Pre-K Dig into Reading

With the Summer Reading program right around the corner, it was a fun day to dig into reading (the SRP theme).

Reminder:  There will be NO PRE-K STORYTIME NEXT WEEK OR IN JUNE!

The Zinghoppers will be at Perry next Thursday (May 30th) at 11:30 to kick off Summer Reading!

Theme: Dig into Reading

42 kids
3 siblings
35 adults

Books (and follow-up activity):

What a Treasure! by Jane Hillenbrand.  Mole unearths some great treasures for his friends and finally finds a special treasure of his own.

 

Follow up activity: Each child got a picture of a mole, bird, squirrel, or snail and found their corresponding treasure from the back of the room.  Children were instructed to find their care-givers and not only identify the picture but to sound out the words.

 

Graphics from: http://www.willhillenbrand.com/downloads/activity-manual.pdf

 

 

 

 Stuck in the Mud by Jane Clarke.  All the farm animals try to help a chick get out of the mud, but it turns out chick was just having some fun.

 

Movement:  Recorded song:  "Mud Puddle Jump"

After reading Stuck in the Mud, we had some fun of our own in mud puddles!

The kids all got a piece of yarn to make mud puddles with.  They walked around their mud puddles, jumped in them, splashed, and shook off the mud.  Some kids switched puddles before doing it all over again.

 

 

 

 

 

Letters of the Day:

We identified some burrowing animals based on their beginning letter sounds:

 

 

Flannel: Five Firecrackers

 

Check it out here

 

Exit:

All but a couple of children exited storytime today like moles: through one of the 3 tunnels I set up.  As they emerged they got a true mole treasure - a yummy bug to take home!

 

It was a fun way to end storytime!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Firecrackers - Flannel Friday

Happy Memorial Day Weekend!  I hope you enjoy some fireworks, bbqs, and family  =)

This flannel was inspired by Mel's Popcorn flannel.

Five little firecrackers getting ready to zoom (five fingers up)

Sizzle, sizzle, sizzle, sizzle, sizzle (build anticipation by sizzling hands low to high)

BOOM! (clap hands high above head)

4, 3, 2, 1.....

 

SHOUT OUT to Laura and Gary T for giving me the firecracker flannel idea!

 

Pre-K Caterpillars, Butterflies, and Moths

48 kids
5 siblings
38 adults

Thank you to my co-worker Lesley who voluntarily helps me present storytimes that can be interactive and include props.  You really bring storytime to life!!

Before we read about caterpillars, butterflies, and moths, we talked about metamorphosis  a little bit.

Here are some caterpillars and the flying critters they turn into.  Who would have guessed?!

 

 

Books:

 

Butterfly, Butterfly by Petr Horacek. Lucy looks everywhere for her butterfly and finally finds it in the sky.

Waiting for Wings by Lois Ehlert (didn't have time to read).

 

  Don't Worry, Bear by Greg Folley.   PROPS manipulated by Lesley 

Bear worries about Caterpillar in his cocoon when it gets dark (turn off the lights), becomes windy (kids wooosh), starts to rain (mist kids with water), and snows (flurry fake snow over the kids).

 The rain and the snow were big hits!

Here are some snowy kids after storytime:

 

Movement Activities:

 

"Harry Caterpillar":  In this recorded song by Robert Davis, Harry Caterpillar wiggles, jiggles, and rolls himself all the way across the street and becomes a butterfly.  These worm rattles made great caterpillars and at the end we tied scarves to them to make butterflies.

 

 



Bibbity Boppity Boo:

 

(I adapted "Willaby Wallaby Woo" to a phrase I would fumble less over: Bibbity Boppity Boo)

(Every kid gets a butterfly)

 

Bibbity Boppity Boo / a butterfly sat on my shoe

Bibbety Boppity band / a butterfly sat on my hand etc.

 

Yoga Poses:

We did the "butterfly" pose and what I like to call the "spider on the ceiling" pose
You can check them out here

Letter of the Day:

The butterfly laid these colorful eggs and I guessed what letters were on them based on what words the kids were calling out to me.  I honestly don't look at the "eggs" first.

