Drop-In Get Crafty: Thanksgiving

For this year's Thanksgiving drop-in craft, we made turkey puppets. This was a perfect craft with minimal prep for such a big turnout. 

The kids loved being able to play with their puppets after they made them and enjoyed the added benefit of coloring pages and bookmarks. The older kids took their time adding more variety to their turkeys and they all turned out unique. 

I heard a lot of cute gobbling! 

 

Family Storytime: Food

For our short storytime week due to the Thanksgiving holiday, we decided to do a food/sharing/Thanksgiving theme and it worked out great. For my storytime, I focused more on food books and sharing and this turned out to be one of my favorite storytimes of the fall sessions. 

We read a total of three books together, used the flannel board two times, sang a song together, and made our craft.

I ended up reading How Do Dinosaurs Eat Their Food? by Jane Yolen for my first book. The group loved this book and weren't distracted the whole time. 

Our first activity was counting shape cookies on the flannel board. I handed out different cookies and they each had a chance to put theirs on the board. Then we went over each cookie's shape and color and counted each one. 

The next book I read was Who Put the Cookies in the Cookie Jar? by George Shannon. This is different from the classic everyone knows, but shows all what it takes and who it takes to make one cookie and went perfectly well with the sharing and community table theme.  

For our next activity, I thought we could add turkey feathers to our flannel turkey. It was another opportunity for them to interact with the flannel board while we counted and went over our colors. 

The final book of the night was Dim Sum for Everyone! by Grace Lin. A great, short book to incorporate a different culture into the mix. 

After we had our book fix, and boy did they do wonderful with their attention spans, we sang "If You're Happy and You Know It" and then I explained our craft.

We decorated construction paper cookies using cut out circles and black paint for chocolate chips. We also wrote what we were thankful for on the back and turned a few of our cookies into the cookie jar and kept the rest to take home.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Book of the Month: Kaya's Heart Song

What drew me to Sander's book was the beautiful illustrations by Nerina Canzi. I dare you to find a more colorful picture book! 

 Summary: Kaya is looking for her heart song--the song that happy hearts sing. Her search takes her on a journey deep into the jungle where a broken down carousel waits for a very special song to make it turn again. 

"Let me tell you a secret--if you have a heart song, anything is possible. Even magic!"

Age Range: 4-6 years

If you're looking for a picture book that rolls meditation, peacefulness, mindfulness, and yoga all into one...this is your book! Different yoga poses are illustrated beautifully and are incorporated into this book about Kaya trying to find her heart song and bringing a elephant carousel to life. 

I thought this was a really pleasant story with incredible artwork and feel-good message. These types of books are really becoming a trend. 

Toddler Art: Food

I based my whole Toddler Art: Food program around the classic book If You Give a Moose a Muffin by Laura Joffe Numeroff. This was a simple enough book for the toddlers to listen to and the crafts were rather easy enough for them too. 

This group listened very well and had a better listening day than my older kids. 

For our first craft, we made Moose's muffin using a half of a paper plate and sponges dipped in brown paint. This was a good opportunity for them to use their fine motor skills and use paint. 

The moose craft was a little bit more complicated for them, but the parents easily helped their little ones along with using the glue sticks to make Moose.

Our next theme will be story characters. I'm thinking a cute Cookie Monster craft, but we'll see where Pinterest takes me. 
 

Family Storytime: Shapes

The theme of shapes is always a great option for storytimes because there are so much books and activity ideas to go along with it and of course it's also a great concept theme.

There are some really great picture books on shapes that have cute stories to them, but tend to be on the long side for a storytime group. I ended up choosing three short stories to read, did two shape activities, and provided a shape craft.

We read Shapes that Roll by Karen Nagel, Perfect Square by Michael Hall, and Round by Joyce Sidman. The group particularly loved the illustrations in Nagel's book and noticed Square's facial expressions in Hall's book. I was really pushing their attention spans by the third book, but they did notice the roundness of the moon in the last book we read together. 

For our activities that broke up our reading, I handed out different shapes and had each of the kids feed the "Shape Monster." They had a good time and they each had an opportunity to get in front of the group. The last activity we did was a flannel based on the book, Shape by Shape. They had fun guessing what the shapes will make at the end of the flannel story. A dinosaur of course!

Each of the kids made a rocket craft using triangles, circles, rectangles, and squares. I think this reinforced the idea that all the books had, being that shapes are all around us. Of course they each got a space sticker to complete their craft. 

Here are a list of some books and activities for a shape storytime:
 

Love, Triangle Marcie Colleen

Perhaps Guido Van Genechten

Apples and Robins Lucie Felix

Round Joyce Sidman

Bear in a Square Stella Blackstone

Shapes that Roll Karen Nagel

Perfect Square Michael Hall

Shapes are Everywhere! Charles Ghigna

Dinosaur Shapes Paul Stickland

Go, Shapes, Go! by Denise Fleming

Circle Square Moose by Kelly Bingham

Shape Shift by Joyce Hesselberth

Square by Mac Barnett

Sweet Shapes by Juana Medina

City Shapes by Diana Murray

Seaver the Weaver by Paul Czajak

Round Is a Tortilla by Roseanne Grennfield Thong

Other Activities:

Shape Monster (feed the monster shapes)

Shape Chant (movement activity)

Different colored squares

Blast Off color rockets to go with craft

Red Square, Red Square, What Do You See?

It Looked Like Spilt Milk

Funny Shape Family Cut and Tell

If You're Happy and You Know It

Matching Shape Cookies

Shape by Shape Flannel Dinosaur

 

Preschool Picasso: Food

For this month's theme for Preschool Picasso, we read a story and completed two crafts around food. This theme could have been using food as craft tools or based around a book about food. I decided to go with the latter. 

We read Dragons Love Tacos by Adam Rubin and made a dragon and a taco craft. 

The group was so enthralled into the book that I knew this was a good pick! How can you go wrong with this silly book? 

After reading the story, we made our dragon craft and then our taco craft. For our dragon craft, we used bubble wrap and red paint to make scales on each of our dragons and for our taco craft, we had different textures of paper to make our delicious taco, along with some yellow paint using sponges to make our taco shell. 

The group really enjoyed this theme, but I think my next goal will be to try to incorporate the food theme even more by somehow using actual food as crafting tools.  

 

Fall Into Reading!