Ahoy, mateys! We set ashore in the storytime room to read all about pirates. Everyone was energetic to hear some pirate stories and participate in some storytime activities.
After some of our sillies were bean-bagged away, we walked the plank into our first story, The Pirate Who Said Please by Timothy Knapman. This is both a pirate and politeness story that rhymes.
After our first story, it was time to help Pirate Bear get an eye patch. This is a color practice flannel. I handed out different colored eye patches and the kids had to put theirs on Pirate Bear's eye to complete his outfit. This was also good practice on direction since they needed to put his eye patch on a specific part of the body. Most of the group was able to put the eye patch on his eyes, but some of the younger ones had a little trouble.
Once we went through all the colors with the help of Pirate Bear, we read Pirasaurs! by Josh Funk. The group loved this one the best because who wouldn't love a picture book that is about both pirates and dinosaurs?
Since a movement activity worked so well last time and because the group was extra peppy, we did a row your boat action song from Arms Up Keep Moving. We all pretended to be pirates rowing and we went from slow to fast. The song I used mostly went slow and the group was waiting for it to get faster than it was. At the end, we all rowed our boats super fast until we tipped over.
I closed storytime with reading Pirate Treasure by Scoular Anderson.
All three books were rhyming books. I absolutely am a sucker for rhyming books, but try not to do more than two in one particular storytime just in case it makes things a little less interesting with all that rhyming. As with this storytime, I did allow it because rhyming is an excellent way to learn and also because these pirate books seemed to be the shortest and I needed some short books today.
There are loads of good pirate picture books out there, but I think the ones that have engaging stories are usually on the long side. This is definitely a doable theme for storytime, but I could see would work even better with a slightly older crowd.
We ended storytime with making a parrot craft using a toilet paper roll. The younger ones had a slightly harder time making this craft with the liquid glue and construction paper giving them some trouble with sticking, but they liked this craft. I decided to not use pipe cleaners for the bracelet part since they were having a little trouble with the craft.
I remember doing a toilet paper roll snowman craft one year and that was also a little bit of a challenge, so I think I'll have these toliet paper roll crafts walk the plank! Arrrghh!
Gobble, gobble! It was time to celebrate Thanksgiving and what better way to celebrate then with a turkey craft.
I decided to do a combination of coloring and piecing together a turkey and took ideas from multiple turkey crafts. I got most of my inspiration from this turkey craft.
We made the turkey legs using the strips of paper and instead colored our turkey body so the group would be able to decorate theirs any way they liked. I cut out some feet instead of shoes and we were good to get crafty!
I misplaced the craft picture because of all the holiday bustle, but you can use your imagination on how it turned out.
Happy Thanksgiving!
I always enjoy putting on a Thanksgiving storytime because of the silly turkey stories and the lesson of giving thanks to all the good things we have in life.
After we followed along to the bean bag song, we started reading There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Turkey! by Lucille Colandro. I have fond memories of reading these books when I was younger so I enjoy reading them out loud to my groups when I can. They can be a bit long, but usually captures their attention.
For our first activity, we added different colored turkey feathers to our flannel turkey. The group listened very well for their colors and always enjoy interacting with the flannel board.
Next, we read Run Turkey, Run! by Diane Mayr. I like incorporating this book into storytime because every group seems to enjoy saying, "run turkey, run!" It makes for a fun time!
For another activity, I tried something new because I needed a movement activity to keep this energetic group focused. We did the Turkey Hokey Pokey! Boy, did we get silly with this one. Everybody was laughing when we waddled our behinds. This was easy for the group to follow with it up on the projector screen.
And thanks to getting some antsy feelings out, we were able to read two more books together, Thanksgiving for Emily Ann by Teresa Johnston and Thanks for Thanksgiving by Julie Markes. Both of these books allowed me to get the message of being thankful in storytime.
For our craft, we made a construction paper turkey and used old book pages for the body. This was a very cute and simple craft!
Happy Thanksgiving!
I must admit that I have been lagging a little bit this week because I caught my first cold of the season so I was trying to keep my Family Storytime and Toddler Art programs relatively easy for me this week. Funny thing is, I find myself seeming to do an even better job when I'm feeling a little under the weather because I want to continue to do my best. Anyway, this cold disappeared fast and I was able to put on another fun Toddler Art.
I wanted to stay with the "celebrating fall" theme that I had done in Preschool Picasso. After searching my Pinterest board for inspiration, I settled on the last craft I needed to get started with prep.
I always like to conserve for these programs and realized that when I was using the die-cut machine to cut out leaves for the Preschool Picasso program, that I could use the beautiful leaf cutout pattern scraps for another craft.
So it was decided. Our first craft would be painting white construction paper with fall colors and glue our leftover leaf cutout patterns on top. And thanks to Pinterest, our second craft would be to make a hedgehog using leaves.
I found a book to tie hedgehogs and leaves together in Herbie's Big Adventure by Jennie Poh. This is a story about a baby hedgehog, Herbie, who leaves his mommy for the first time to explore and hibernate. This was not only a great story to match my theme, but all the parents found it adorable and we learned about being brave and the changing seasons. The illustrations are modern and beautiful.
