using a "Sea Star Wish" rhyming flannel. Each in the group was able to bring up a flannel piece, which they absolutely love, and shared well too.
Next up was Ugly Fish by Kara LaReau and Scott Magoon. Ugly Fish, is well ugly. And to top it off, he doesn't like to share. This makes him uglier. Will this bully get what's coming to him in his fish tank? This is a slightly silly one that the group sure enjoyed.
Our next break was a five little fish flannel. We counted and went over the colors of each fish and how they were each different.
Our final story was my favorite, Hooray for Fish! by Lucy Cousins. She has a Hooray for Birds! book that I need to remember to use for a bird storytime.
For our craft, we continued with the cupcake liner theme and made a fish cupcake liner craft out of construction paper and cutting the liners to make fins. We were even able to practice our "w's" by making waves in the water.
Time to "fish" for more books...
Ah, a day at the beach. Always a good thing and such a fun, sunny theme for storytime.
After our startup bean bag song, we got to reading and managed to read four books!
Holly's Day at the Pool by Benson Shum was a good start. This is a good story about bravery and on how silly it can be to worry too much. Holly the hippo is scared to go swimming for the first time. She imagines all the things that could go wrong if she decides to swim. With the help of her hippo family, she overcomes her fear and ends up being a very brave hippo.
For our beach activity, I asked who wanted some ice cream after swimming with Holly. We each got a felt scoop of ice cream of all different colors and "flavors" and each were asked to put their color ice cream on the flannel board when called. We talked about our favorite flavors and colors and counted how many scoops of ice cream were on top of the cone on the flannel board.
Our next book and the favorite of the day was Pete the Cat: Pete at the Beach by James Dean. My group loves Pete the Cat so I knew I had to read this one. We explored the happenings on the beach with Pete and Pete too was scared of swimming.
I did a quick flannel rhyme using "five little seashells" and then we read our last two books, Noni the Pony Goes to the Beach by Alison Lester and Bugs at the Beach by David A. Carter. Noni and her friends have fun on the beach and the bugs do everything beachy in the sand.
Bugs at the Beach is an easy reader/beginning reader and I usually don't like using them in storytime because the pictures can be too small for an audience and the sentences sometimes don't flow as well for a read-out-loud, but this was a quick book to end storytime that went along with the theme.
For our craft, we made octopuses out of cupcake liners and paper strips. We talked about how many legs an octopus has and the kids liked choosing what color cupcake liners to use.
Doesn't a beach day sound nice right about now?
July's Toddler Art theme was a Rainbow Fish theme. I changed the program format from three crafts to two crafts and a book to get more reading in there. This turned out to be a great change because both the parents and kids enjoyed the book and we still kept the fundamental idea of sensory crafts.
I like the idea of tying in crafts and picture books together and found that I didn't have to rely on finding pairings online, but that I could come up with my own craft ideas if I loved the book and wanted to use it. I will usually base the craft on characters/animals in the book, the style of illustration used, and/or if anything was made or crafted in the story.
Rainbow Fish was a perfect way to try out the one book, two sensory crafts switch.
I'm sure you are already familiar with this classic book, especially if you are in any teaching profession, but just in case, The Rainbow Fish is about a beautiful, shiny fish who after a little hesitation shares his scales with his friends.
Even though I'm sure the group has heard this story before, they had no problem listening to it again and awing over the shiny illustrations.
Segueing into our crafts, we of course made Rainbow Fish and his wise Octopus friend.
For Rainbow Fish, celery was used as stampers to make Rainbow Fish's scales. We used all the colors of the rainbow, with some kids going from red to purple and others not having any pattern to their scales. The celery was interesting for the kids to smell, some mistaking it for cucumber, and they practiced stamping neatly onto their fish.
For Octopus, fruit loops and white paint were used to make the suckers on each of his eight legs. Some in the group used all fruit loops, and ate some too, while others used their fingertips to make white prints.
This was another fun time and reassured me that adding a book was a good idea.
For this week's storytime, we read books on construction. I am a sucker for cutesy themes, but this theme ended up being just as fun as the animal themes.
Once the bean bag song was finished, we began storytime by reading Bulldozer Helps Out by Candace Fleming and Eric Rohmann. This story teaches the idea that anyone can help, no matter how big or how small. I also like reading this one out loud because of the repetitiveness of the action words, "cement truck was stirring, stirring, stirring...Digger Truck was scooping, scooping, scooping..."
