Hats

Who knew that doing a hat theme would be so timely in Arizona!?  The A/C just can't handle our excessive heat streak and temps are just awful everywhere - even indoors.  Our "hats" (paper plates) made wonderful fans during storytime.

 

 Books:

Caps for Sale by Esphyr Slobodkina.  See my flannel here 

The kids put their hats (paper plates) on their heads and acted out the monkeys' part.  So fun!

Don't Worry Douglas by David Melling.  Douglas is so thrilled with his new wool hat he can't help but bounce around and do cartwheels!  When his hat turns into a "long strand of spaghetti" his friends try to help him out.

 Meet Douglas

 My co-presenter wrapped yarn around me and the furniture so the kids could see Douglas' hat unravel.

 Silly Little Goose by Nancy Tafuri.  Goose looks everywhere to find a place to make a nest and finally finds a warm, cozy, quiet hat to lay her eggs in.

 Music:
 "B-Banana / Monkey See Monkey Do" by Carole Peterson.  Listen to song here

YouTube Video: "I Got a Hat" by the Learning Station
I projected this video on the wall and the kids danced using their own hats (paper plates) to follow the directions.

"I got a hat.
It's a baseball hat.
Put in on my head and give it a tap.
Then I spin around a clap. 
Then I spin around my hat." (place hat on floor and circle around it).

Game: Whose Hat?

 

Flannel: Teddy Wore His

Teddy wore his yellow shirt, yellow shirt, yellow shirt (pat arms)
Teddy wore his yellow shirt all day long
...pants (pat legs)
....shoes (pat feet)
....hat (pat head)

Frogs Pre-K and Family

Flannel Friday:  "Fred the Frog"
Listen to song here


At the edge of the pond
I caught a little tadpole (wiggle hands)
I named him Fred
and I put him in a fish bowl (make fish bowl with arms)
I watched him wiggle and swim around (wiggle hands)
And then one day guess what I found?


Fred's tail was getting smaller (put hands close together)
And Fred's head was getting larger (make large head over your head with your arms)
Fred had ONE leg (musical "boing") growing strong (extend one arm)
We knew he'd be a frog before too long


The song keeps going that he had
TWO legs... (extend 2 arms)
THREE legs...  (extend 2 arms and a leg)
FOUR legs ... (hop like a frog)

Finally he's a frog and hops away and we do too.

 The tadpole is about 14 inches and the bowl about 2 ft wide.  I put the tadpoles in the bowl one at a time as directed by the song - I just photographed them together.

 Fred becomes a frog:

For more storytime ideas, check out Katie's Storytime Secrets for this week's roundup.
Fore more Flannel Friday information, check out:  this website or Facebook Group



Letter of the Day: Ff (storytime was July 3rd)

Flannel (Day before Fourth of July)
"Five Firecrackers"

See post here: http://storytimewithmisstara.blogspot.com/2014/07/firecrackers-2014s-version.html

Books:

We read:
The Wide-Mouthed Frog by Keith Faulker - a great pop-up book!
Down by the Cool of the Pool by Tony Mitton
Ah Ha! by Jeff Mack - a tricky one to read, but funny if you can pull it off
Frogs by Nic Bishop - I showed them various colored frogs, bullfrogs, and toads

Olive the Fox (fox starts with F too!) feeling patriotic

 Having a small group (25 kids) in storytime the day before July 4th worked nicely because they all got a turn playing the frog on the way out the door.

 The lovely Miss Erica!  Oh I adore her!

Pre-K Rain

Unfortunately, we are going to have to limit attendance next week to 45 or 50 kids, because there were just too many to do these activities smoothly.

64 kids
5 babies
52 adults
121 total

I don't know if there is any rain in the forecast, but it is officially monsoon season in Arizona so we celebrated it with a rain theme.