 

Pre-K Kites

Great theme (and GREAT GROUP) on this very breezy day!

40 kids
6 siblings
34 adults

Books:

Kite Day by Will Hillenbrand.  Bear and Mole build a kite and take it out on a windy day, but when the weather suddenly turns stormy their kite provides shelter for baby birds.

 

Someone Bigger by Johnathan Emmett. Sam's dad says  he is too small to fly their new kite, but when dad and the rest of the town's human and animal residents get pulled up into the air, only Sam can save them.

 

I took this prop idea straight from Meghan!  She has an awesome blog!!  Thank you for sharing  =)

 

 

 

 

 

Our hero, Sam

 

Movement Song:  "Sticky, Sticky Bubblegum"

 

Letter of the Day:  Kk for kangaroo and kite

 

Caregivers, it's fun to play games with words and sounds like we did in storytime today.  Try giving your child the ending sound/s of words and letting them add the "Kk" sound to the beginning to figure out the words.

 

Flannel:  "Hooray for Springtime!"

 

 

Activity:  Make a rainstorm using your hands!

 

Since we had thunder and rainstorms in our flannel activity and in Kite Day, we simulated a rainstorm using only our hands in an activity like this http://bronxriver.org/puma/images/usersubmitted/file/015_CreateARainstorm.pdf



 

Baby Time!

Baby Time was filled with eagerly participating caregivers and darling babies!  The weather is so pleasant right now (small window in AZ) so I could not be more pleased to see so many babies coming to the Library when I know there's lots of outdoor fun to be had!

40 babies (4 sets of twins! 5 sets if you count my twin sister - who attended - and me!)
44 adults (I love when babies bring special guests like grandparents and daddies and mommies that usually can't attend!)

Look at all these twinkins!

What we do every week:

Mr. Bear greets the babies every week!  Today he was wearing his D-Back uniform because dressing up is fun!

Roly Poly:
Roll baby's hands

Roly poly, roly poly up up up
Roly poly, roly poly down down down
Roly poly, roly poly out out out
Roly poly, roly poly in in in
Roly poly, roly poly clap clap clap
Roly poly, roly poly lap lap lap

 

Read books

 

 Nicholas and mom                                                Elliott and mom (my twin)



  

Blake with dad and mom

 

Bouncing Rhymes / Fingerplays

Trot Trot to Boston
Bounce baby on raised knees or on lap if you are sitting in a chair

Trot trot to Boston
Trot trot to Lyn
Watch out, baby, so you don't fall IN! (drop baby between legs)

Trot trot to Boston
Trot trot to Dover
Watch out, baby, so you don't fall OVER!

The Helicopter
Use this ASL sign for helicopter

The helicopter flies up up up
The helicopter flies down down down
The helicopter flies around and around and around
The helicopter flies left
The helicopter flies right
It flies up up up and out of sight (behind back)

Rickety Rickety Rocking Horse
Bounce baby on lap

Rickety rickety rocking horse
Over the hills we go
Rickety rickety rocking horse
Giddy up, giddy up...  WOAH!... (rock backwards)

Prop Rhyme:

Two Little Blackbirds (with finger puppets)

Two little blackbirds sitting on a hill (hands behind back)
One named jack and one named Jill (bring hands to front and make "birds" with your fingers)
Fly away, Jack
Fly away, Jill
Come back, Jack
Come back, Jill

( Variations:  snow / Fast and Slow  or  cloud / Quiet and Loud)

Animal song with puppets:  "All the Fish"
Fish swim
Frogs hop
Ducks quack
Alligators snap
Seagulls fly
ALL like to Splaaashh!

Movement Manipulatives

I usually hand out shakers, but tried rhythm sticks today.  Most parents were really excited, but some little ones may have found it noisy.  In any case, the fun song I played didn't really play loud enough  :-/



Pre-K Outer Space

I've done some nature-y storytimes the past couple weeks (Spring, birds, etc.) so I chose to celebrate Earth Day in storytime by reading about the solar system in which our Earth exists.

