Family Storytime: Fall

This was a nice fall storytime with a great theme that provided a lot of book and activity options.

We started with our bean bag song and then talked a little bit about fall-the leaves, animals, and weather.

Our first book was, We're Going on a Leaf Hunt by Steve Metzger. I always enjoy reading this one for the fall theme because it goes over the colors and the concepts of directions.

This was a perfect opportunity to pull out the tree flannel and add some different color leaves to our tree. We counted each of the colored leaves on the tree and separated them by color.

Next, I read The Busy Little Squirrel by Nancy Tafuri. It's a very cute book about a squirrel who has no time to play because he's getting ready for winter.

Because our book was about a squirrel, I used our five little squirrel flannels and the kids helped counted and liked the rhyme that went with it.

Our next book was Mouse's First Fall by Lauren Thompson. The illustrations are so vibrant in this picture book and it's a cute story that sparks fall conversations with the kids.

We sang "If You're Happy and You Know It" and then read our last book, called Leaves by David Ezra Stein. I love this book's concept about a bear who is confused and concerned that leaves are falling off the trees and shows how bears hibernate for the winter.

For our craft, we used die-cut leaves and traced them with fall colored paint using our fingertips and q-tips, leaving colorful leaf designs on our paper.

Other Books:

When a Tree Grows Cathy Ballou Mealey

Clifford's Puppy Days: Apple-Picking Day Samantha Brooke

Every Autumn Comes the Bear Jim Arnosky

It's Fall Celeste Bishop

The Apple Pie Tree Zoe Hall

Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf Lois Ehlert

Watching the Seasons: Fall Emily C. Dawson

Orange as a Pumpkin Molly Dingles

Let It Fall Maryann Cocca-Leffler

Full of Fall April Pulley Sayre

Toddler Art: Apples

For this week's Toddler Art, we continued with the October theme of apples and read one, short apple story and then completed two painting crafts.

We read One Red Apple, but Harriet Ziefert. This book has beautiful illustrations and is simple enough for toddlers.

Once we got done reading and talking a little bit about apples and their colors, we got to making our two crafts.

For our first craft, I put out shower loofahs, card stock, and die-cut tree trunks with their branches. The trunk was glued onto their card stock and then they used the loofah to dip it into green paint to make the leaves on their tree. After this, they used their finger tips to dip into red paint to make the apples on their tree. They got practice with gluing and painting, with the loofah being a fun element.

For our second craft, we made pumpkin prints using apples cut in half, orange paint and stamping them onto our paper. We used our finger tips for green pumpkin stems and for painting grass for our pumpkin patch scene.

Family Storytime: Hedgehogs

Hedgehogs is a cute storytime theme for the fall that has plenty of books to pick from that focuses both on hedgehogs and the season. It's also a great theme for teaching about nocturnal animals.

We started off storytime with our bean bag song and then talked about what we knew about hedgehogs. Of course we talked about their spiky quills and how they are awake at night.

Soon enough, we dived into our first book, HedgehogNeeds a Hug by Jen Betton. This is a cute book that focuses on hedgehog's quills and how the other animals are afraid to hug him, except for the trickster wolf who ends up getting hurt from trying.

We each had a turn to put up flannel hedgehogs on the flannel board and count how many there were using a cute rhyme and then we got to our second book, Hedgehugs: Autumn Hide-and-Squeak by Steve Wilson and Lucy Tapper. I think everyone enjoyed this book because it was cute and we all had opportunities to squeak!

We sang "If You're Happy and You Know It" together and then got to our final hedgehog book…a short one called Hedgehog'sMagic Tricks by Ruth Paul. The group loved saying "Abracadabra!" throughout the book.

For our hedgehog craft, we made hedgehogs using pine cones. Even though it took some patience to get the pine cone to stick to our hedgehog face, each hedgehog looks so cute and unique.

