After our bean bag song, we started storytime off with Bob Shea's book, Buddy and the Bunnies: In Don't Play with Your Food! Buddy wants to eat all the bunnies, but a friendship develops and puts a stop to his plans. Classic Shea with humor, a good storyline, and a nice message at the end. This was the group's favorite.
I tried a new activity with the kids centered around fictional book and tv characters. The group had to match each friend to their friend on the flannelboard. We had Scooby and Shaggy, Spongebob and Patrick, and Batman and Robin. The group enjoyed this and found some of the matches more challenging than others. A fun matching activity!
Our second book of the evening was You Will Be My Friend! by Peter Brown. Lucy the Bear desperately wants a friend, so desperately that she tries to force it upon all the animals in the forest. Another friend book with a good lesson at the end. I am familiar with Peter Brown's other books and was able to meet him at a children's literature conference so it was nice to be able to include this book into a storytime.
For another activity, I had the group guess what colored flannel house our kitty and puppy friends were hiding under. They love guessing games and it helped them practice their colors.
Since the group was getting a little distracted, I was only able to read one more short story. A Friend Like You by Tanja Askani is a perfect, short but sweet way to end a friends storytime. Real photographs of different types of animals getting along is an adorable way to get the message of friendship across to a younger audience.
Of course we had to color some friendship bracelets to give to our friends!
You got a friend in me!