The storytime was pretty identical to the one I did last year, so here is a quick summary.

Memory Box: Giraffe from Higher! Higher!

Books:

Astronaut PiggyWiggy by Christyan Fox. PiggyWiggy dreams of being an astronaut, visiting space, and maybe even befriending some aliens. 

How to Catch a Star by Oliver Jeffers. Eager to have a star of his own, a boy devises ways of catching one.

I asked the kids if they thought that they could reach high enough to catch a star and while most kids were saying, "No," a couple of kids stood up and reached and they indeed did catch a star!  Once the kids realized we were dropping stars into reaching hands, they all reached for one.

The stars were punched out of thick gold scrapbooking card stock.

 

We sang "Twinkle Twinkle" to settle everyone down after the star-catching excitement

Higher! Higher! by Leslie Patricelli. This book only contains a few words (higher, hi, high five, bye, again), but I love it because it fosters the imagination and it's a book the pre-schoolers can READ  with me.

 

*Flannel: "Six Little Men in a Flying Saucer" (see picture above)

 

Six little men in a flying saucer flew around the world one day

Looked left and right at us

But didn't like the sight of us

So one more flew away....

 

* This idea and flannel were taken from http://sunflowerstorytime.com/2011/11/03/outerspace/ who was inspired by others

Movement: 
Trip into space with ribbons
We pretended we got our space gear on, blasted off, saw planets and waved to aliens, floated on the moon, did our best space dance, and then descended back to earth while I played "First Kid in Outer Space"

 

The Earth Turns Around (each child got an earth, moon, and sun)

 

The earth turns around

The earth turns around

Once a day, every day

The earth turns around

 

The moon goes 'round the earth
The moon goes 'round the earth
Once a month, every month
The moon goes 'round the earth

The earth goes 'round the sun
The earth goes 'round the sun
Once a  year, every year
The earth goes 'round the sun



 Letter of the Day:  Letter match

Pre-K Birds

What an awesome group today!!

Books (so many good ones to choose from!):

Little Green by Keith Baker.  A hummingbird finger puppet demonstrated all the movements Little Green made in the story.

 



Birds by Kevin Henkes.  There are so many types, colors, sizes, and movement styles of birds!  It's fun to whistle (or in my case, fake whistle) at the end.

 

Tweedle Dee Dee by Charlotte Voake.  I was excited that we had five more minutes and the kids picked a book over another movement song! 

 

This book by itself isn't the most exciting so I tell it with an over sized flannel board and the kids all get a green leaf with a word on it that repeats in the book.  The held up their word when their heard it.

 

 

 

 

Birdsong by Ellie Sandall (My flannel here )

 

Movement: "Rockin' Robin" with shakers and Big Black (squawking) Crow from the Songs for Wiggleworms album. 

 

Flannel:  5 Eggs and 5 Eggs (Tara's Edition!)

Most of us (programmers) have already used the 5 Eggs and 5 Eggs flannel, but thank you to Kathryn for inspiring me to make some cute chicks.  This flannel I created includes addition and introduces some new birds to kids.

 

(Traditional)

5 eggs and 5 eggs

That makes 10

Sitting on top in Mother Hen

Crack! Crack! Crack! (clap hands)

What do I see?

10 fluffy chicks and noisy as can be ("Cheep cheep")

 

Change numbers, birds' names, and chick sounds accordingly):

 

Tyrannulet ("peeert peeert")

 

 

 Merlin"ki-ki-kee ki-ki-kee"

 

 

Magpie "yak-yak-yak"

These fancy little birds are attracted to shiny things like jewelry, buttons, plastic, etc. and will grab them to weave into their nests.

 

Fingerplay / Movement Rhymes:

 

Two Little Blackbirds with finger puppets

 

Little Bluebird

 

Letter of the Day: Bb

Today's take-home worksheet here.