Around the Pond Storytime

 I enjoyed putting together an Around the Pond storytime for spring using picture books about pond animals. 

Our first story is about a growing frog in Tad by Benji Davies. I loved the colorful illustrations, how it explains the growth of a frog, and the powerful message of strength. 

After Davies' story, we counted frogs on the flannel board and then went to reading our next book, I'm a Duck by Eve Bunting. This story is about a cute duck who is conquering his swimming fears in his pond. 

For our craft, we made our own duck using construction paper, cupcake liners, and googly eyes. 

This storytime shows how kids can learn from nature around them.

Pop-Up Book Storytime

This was a unique pop-up storytime that was held on a Saturday afternoon. Despite the bad weather, I still had a nice turnout. The group was very well-behaved and listened quite well.

We read a variety of pop-up and lift-the-flap books that mostly had to do with animals and then we made a pop-up inspired craft.

The books I read were I Saw Anaconda, Where is Mama?, Believe, Hoot-Hoot Pop-Up Fun, Who's Hungry?, and Grow, Baby, Grow!

The kids were really excited to make their own pop-up after seeing all the cool books. They each made a pop-up frog with a move-able tongue to catch the flies of course! We all folded and cut our frog together, which worked as a great instruction, and everyone had their move-able frog mouths and decorated their page with lily pads and grass.

I would definitely do this type of program again!

Other Books:

Do Crocs Kiss? Salina Yoon (lift-the-flap)

Beautiful Oops! Barney Saltzberg (lift-the-flap)

Animal Opposites Petr Horacek (pop-up)

Out of Sight Pittau & Gervais. Animal book (with lift the flap and pop-up)

The Greatest Opposites Book on Earth Lee Singh (Opposites/circus both)

Cook in a Book Cookies Phaidon Press Cookies (Lift the flap)

My First Pop-Up Dinosaurs Owen Davey dinosaurs (pop-up)

Do You Know Which Ones Will Grow? Susan A. Shea (lift-the-flap)

Who's There? Alain Crozon (lift-the-flap)