Toddler Art: Christmas

It was time for a Toddler Art Christmas! What I usually do closer to my Preschool Picasso and Toddler Art programs is go online and gather on Pinterest (some Google ideas too) all the crafts I think would work for my theme for that month for these programs and copy and paste pictures of each craft into a Word document. 

Once I'm satisfied with my choices and have enough crafts to make it difficult to choose, I print out my word document and start narrowing it down by what would be appropriate for each age group, what they would like, what would be doable and affordable and then get to it. 

As soon as I'm done choosing the two crafts I'll be using for each program, I get started on gathering supplies and prepping, which usually involves a trip to a store and some cutting, not as much cutting as the drop-in get crafty programs. 

For this holiday Toddler Art, we read Are You Grumpy, Santa? by Gregg and Evan Spiridellis, which is such a silly and fun holiday book. Once we were done reading together, we made Santa Claus and a present.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!
 

Drop-In and Get Crafty: Christmas

Christmas is almost here and it's time to get crafty! I think the Christmas drop-in is my favorite just because I get to see a bunch of familiar patron faces, play holiday music, and of course make a holiday craft. 

For this year's Christmas drop-in, we made a paper plate Santa Claus. The turnout was overwhelming because we had Santa himself visit the same time as the program, but this worked out beautifully because it paced the group perfectly from coming into our program room as opposed to past years where it would be very crowded at the beginning. 

I got my inspiration from this Santa craft, but just stuck with the cotton balls for the beard.

Ho! Ho! Ho!

Preschool Picasso: Christmas

This was a nice, holiday Preschool Picasso. I picked out one of our new Christmas books to read, One Cozy Christmas by Christina Butler. The kids liked the illustrations and were very good listeners during the story. This author has another book that is always a hit with the kids, so I knew they would like this one.

There are such great ideas for kids' Christmas crafts online that it was very hard to decide. After narrowing it down by what would be best for my group, I settled on a Santa Claus chalk craft and a paper plate ornament craft.

After reading, I explained the crafts and we got straight to it. We made Santa Claus using construction paper shapes and white chalk for his beard. We also went over the different shapes on the paper, which they were all experts at. 

For our last craft, we made colorful paper plate ornaments using red, blue, and green tissue paper and ribbon. 

It was great seeing the families and most of them said they would be able to make it to the drop-in craft program on Saturday.

Here comes Santa Claus!

Family Storytime: Sharing

I really think it's important to have storytimes that explain manners and other behavior themes, so I was happy we would be having a sharing storytime. This was our last storytime before the holidays and a bit of an experiment to have a sharing theme in place of the usual holiday theme.

After playing with bean bags to the music, we read Share, Big Bear, Share! by Maureen Wright. Big Bear can't seem to get the message to share his berries. 

Because I had a feeling that the group would want at least a little something about the holidays in their storytime, we decorated a flannel tree using flannel ornaments and practiced our sharing and our colors.

Once we had our tree all decorated, it was time to read another story on sharing. It's Not Yours, It's Mine! by Susanna Moores is about how hard it can be to share your favorite toy.

To break our sharing stories up, we counted five little presents under the tree on the flannel board and then got right to the rest of our sharing stories.

That's Not Mine by Anna Kang is a hilarious take on sharing when it can't be decided who gets to sit on a very comfy chair. 

Pigs and a Blanket by James Burks explains how sometimes not willing to share sometimes causes you to feel lonely. The illustrations are so cute in this one!

For our craft, we made a construction paper cookie and cut it in half to share with someone. They liked putting their "chocolate chips" on their cookie and had good practice cutting. The group enjoyed making this and "sharing" their cookie with another.

I know sometimes it can be tricky to do library programs that are related to holidays because a patron may feel left out or offended, but I find that my community craves such programs. Our main rule here is to make sure that no religious messages are in the picture books we read because we absolutely do have patrons of different religious backgrounds and beliefs. We also have plenty of religious books to check out for those patrons who would want that material.

Experimenting with this theme around the holidays, I find that I will probably stick with Santa/holiday books next time and save these themes throughout the year. 

Happy Holidays!

 

Book of the Month: A Loud Winter's Nap

I was looking for a picture book that would get me more excited for winter and came across A Loud Winter's Nap by Katy Hudson.

Summary: Unmoved by his friends' attempts to draw him out with singing classes and snowball fights, Tortoise tries to settle down for his annual winter nap and instead stumbles into a wonderfully icy experience.

Age Range: 3-5 years

"Tortoise had just snuggled in for his long winter nap when..."

This is another great book from the bestselling author of Too Many Carrots. I like how this book can be used for kids to read about winter, animals, and sleeping. 

Tortoise is the grump in his group of friends for not wanting to enjoy and play during the winter. But he quickly realizes just what he's missing out on. 

I had to chuckle because he just can't get any sleep, and most of us grownups can relate to that. The way tortoise finds out just how fun winter can be is a funny and cute tie-in to the story. This is a wonderful picture book read for the winter!

Unwrap a Good Book

My December bulletin board would be the backdrop for our Santa visit so I had to make sure I came up with something Christmas-y for Santa pictures. I enjoyed making the presents under the tree sparkle by using gold ribbon and gathered some holiday craft books to display.

Happy Holidays!