Family Storytime: Friendship

We decided to pick a friendship theme for Valentine's Day week and there were so many sweet books about friends and provided a unique storytime instead of the usual love theme.

After our bean bag song, we read Adorabull by Alison Donald. The kids really enjoyed this one about a boy and his bull friend and kept using the word "adorable" afterwards to describe the pictures in our stories.

We had a matching activity where they each had half of a heart shape and had to match it up on the flannel board with the same color half. The group always enjoys getting interactive with the flannel board and they each did a great job with matching!

Our next book was The Friendship Book by Mary Lyn Ray. A nice, sweet book describing what makes a friend and friendship.

Afterwards, we did some more matching using laminated book characters. They really enjoyed the matching activities and liked talking about some of the characters that were matched to their friends.

Our last story was My Big Bear, My Little Bear, andMe by Margarita Del Mazo. The surprise twist at the end is what made the book for the kids.

For our craft, we made friendship cards using cloud and sun die-cuts, construction paper and crayons. This craft was easy practice for the kids and they liked coloring their cards and added hearts.

Other Books:

Bear's New Friend Karma Wilson

Will You Be My Friend? Nancy Tafuri

Cyril and Pat Emily Gravett

Mr. Scruff Simon James

A Splendid Friend, Indeed Suzanne Bloom

Other Activities:

Laurie Berkner I Have a Friend (last track on Buzz, Buzz)

If You're Happy and You Know It

Preschool Picasso: Animals

I originally made animals the theme for this program because I wanted to make sure I had enough ideas to choose from when it was time to plan the program. I had too many good animal craft choices that I decided to narrow it down to forest/fall animals. I found a book to match that theme and made sure I found good bear and squirrel crafts to use.

 I think the book, Bear and Squirrel are Friends by Deb Pilutti, really helped tie-in this program well. The group enjoyed the book and their crafts.

Their first craft was mixing their blue and white paint on their paper plate to make Blue Bear and adding sticker eyes and die-cut pieces to complete his face. The kids had fun mixing their paint to get light blue and their bears all turned out so cute!

The second craft was making Squirrel. We used die-cut leaves to make Squirrel's tail and I had cut out Squirrel's body to glue onto their construction paper. The parents seemed to have really liked this craft with a few of the moms commenting on how cute it is.

The group wasn't as big as it has been in the past, but I think it was very comfortable for the group because sometimes space can be limited when the group is full. 

 

Family Storytime: Friends

A friends storytime always ends up being such a great theme with the array of picture books to choose from and the warmness it brings to a storytime group. I like how this theme encourages acceptance, kindness, and appreciation for others. 

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!