Family Storytime: Taking a Bath

Everyone really enjoyed this bath time theme and there are so many ideas and picture books that are perfect for it.

We started off with our bean bag song and then started reading our first book, Time for a Bath by Phillis Gershator. This book was the perfect beginning to explain why we need baths and how we get messy.

Afterwards, I handed different clothing flannel pieces and I told a story about a girl who needed to get dress and couldn't make up her mind. After we put clothes on her and kept changing it up, she decided that since it was a rainy day, she would wear her bathing suit. It's a pretty silly story I made up on the fly because I knew I wanted to use the clothing flannel pieces.

Our next book was The Pigeon Needs a Bath by Mo Willems, which was a craft tie-in for storytime. The group really laughed at this one and of course it was a complete hit!

We sang "If You're Happy and You Know It" and went to our last book, Get Out of My Bath! by Britta Teckentrup. This is an interactive one and I think it kept the group's interest until it was time to work on our crafts.

For our craft, we made a Pigeon Dirty/Pigeon Clean craft using a brad to rotate him in his bubble bath. They colored Pigeon to make him dirty, added cotton balls for bubbles, and had a cute, yellow duckie to add.

Other Books:

How to Wash a Woolly Mammoth Michelle Robinson

Peep and Egg: I'm Not Taking a Bath Laura Gehl

Bubbles, Bubbles Kathi Appelt

Small Elephant's Bathtime Tatyana Feeney

You Take a Bath David I.A. Mason

Bears in the Bath Shirley Parenteau

Big Red Tub Julia Jarman

On My Way to the Bath Sarah Maizes

Squeaky Clean Simon Puttock

Other Activities:

Where Is Duckie Hiding? Guessing Flannelboard

Mrs. Wishy-Washy Flannelboard

*Scarf Activity: Splish-Splash I Was Taking a Bath Disney: The Best of Silly Songs #18

Bubbles

*5 Elephants in the Tub

Dog's Colorful Day flannel

Raffi-Bathtime

Craft: Pigeon Takes a Bath Craft with cotton balls

Book of the Month: Sam the Most Scaredy-Cat Kid In The Whole World

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.

Family Storytime: Mo Willems

This week's storytime theme was Elephant and Piggie's author, Mo Willems. 

The kids enjoy these stories, but I find it hard sometimes to come up with activities centered around this theme. It is also a theme that I would say as a storyteller, you have to be extra animated in your delivery because most of the stories read out like a comic book. Regardless, this was a successful and fun storytime. 

After doing our bean bag song and explaining the author and his well-known characters, we began with our first story, The Duckling Gets a Cookie!? The group liked this one and we all had a sudden craving for chocolate chip cookies.

For our flannel board activity, I went with counting and matching cookie shapes. I handed out cookies with different shapes on them and then had each child come up with their cookie that matched the cookie on the flannel board. Of course we went over our shapes, colors, and counted how many cookies were on the board. 

Next, we read Pigeon Wants a Puppy! I think everyone enjoyed this book by Mo Willems a little bit more than the last one. We giggled when Pigeon realizes he may not want a puppy and recognized how sometimes we get upset if we don't get what we want. 

Since Pigeon wanted a puppy, we counted some puppies using finger puppets. I don't think the kids would have been too excited for this one if it wasn't for the help of the book so it ended up being a good tie-in. 

Our last Mo Willems story of the evening was That Is Not A Good Idea! This is a funny story with a surprise twist that the kids always laugh at and enjoy. They also like repeating, "That is NOT a good idea!" throughout the book.

 It was time to make our Duckling Wants a Cookie craft! We had extra fun using black paint to make Duckling's pupil, feet, and the chocolate chips on the cookies.

 "If you ever find yourself in the wrong story, leave." ~ Mo Willems