Fall For a Good Book!

 

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

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.

Toddler Art: Celebrating Fall...with a hedgehog

I must admit that I have been lagging a little bit this week because I caught my first cold of the season so I was trying to keep my Family Storytime and Toddler Art programs relatively easy for me this week. Funny thing is, I find myself seeming to do an even better job when I'm feeling a little under the weather because I want to continue to do my best. Anyway, this cold disappeared fast and I was able to put on another fun Toddler Art. 

I wanted to stay with the "celebrating fall" theme that I had done in Preschool Picasso. After searching my Pinterest board for inspiration, I settled on the last craft I needed to get started with prep. 

I always like to conserve for these programs and realized that when I was using the die-cut machine to cut out leaves for the Preschool Picasso program, that I could use the beautiful leaf cutout pattern scraps for another craft. 

So it was decided. Our first craft would be painting white construction paper with fall colors and glue our leftover leaf cutout patterns on top. And thanks to Pinterest, our second craft would be to make a hedgehog using leaves.

I found a book to tie hedgehogs and leaves together in Herbie's Big Adventure by Jennie Poh. This is a story about a baby hedgehog, Herbie, who leaves his mommy for the first time to explore and hibernate. This was not only a great story to match my theme, but all the parents found it adorable and we learned about being brave and the changing seasons. The illustrations are modern and beautiful.

Despite the story being on the longer side, the kids were very attentive during this story and it allowed for a few of the families who came in late to hear a little bit of it.

After explaining each craft, it was time to get started.

The painted leaf craft gave good painting practice for the younger group and helped them practice holding the paint brush. They experimented with combining colors and seen how their leaves ended up being their painted colors on their paper. 

The hedgehog craft gave them some time to color and have some sensory learning using the leaves with their smell and texture. It was a bit hard for the little ones to wait for the glue to dry to make the leaves stick, but that was good practice being patient.

A few of the families took some hedgehog books to be checked out, which are pictured below.

 It's always a pleasure to read a picture book to a group and I still smell the leaves we used for the craft. Happy Fall!
 

Family Storytime: Squirrels

We started off late fall storytime with a squirrel theme. This was a very enjoyable storytime with a fun theme and a good group turnout. There were so many good squirrel books to choose from and an animal storytime is always a hit. 

We did our bean bag song and started our first story, Ol' Mama Squirrel by David Ezra Stein. This is a story about a very protective mama squirrel who "chooks" everyone away from her babies. They loved pointing out the baby squirrels in each picture as we continued to read. After the group helped me say "chook, chook, chook," we counted five little squirrels on the flannel board.

I read Aw, Nuts! by Rob McClurkan. This story reminded me of Ice Age's Scrat character with always having to chase a nut. 

After going through all of the shenanigans a squirrel has to go through to get his nut, we followed along to "Gray Squirrel" by Learning Station. This was perfect timing because the kiddos were getting antsy by now. We swished our bushy tails, crinkled up our noses, and picked up nuts and put them on our toes. Everyone did great and it was a perfect opportunity to get their sillies out before we read our last story.

I did have another activity in mind where I would have handed out nuts and each in the group has to feed the squirrel puppet. I found a story to go along with it, but I couldn't find our squirrel puppet in time. We needed a movement activity anyway so it all worked out. 

The group loved the illustrations of the dog in That Pup! by Lindsay Barrett George. This is a sweet story about a curious puppy who keeps finding nuts only to find out they all belong to someone else. 

After awing together during our last book, I explained our craft. I had printed out some squirrel clip-art and had the group glue different colored die-cut leaves to make a tail. This was a cute craft that was perfect with minimal prep effort, but adorable and allowed for gluing practice. I also put out crayons in case they wanted to decorate and make scenery around their squirrel. All their squirrel tails were bushy and colorful. This was such a fun one!

Some more squirrel books I would have loved to have read but didn't have time were I Want That Nut! by Madeline Valentine and Bear and Squirrel are Friends by Deb Pilutti. 

Now, "chook, chook" and read a book and create some art!
 
 

 

Fall Into a Book

After using my usual bulletin board space for fall coloring contest entries, it was time to take down entries, pick our winners, and fill up the space before it's used for holiday decorating in December.

I ended up getting my inspiration from this bulletin board display. 

Fall into a book!

Preschool Picasso: Celebrating Fall

After contemplating doing a turkey theme or a fall theme, I ended up choosing fall. I'll still be doing a turkey craft for storytime and a drop-in craft program, so I decided to do something different for my Preschool Picasso and Toddler Art programs. 

This program had a great turn-out and was a lot of fun. The group was very attentive to the story, The Little Scarecrow Boy by Margaret Wise Brown and they enjoyed the storytime. I had them practice their "fierce" scarecrow faces and wave their arms in the air like a scarecrow. This story was just the right amount of story length. I like being able to read to this group because they can sit a little longer for stories than my storytime group and Toddler Art group.

After mentioning some upcoming programs, I explained each craft. For our first craft, we made a paper plate scarecrow face using ripped paper, cutout pieces, and shredded beige paper. I had the group tear their own paper to get some texture and practice in the activity.

For an additional craft, we made leaf silhouettes. Red, yellow, and orange paint were put out to paint over their leaves on construction paper. Once dry, they pealed off their leaves to see its shape. 

I enjoyed celebrating fall with my group. Happy Fall y'all! 

Family Storytime: Fall

With the milder weather Illinois has been having, it seemed like it was too early to have a fall storytime. Nevertheless, it was time to read about leaves, acorns, and cooler weather.

After bean bags, we read Pick a Circle, Gather Squares by Felicia Sanzari Chernesky. This is an excellent book to learn about shapes during the fall season. What shapes do you see in a pumpkin patch? So many different shapes!

Once we were done identifying different shapes in Chernesky's book, we added some fall colored leaves onto our bare tree on the flannel board. The kids love being involved in the flannel board and was a win-win. 

Mouse's First Fall by Lauren Thompson was our next book. I think this is one of the cutest fall books in our library's collection with such colorful and cute pictures. Mouse participates in all the fun things you can do in fall. 

I read Leaves by David Ezra Stein and Acorns Everywhere! by Kevin Sherry. Leaves is an adorable story about a bear who is concerned that leaves are falling. He realizes that it's good the leaves are falling and we get a little lesson in seasons. Acorns Everywhere! is a short, silly story that got my group giggling. What can a squirrel do with so many acorns?

We each made our own fall wreath using paper plates and construction paper die-cut leaves. 

It's fall, ya'll!