Color Your Own Flower Pot and Storytime

 I thought having a flower pot craft and flower storytime aligns pretty well with our summer reading theme, so I went with it. There's tons of flower picture books and who wouldn't enjoy decorating and planting their own flower seeds?

Our celebration of flowers started with the book Lucy's Blooms by Dawn Babb Prochovnic. Lucy enters a flower contest only to get disappointed, but quickly learns that it's the joy of caring for her flowers and someone and something that is the most special. I like how this book touches upon the patience and process of growing and nurturing something. 

The next and final book I read was What Dos Bunny See? by Linda Sue Park. This is just a sweet and simple book that rhymes and is about flowers and colors. Perfect for this theme. 

I was able to find plastic flower pots on Oriental Trading that allowed the kids to be able to color and design the paper that was inside of it. The paper had flowers so the kids could color them in, but there was also an option of just having blank sheets so they could color any design they wanted. I definitely liked this option for a supply bag and maybe would have done terra cotta pots and paint if in person. 

I enjoyed this program because it mixes stories, the summer reading theme, and nature and planting seeds all together. 

Let's Make a Rainbow Storytime

 This rainbow storytime was meant to tie-in with our Summer Reading Club's theme, "Reading Colors Your World." 

I decided to read Ava and the Rainbow by Ged Adamson for our first book. This sweet picture book is about Ava who makes friends with a rainbow and realizes that a rainbow is meant to be special and a rare sight. 

Our next book was The Rainbow by Felicia Law. This book is great for a rainbow storytime because it talks a little bit about the science of a rainbow and explains how a rainbow appears. 

My final book read was Ruby's Rainbow, a Max and Ruby book by Rosemary Wells. The story goes over the colors of the rainbow so kids can get some practice with knowing colors. 

For the storytime craft, I was able to find a cute Oriental Trading rainbow craft where the kids can practice their fine motor skills by threading string matching the colors of the rainbow. 

Rainbows are such a cheerful, beautiful topic for a storytime in spring!

Virtual Program: Penguin Storytime

 For my January virtual program, I was able to do a storytime about penguins. I have to remember just how many great penguin books and activities there are to do with little ones! For my virtual storytimes, I usually read two books tops and include a flannel board follow-along activity and a craft idea. I followed the same template for this program.

For our first book, I read Be Brave, Little Penguin by Rachel Elliot. This book tells the story of a cute, little penguin who wants to swim and play in the water despite being afraid, but pulls through and conquers his fear. I enjoyed how this book had a great message for kids and cute illustrations to go along with it.

After our second book, I did a short flannel board activity involving the concept of colors and different color penguins. Of course we counted our penguins too!

My last book was Little Penguin and the Lollipop by Tadgh Bentley. This is a fun book to read and hopefully got the kids at home involved by saying, "razzle dazzle lollipop!" Who doesn't love a story about penguins and lollipops?

For a sample craft to make at home, I showed viewers how to make a simple penguin out of construction paper or with any type of paper if the kids wanted to color. 

With all the picture books on penguins, it's no wonder they are one of everyone's favorite animals!

Book of the Month: One Red Sock

I noticed One Red Sock by Jennifer Sattler while browsing our library's new books and it was too cute not to read! I was hoping that it wouldn't be a long one so I could use it for an upcoming storytime, ant it's the perfect length!

Summary: When a little purple hippo cannot find the mate for her red sock, she tries everything in her sock drawer in order to be fashionable-or at least to match. 

Ages: 5 and up

"In a big pink chair in a room full of dots...sat a purple hippo wearing one red sock."

Jennifer Sattler’s book is a cute, short read with sweet illustrations and a simple rhyme. This book helps kids learn their colors, matching, and acceptance. It also teaches them that it’s okay if things aren’t perfect. A great book for storytime that I’ll be sure to read in the future. 

Family Storytime: Colors

This was the first storytime of the fall session and the first storytime without registration so I didn't know what type of turnout to expect. I ended up having to invite children by the stacks and computers for storytime, but this allowed for new attendees. 

