Family Storytime: Feelings

This storytime group was a little bigger than last time and a few drop-ins came in, which was wonderful. 

The kids were into our bean bag song and liked Jack's Worry by Sam Zuppardi. 

We used the homemade Go Away Scary Monster puppet flannel our library has and the kids really enjoyed telling the monster to go away and talking about the different colors and shapes of his face. 

Our next book, The Rabbit Listened by Cori Doerrfeld was a very sweet read and the kids liked the illustrations in the pictures and we went over how Taylor was feeling by reading his face. 

The group was really good recognizing emotions and then we did some matching animal emotion faces together as another activity using some activity sheets I found online. 

By the time I read the third book, Theo's Mood by Maryann Cocca-Leffler they were getting antsy and we sang and followed along to "If You're Happy and You Know It."

I really enjoyed this theme that has tons of picture books to choose from and it was a beneficial concept theme for the kids.

For our craft, we made a happy/sad puppet using construction paper circles and popsicle sticks.

Below are a list of some books that would be perfect for this theme and are grouped by types of feelings. Some don't have the author listed, but a quick Goodreads or Google search should give you that info. 

                                                                                                

Other Books:

Anger:

Even Superheroes Have Bad Days Shelly Becker

The Bad Seed Jory John

There's a Bear on My Chair Ross Collins

How Do Dinosaurs Say I'm Mad? Jane Yolen

Horrible Bear! Ame Dyckman

Betty Goes Bananas Steve Antony

Allie All Along Sarah Lynne Reul

Sadness:

The Rabbit Listened Cori Doerrfeld

Happiness:

Happy Emma Dodd

The Jar of Happiness Ailsa Burrows

Worry:

Jack's Worry Sam Zuppardi

Scared:

Me and My Fear Francesca Sanna

I Am (Not) Scared Anna Kang

There Might Be Lobsters Carolyn Crimi

Dad and the Dinosaur Gennifer Choldenko

Variety of Emotions/Feelings:

Theo's Mood Maryann Cocca-Leffler

Places to Be Mac Barnett

How Are You Peeling? Saxton Freymann

I'll Never Let You Go Smriti Prasadam-Halls

My Many Colored Days Dr. Seuss

Misc. Books:

The Bear Who Stared E BEE

Penguin Problems E JOH

Love E DOD

The Lion Inside E BRI

The Grouchy Ladybug E CAR

I'm Having a Sky Blue Day! E TES

I'm Feeling Macaroni and Cheese E GAL

The Wompanany Witches Make One Mean Pizza E PAL

Hurty Feelings E LES

Angry E LEO

Funny Faces E TUX

Glad Monster, Sad Monster E EMB

The Little Book of Big What-Ifs E LIW

My Heart E LUY

When Sadness is at Your Door E ELA

I'm Sad E BLA

Out, Out, Away From Here E WOO

The Bad Mood and the Stick E SNI

There, There E BEI
Ishi E YAB

The Very Grumpy Day E JON
Prickly Jenny E DEL

Show Me Happy E ALL

Three Little Words E PEA

Pete the Cat and His Magic Sunglasses E LIT

How Do You Feel? E BRO

Family Storytime: Picnic

Everyone who came were familiar faces and we had a fun time with our picnic/food theme. 

We followed along to the bean bag song and then I read It's the Bear by Jez Alborough. The group really enjoyed this story about a boy afraid of a bear while he's on a picnic and of the bear being afraid of him. 

Next, we added fruits and veggies to our "picnic blanket" and we went through the names of the fruits and veggies and their colors. Everyone got a turn to put their food on the magnetic sheet pan.

Next, I read The Watermelon Seed by Greg Pizzoli. The kids really do love this book! Everytime I read it, it's a hit and the kids love to laugh about the seed growing in crocodile's belly.  

After this book, we guessed which colored picnic basket had the apple underneath it using the flannel board.

Then we read our third book, Picnic by John Burningham. This book kept the kids attention because it asked to find certain things in the pictures, but I would say this was their least favorite out of the four books.

We made the tallest ice cream cone with our different colored scoops and each had a turn and then we read Muddle & Mo's Worm Surprise. It was fun to see the kids faces when the picnic food would be worms.

