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. 

Virtual Program: Dig Deeper Storytime and Craft

 For one of my first virtual programs, I did a storytime around our library's Summer Reading Club theme: Dig Deeper. I was happy to start off my first virtual program as a storytime because truth be told it was a little scary to do any program virtually. Thankfully, everything worked out and it was a lot of fun. I do miss having a live audience though because it really adds to the atmosphere of storytelling.

I started off this virtual program talking about the summer reading club and provided step-by-step instructions on how to register online via Beanstack.

After that brief explanation, I read Up in the Garden and Down in the Dirt by Kate Messner, illustrated by Christopher Silas Neal. This was the perfect story to go with our digging deeper theme that fit well with the gardening theme. It also was available to use from the publisher. (This really narrowed down choice of books quite a bit.)

Once I was done reading our fitting story, I explained how to do an easy gardening carrot craft using a paper plate, construction paper, and tracing your own hand.

This was a good start to getting the feel of doing things virtually.

Family Storytime: Spring

Seasonal themes are always fun and a great hit with the storytime crowd and it also gives the kids a chance to learn more about the changes in seasons and their differences.

We did our bean bag song and then read Mouse's First Spring by Lauren Thompson. The group enjoyed this one and it kept their attention.

Next, we did a flannel board based on the book, Fran'sFlower. The group was able to try and feed our plant all sorts of things, such as hamburgers and dog bones, but found out that sunlight and rain is what made our plant grow into a beautiful tulip.

We jumped right into our next book, When Spring Comes by Kevin Henkes. I love the simple, but pretty illustrations in this book and the kids seemed to notice the pictures as well, talking about the cats and flowers.

We needed to get rid of some of our sillies, so we sang "If You're Happy and You Know It" and then we went into our last book, Hurray for Spring! by Patricia Hubbell. This went well with the last lyric of our song and it was short enough just to get one more book in before our craft.

The kids are always eager for their craft, and this time we had them plant a green bean seed in a cup using potting soil. They also had a spring coloring page to color.

Other books:

And Then It's Spring Julie Fogliano

Splish, Splash, Spring Jan Carr

Let It Rain Maryann Cocca-Leffler

Other Activities:

Five Tulips

Mushroom in the Rain

Bunny Tales

5 Little Ducks

The Spotted Caterpillar

Colorful Butterflies

5 Little Bunnies

Walter the Waltzing Worm