I read three books about colors, did a flannel board, a bean bag song, and our craft.

We read Penguins Love Colors by Sarah Aspinall, Cat and Mouse Learn the Colors by Stephane Husar, and Little Green Peas by Keith Baker. Stephane Husar's book was the favorite because of the balloon colors.

For our flannel board activity, we put up different colored balloons on the flannel board and named their colors and counted them after our balloon story. 

Then we made a crayon using a popsicle stick, markers, and pipe cleaners for arms. 

I would have loved to have a little bit bigger of a group because of all what I had planned on this theme, but every storytime is beneficial to each child and therefore a success. 

Other Books:
Warthogs Paint Pamela Duncan Edwards
Chameleon Sees Colors Anita Bijsterbosch
A Color of His Own Leo Lionni
Every Color Soup Jorey Hurley
Red Are The Apples Wade Zahares

Other Activities:

Color Rhyme Movement Flannel

Dog's Colorful Day Flannel

Crayon Colors Flannel

Family Storytime: Colors

This theme was a fun, educational theme to start off storytime. I have two new faces and they are both really well-behaved and attentive. 

They all seemed to have enjoyed each of the books and we had a little bit of discussion on our colors throughout each book. The books that we read were I Don't Draw, I Color! by Adam Lehraupt, Little Blue and Little Yellow by Leo Lionni, and Full Color by Etienne Delessert. I didn't really enjoy the illustrations in the last book, but I liked the story.

The books talked about color blending so I thought they were great fits for the craft and were easy to narrow down to read out of the many color picture books to choose from.

I was able to do three activities and the group really enjoyed the Pirate Patch Bear and following along to the Color Square rhyme. For Pirate Patch Bear, they were each able to bring up their different color patch to put on Bear's eye. The color square rhyme works well because it has an action rhyme to go with it.

Two out of the three activities got the kids moving and that worked really well. I'll be trying to incorporate more movement activities into storytime.

For our craft, we blended paint colors onto a color wheel made out of die-cut circles and focused on our primary colors.

Family Storytime: Colors

For this week's storytime, we read about colors. This is always a great go-to theme because there are an unlimited amount of picture books to choose from on colors, as well as everyone's favorite classics. 

I had a smaller group probably due to spring break, but we still had fun having storytime together and one of my shy kids was able to be brave enough to participate a little more since the group wasn't so big. A win-win. 

After a much needed bean bag song dance to get our wiggles out, we read our first color story, Baby Bear Sees Blue by Ashley Wolff. I've read this picture book before for storytimes and it's great for the color theme. Bear notices all the different colors in nature while enjoying the company of his mom. The group liked announcing each color together while the story was being read.

I had handed out different colored felt band-aids and had a cute rhyme to go with the colors so when they heard their color in the rhyme, they could bring up their band-aid. They always love bringing up their piece to the flannel board.

Our next story was the classic, Mouse Paint by Ellen Stoll Walsh. In this story, we see what happens when some curious mice mix paint colors together and what colors they end up making. 

I jumped right into reading our next story, Yellow Is My Color Star by Judy Horacek. What is your favorite color? In this rhyming story, a young girl loves yellow. We talked about what our favorite colors were with most of us having blue as our color star. 

 Our next activity involved the flannel board, but we also had some movement exercises to do too. We followed along to a rhyme that told us what to do if we were wearing a certain color while I put up the colored square on the flannel board. A lot of us were wearing white somewhere on our body and had to stamp in place. 

The last story of the day was Little Green Peas by Keith Baker. Such a cute story where the kids always love repeating "little green peas." 

For our craft, I drew two lines on construction paper to make four squares on the page. I wrote colors and the group had to glue foam shapes, beads, and sequins of that color in the square. This was a great way to make use of odds and ends collected through other crafts while the kids practiced their color sorting. 
 
Have a colorful day!