Another librarian who is great with coming up with flannels put together a construction bear flannel for this theme. It was an absolute hit and it was great for going over colors (the colors of his construction gear), safety (why does Construction Bear need a helmet?), and parts of clothing.
After Construction Bear, we jumped right into Dalmatian in a Digger by Rebecca Elliot. A dog construction story focusing on the noises you hear around a construction site. The kids enjoyed this story the best.
I ended up reading an extra story instead of another activity since the group was still very attentive. We read Road Work Ahead by Anastasia Suen and Tip Tip Dig Dig by Emma Garcia. Both books had cute, bright illustrations and familiarized us with all the sights and sounds of the construction site.
For our craft, we made a construction paper moveable crane. This was a fun craft that allowed the kids to play with moving their "wood" up and down.
I really enjoy this theme. There are so many possibilities for a farm animal storytime and tons of books to choose from about farming or each animal.
After following along to our bean bag song, we enjoyed reading, Fun in the Sun by Janine Scott together. Farmer Claude and Farmer Maude and their farm animals are looking for some sunny weather. I thought this was perfect for the theme and the season.
I used our "It Looked Like Spilled Milk" flannel next because we went through all the farm animals that we seen with spilled milk patterns and even went through some that weren't farm animals. The group liked guessing what they saw on the flannel board.
Our next book was, Where Are My Chicks? by Sally Grindley. Mother Hen has lost her chicks and the farm animals and storytime listeners must help her find them. I like this story because it's easy for the kids to participate and try to find each chick on the page.
For our second flannel board activity, I used felt farm animals and we made the sound of each animal. This was so fun for the kids and they liked showing off their animal noises.
The final book of the day was Cock-a-Moo-Moo by Juliet Dallas-Conte. More animal sounds! Rooster has forgotten how to crow and tries mimicking other animal sounds. This is so laughable for the kids, which each of them pointing out that Rooster isn't making the right sound.
I found a wonderful craft idea from the book, Farmyard Animal Crafts by Annalees Lim. We made a horse in a barn! This was fun to plan out and I had the idea of using some shredded yellow paper from the Dollar Store for hay.
This is definitely one of my favorite themes and it can be presented slightly different by using farm books that take place in the fall.
I am a dog person, but I am also a Grumpy Cat type of person too. When I heard they were making a Grumpy Cat Golden picture book, I couldn't wait to read it.
Summary: The most famous cat in the world stars in her very own Little Golden Book! Grumpy Cat has 8 million Facebook followers, her own TV movie, and now...a Little Golden Book! In this story featuring an all-new iconic art style, Grumpy Cat's friends and admirers try to get her to try new things and have fun, and each time she is even more resolved to say NO. In the end, she is right. Having fun is awful.
Age Range: 3-7 and all Grumpy Cat fans
"'I had fun once,' Grumpy Cat said. 'It was awful.'"
Fans of Grumpy Cat will love this picture book! Grumpy Cat is meeting all sorts of happy animals that want him to get happy too, but he is Grumpy Cat. This is such a cute and funny book that already has another Golden book in the making.
For this past week's storytime, we read all about shapes. We always try to incorporate one cognitive development theme and shapes became this session's cognitive theme.
After gathering a few more kids for storytime, we got right to reading about shapes.
Our first book was Shapes that Roll by Karen Nagel. The rhyming text made it fun to read out loud and the illustrations are fun.
Next, we read Circle Dogs by Kevin Henkes. Who wouldn't love a story about shapes and dogs?
Since there wasn't that big of a group, I only did one group activity. We had to feed the Shape Monster. Shape Monster is a cute, silly monster made out of a cardboard box, construction paper, and pom poms that one of my librarian coworkers made. We used different die-cut shapes and went over our shapes and colors before we heard the Monster call out what he wanted to munch on. The kids love feeding him and I have fun making num-num noises when he's eating. The parents also seem to like this idea too.
Our last story was All Sorts of Shapes by Hannah Reidy. This is a great story to read to make the point that shapes are all around us.
For the craft, it was decided that we use cut-out circles to make different shapes and designs. I always have a sample of the craft and the kids made the same caterpillar, bee, and spider scene I provided. It made them think how many circles they needed to make one like mine, but I like it when they use their own imagination. Either way, it was a fun storytime complete with circle smiley stickers.