Despite the story being on the longer side, the kids were very attentive during this story and it allowed for a few of the families who came in late to hear a little bit of it.
After explaining each craft, it was time to get started.
The painted leaf craft gave good painting practice for the younger group and helped them practice holding the paint brush. They experimented with combining colors and seen how their leaves ended up being their painted colors on their paper.
The hedgehog craft gave them some time to color and have some sensory learning using the leaves with their smell and texture. It was a bit hard for the little ones to wait for the glue to dry to make the leaves stick, but that was good practice being patient.
A few of the families took some hedgehog books to be checked out, which are pictured below.
It's always a pleasure to read a picture book to a group and I still smell the leaves we used for the craft. Happy Fall!
We started off late fall storytime with a squirrel theme. This was a very enjoyable storytime with a fun theme and a good group turnout. There were so many good squirrel books to choose from and an animal storytime is always a hit.
We did our bean bag song and started our first story, Ol' Mama Squirrel by David Ezra Stein. This is a story about a very protective mama squirrel who "chooks" everyone away from her babies. They loved pointing out the baby squirrels in each picture as we continued to read. After the group helped me say "chook, chook, chook," we counted five little squirrels on the flannel board.
I read Aw, Nuts! by Rob McClurkan. This story reminded me of Ice Age's Scrat character with always having to chase a nut.
After going through all of the shenanigans a squirrel has to go through to get his nut, we followed along to "Gray Squirrel" by Learning Station. This was perfect timing because the kiddos were getting antsy by now. We swished our bushy tails, crinkled up our noses, and picked up nuts and put them on our toes. Everyone did great and it was a perfect opportunity to get their sillies out before we read our last story.
I did have another activity in mind where I would have handed out nuts and each in the group has to feed the squirrel puppet. I found a story to go along with it, but I couldn't find our squirrel puppet in time. We needed a movement activity anyway so it all worked out.
The group loved the illustrations of the dog in That Pup! by Lindsay Barrett George. This is a sweet story about a curious puppy who keeps finding nuts only to find out they all belong to someone else.
After awing together during our last book, I explained our craft. I had printed out some squirrel clip-art and had the group glue different colored die-cut leaves to make a tail. This was a cute craft that was perfect with minimal prep effort, but adorable and allowed for gluing practice. I also put out crayons in case they wanted to decorate and make scenery around their squirrel. All their squirrel tails were bushy and colorful. This was such a fun one!
Some more squirrel books I would have loved to have read but didn't have time were I Want That Nut! by Madeline Valentine and Bear and Squirrel are Friends by Deb Pilutti.
Now, "chook, chook" and read a book and create some art!
After using my usual bulletin board space for fall coloring contest entries, it was time to take down entries, pick our winners, and fill up the space before it's used for holiday decorating in December.
I ended up getting my inspiration from this bulletin board display.
Fall into a book!
After contemplating doing a turkey theme or a fall theme, I ended up choosing fall. I'll still be doing a turkey craft for storytime and a drop-in craft program, so I decided to do something different for my Preschool Picasso and Toddler Art programs.
This program had a great turn-out and was a lot of fun. The group was very attentive to the story, The Little Scarecrow Boy by Margaret Wise Brown and they enjoyed the storytime. I had them practice their "fierce" scarecrow faces and wave their arms in the air like a scarecrow. This story was just the right amount of story length. I like being able to read to this group because they can sit a little longer for stories than my storytime group and Toddler Art group.
After mentioning some upcoming programs, I explained each craft. For our first craft, we made a paper plate scarecrow face using ripped paper, cutout pieces, and shredded beige paper. I had the group tear their own paper to get some texture and practice in the activity.
For an additional craft, we made leaf silhouettes. Red, yellow, and orange paint were put out to paint over their leaves on construction paper. Once dry, they pealed off their leaves to see its shape.
I enjoyed celebrating fall with my group. Happy Fall y'all!
I had to read this because Leonardo, the Terrible Monster has always been a hit during
storytimes and Leonardo makes an appearance in this book.
Summary: One day Sam, the
most scaredy-cat kid in the whole world, makes a terrifying discovery. It's not
Frankenthaler the monster. It's her friend-Kerry! Kerry, the second most
scaredy-cat kid in the whole world, also makes a terrifying discovery. It's not
Leonardo the monster. It's his friend-Sam! "AAAAH!" yells Sam. "EEEEK!"
yells Kerry. Something has to be done. Something BIG. But what?
Age Range: 5-6 years
"Sam had no idea what he should do! Kerry had no idea what she should do! So, they had that in common."
This book has a very similar structure, but I must admit wasn’t as great as Leonardo, the Terrible Monster. Nevertheless, I still think this is
a cute book to read to children because of the lessons in this book. And I would definitely recommend it to those who are absolute Mo Willems fans.
We can all be
scaredy-cats and we can all be different, but still get along and collaborate
to scare the monsters in each other's lives. Everyone is afraid of something, but then we realize we are much of the same and what is different is non-threatening.
The same illustrations and characters offer
a comforting familiarity to Mo Willems fans.
