Summer Reading Storytime: Coyotes!

This program was for the older kids (6-8 yrs) who sometimes get left out of library programming during the school year.  This program was about 40 minutes total, but the kids were so well behaved I could have easily added a book or activity.

Our summer reading theme celebrates Arizona's Centennial so this storytime featured desert critters and coyotes.

As the children checked in, they filled out a name tag and got to pick out which bandanna they wanted to use during the program.

To break the ice, we got silly with the "Stand Up Sit Down Song" which is an awesome song I found on cdbaby.com

Our first book was Stone Pizza by Susan Mitchell. This is a retelling of the classic tale Stone Soup with a clever coyote who gets the critters to share their food with him and each other.   It is a little long and the coyote put the sauce on last (which wouldn't work for my prop) so I shortened it a bit and changed the order.  Six children got a prop and brought their prop up to build the pizza as I got to that part in the book.

It was time to get up and move again so we dramatically sang "I am a Pizza" which I think is one of the funnest songs ever.  The final lines are "I was a pizza / I was the best / I was a pizza / Now I'm a mess" and I dumped our flannel pizza from the Stone Pizza all over the floor and it really did make a mess.

Our next book was Let's Play in the Forest While the Wolf is Not Around by Claudia Rueda.

We played the game "Let's play in the desert while the coyote is not around."  Several children received a desert animal puppet to hold onto until Lesley called them up to ask, "Coyote, are you there?"  I hid behind the storytime cart with my coyote puppet and popped his head up so he could answer the kids.  Coyote was busy putting his shorts and shirt on, cleaning his ears (I threw q-tips into the audience), picking his nose, flossing and brushing his teeth, etc.  In retrospect, I should have had him going to the bathroom because that would have been super funny.

To end storytime, we did an activity that everyone got to participate in: A bandanna story.  Everyone knows coyotes and cowboys wear bandannas!  I spruced up this story http://guidezone.e-guiding.com/jalittle.htm

Everyone got to make a coyote bookmark to take home.  It was a simple craft, but each child got to pick their sparkly bookmark color, a bandana, and a colorful eye.

I had such a great time with these kids and my co-worker Lesley!!