Books:

Herbie's Big Adventure Jennie Poh

Hedgehugs Steve Wilson & Lucy Tapper

Help! A Story of Friendship Holly Keller

One Rainy Day M. Christina Butler

Little Hedgehog's Big Day Daniel & Heidi Howarth

Hedgehog Needs a Hug Jen Betton

Harriet Dancing Ruth Symes

Other activity:

Hedgehog, Hedgehog (tune: Teddybear, Teddybear, Turn Around")

Hedgehog, hedgehog, turn around.

Hedgehog, hedgehog, touch the ground.

Hedgehog, hedgehog stretch up high.

Hedgehog, hedgehog, search the sky.

Hedgehog, hedgehog, search down low.

Hedgehog, hedgehog, touch your toes.

Hedgehog, hedgehog, sit on the ground.

Hedgehog, hedgehog, curl up small and round.

Playdough Party! and No Registration vs. Registration

I just wanted to post a quick blog mentioning that I put on another one of our playdough parties. This one had our biggest crowd yet! 
Because of going no-registration on mostly all of our programs, it made for a great turnout. 

At some point, it was getting crowded in the room so I just mentioned that those who wanted to join us could wait outside by the stacks until more space cleared out and that seemed to have worked well. Plus, a lot of those already in the room who had at least half the time for playing were kind enough to leave to make room for others who just showed up. I also ended up leaving the room open for an additional half and hour to give those who showed up late a full chance at the program. 

The Playdough Party program has worked well with no-registration, but I do notice that some programs work much better with the registration required-especially for craft prep and for the ability to do reminder calls for attendance purposes so you do get a decent crowd. 

Patrons either love no-registration because they don't have to worry about registration, but other patrons need that reminder call to remember to attend and want a guaranteed spot. 

As with everything, there is positives and negatives, but personally I like registration so I can get to know patrons' names better, have the opportunity to give them reminder calls, and know how much to prep so I don't over prep and end up with too many craft materials that I could have used for another program. 

With that being said, I'm flexible and can accommodate to both ways to fit whatever is best for patrons. 

Preschool Picasso: Apples

This was a great Preschool Picasso turnout with some new families to the group!

I gave everyone a brief introduction on Preschool Picasso and announced our apple theme. 

We read Apples for Little Fox by Ekaterina Trukhan. This is the cutest story about a fox who loves the library and enjoys reading detective books. He can't wait to solve a real life mystery, but can't seem to see one…until all the apples disappeared on his favorite apple tree. Of course this story has a sweet ending. The group really enjoyed this book and I would definitely use this one again for any apple-related program.

Once we talked a little bit more about the book, I explained our two crafts for the day. Our first craft is usually always our paint craft, so for this one we were going to be using real apples from the library's apple tree to stamp apple shapes onto our cardstock using red, yellow, and green paint. They added on an apple basket by cutting brown construction paper into strips while giving them some cutting practice.

The group's other craft was making a tie-dye apple. I put out red, yellow, and green washable markers on the tables for the kids to doodle on their apple-shaped coffee liner. Once finished, they were to use the spray bottles to spray their apple and make the tie-dye design. Once a little dry, they could glue it onto a construction paper red apple. The kids always enjoy using the water bottle sprays.

Fall is here!

     

Book of the Month: Here and Now

I used Here and Now by Julia Denos for my yoga and mindfulness storytime and thought that it deserved to be Book of the Month for October. 

The book sparked conversation and the kids liked talking about the things that were around us and observing the present, which became quite engaging for them. 

Summary: Illustrations and easy-to-read text celebrate mindfulness and the connectedness of everything on Earth.

Ages: 4-7 years

“Right here, right now you are becoming.”

This book is a perfect children’s book for teaching mindfulness and the pictures are so beautiful and tranquil.

Fitting for a storytime or a book that would calm your child before bed and explain how so many things are happening and growing around us while we sit still and observe.

It’s also a great conversation starter with your kids about the present moment, all what’s going on around us, and how we are all part of it.