We made a watermelon craft using paint. The kids got done with this craft fast, but they enjoyed using paint for a bit.

This was a good theme that had enough to use for just a picnic theme.

Other Books:

We're Going on a Picnic Pat Huchins

Ready for Anything! Keiko Kasza

Freda Plans a Picnic Stuart J. Murphy

Summer Supper Rubin Pfeffer

The Teddy Bears' Picnic Jimmy Kennedy

Other Activities:

-Plastic Food Activity

-Five Hungry Ants Fingerplay

-Stone Soup Story Flannel

-Hungry Caterpillar Flannel

-5 cookies Flannel

-ice cream cone Flannel

-Vegetable Game

-pizzas fingerplay

-Popsicle Flannel

Toddler Art: Vincent van Gogh

This was another great group and some new faces. They listened very well to the board book, In the Garden with van Gogh by Julie Mergberg and were excited to get to their crafts. The book was perfect for this age group because it rhymed and showed his paintings, although I wish it would have been bigger for the kids to see the pictures better. There are more in this book series that I have a feeling I will be using for future programs. 

For the first craft, we did some process art and finger painting. I pre-made foil taped onto cardstock for the kids to use blue and white paint to mix and swirl their colors like van Gogh's Starry Night. I also provided q-tips and pom poms with clothespins for those to try out a variety of ways that would work for them. These turned out pretty because of the foil, but this craft's main focus was on having fun with it in the moment and using their motor skills.

The second craft was inspired by van Gogh's sunflower paintings. Each in the group were able to make a sunflower using construction paper, yellow tissue paper, and brown paint with q-tips. This gave them extra painting time and they had fun doting their brown paint on the middle of their sunflowers.

At the end of craft time, we had play time and the group really enjoyed this part and did a great job with sharing toys and interacting with each other.

Preschool Picasso: Vincent van Gogh

This program usually has a great turnout, but today's was even better. We read a short story on Vincent van Gogh called Vincent's Colors that had his paintings and his words and then we did two painting crafts inspired by his art.

Our first craft was painting a sunflower portrait. I printed out a sunflower coloring page that looked like van Gogh's "Sunflowers" and they had green, yellow, orange, and brown paint to paint their sunflower portrait. This gave them practice for painting inside the lines, but the kids could paint anyway they liked and blend colors.

Our second craft was making our own Starry Night painting. They were given a blank cardstock paper and blue, yellow, and black paint colors. They painted and blended with their colors and then I showed them how to use a fork to make van Gogh's swirls like in his painting. The kids liked the idea of using the fork.

I really enjoyed this one and announcements were made about the Lunch in the Library program.

Other books:

In the Garden with Van Gogh Julie Merberg

Katie and the Starry Night James Mayhew

Vincent Can't Sleep Barb Rosenstock

Van Gogh and the Sunflowers Laurence Anholt

The Artist and Me Shane Peacock

Drop-In and Get Crafty: It's Showtime at Your Library!

I always enjoy putting on this drop-in program to kick off summer reading. This year's theme was "It's Showtime at Your Library!" and after looking at different craft ideas, I knew I wanted to do this cute popcorn craft because it would go perfect with the theme.

Everyone cut out their popcorn buckets and glued their piece and their movie ticket onto their construction paper. The fun part was scrunching up yellow tissue paper to put a 3D effect to their popcorn.

This program is always a great chance to talk to patrons and inform them of upcoming programs.

We had some coloring pages to color and some nice Kids Bop background music.

Book of the Month: Ebenezer Has a Word for Everything

I picked up the picture book, Ebenezer Has a Word for Everything by Chelsea H. Rowe because I could easily tell it would have a good writing connection to it and I could possibly get an idea from it for an upcoming writing program. 

Summary: Ebenezer collects words. No one appreciates his efforts until he meets a friend who writes stories and could use a word or two.

Ages: 4-8 years

"Wow! A word collection! Can I see it?" That was the day Ebenezer and Fitzgerald became friends. 

I enjoyed the story of Ebenezer finding a friend because of his love for words and how his friend has a love of stories. This was a great book for a friendship and a writing theme. I liked how the words were bolded, matched the illustrations, and encouraged more thinking and learning. This wouldn’t be a book I would read for a storytime, but it would be one that could be used for a writing lesson or one-on-one reading.