Rhymes (skipped the "Good Morning" song since it was going to be a very active storytime)

"Come Under My Umbrella"
Watch video of song here

Come under my umbrella, umbrella, umbrella (make umbrella with hands above head)
Come under my umbrella
It's starting to rain (fingers wiggle moving downward)
With thunder and lightning (clap and spread arms above head)
and thunder and lightning
Come under my umbrella
It's starting to rain

"Rain is Falling Down"

Rain is falling down (wiggle fingers moving downward)
Rain is falling down
Pitter patter, pitter patter (clap hands gently)
Rain is falling down....
SPLASH! (clap above head)

"Itsy Bitsy Spider"

Books:

The Thingamabob by Il Sung Na:  An elephant finds a "thingamabob" and experiments until he discovers what to do with it.

If you have an umbrella, it's fun to OPEN it unexpectedly when reading about how the thingamabob sometimes surprised the elephant.

Tap Tap Boom Boom by Elizabeth Bluemle: It's a mad dash for shelter as rain sweeps into an urban neighborhood.  The subway is a perfect place to go for shelter.

I previously read this book with group of  kiddos (ages 3-5) letting them use rhythm stick to tap together whenever I read, "Tap, tap," and tap above their heads whenever I read, "Boom, boom," - which comes up often.  They quietly held the sticks while I was reading and waited for their cue.

THIS DID NOT HAPPEN in my group today.  The kids were banging incessantly while I read even though I stopped a couple of times and asked parents for their help.  I had to stop this activity, collect the sticks, and read The Big Storm by Nancy Tafuri instead.

Movement Songs:

Here is Sara, a teen volunteer, working hard to put a scarf and a long piece of string into 55 bags (yes, we ran out) to use in our movement activities today:

"Mud Puddle Jump" Listen here
The kids used their pieces of yarn to form a mud puddle in which to walk around, jump into, splash in, and shake the water off.

"The Ants Go Marching"  I always play a little of this video so the kids understand what the song is about before we march like ants using our scarves as umbrellas:

Ending Activity: Make a rainstorm using your hands.

I tell an Arizona monsoon version of this activity.  It's really cool if you actually listen to what's going on:
http://bronxriver.org/puma/images/usersubmitted/file/015_CreateARainstorm.pdf


Evening Family Storytime:

I decided not to try the Tap Tap Boom Boom book in the evening since there are often many little guys there and read The Big Storm by Nancy Tafuri instead.

The lovely Miss Erica helped bring this story to life by puppeteering the critters who scamper out of the rain into shelter while I read the book.  The two bears were in the back of the "cave" the whole time but no one seemed to notice so it was a fun surprise when they came out at the end of the book:

Miss Erica (fantastic, creative librarian that she is!):

Check out this week's full Flannel Friday Roundup.  Thanks for hosting, Hannah at Lovin' the Library!

Flannel Friday Roundups on Pinterest

Pizza Party! Pre-K and Family Storytimes

The kids guessed it!  Pizza is my favorite food ever! 

I've never done a pizza storytime before and it really was a blast and the kids were great (except for an incident at the very end - detailed at the end of this post).

Signs (ASL) for Pizza: See signs here

Memory Box:  Snake from "Hi, Pizza Man!"

Books:
Pizza for Sam by Mary Labatt.  This is a begin-to-read book so it's fairly small but the story is still cute.  I made props and used this puppet to bring the book to life and make it easier to "see".

This works best with a "helper" puppeteering Sam because she has a lot of emotion and actions in this book like jumping up on the chair, sniffing, flopping on the ground, and feeling disappointed, hopeful, and happy.

 

Meet Sam.  She's just a puppy trying to figure out what puppy should eat.

Her owners have a party and Sam gets caught a few times sniffing out the snacks the guests have brought. 

 

Her owner gives her dog food, but Yuck!  Dog food does not seem like a good food for puppies.  Poor Sam.

 

When everyone is distracted, look who gets her paws on the pizza!

"Hi, Pizza Man!" by Virginia Walter.  When the pizza man comes, we say, "Hi, Pizza Man!"  But what if it wasn't a pizza man?  What if it was a pizza woman or a pizza cat or a pizza snake?...

This is a super interactive book that is out of print so I bought a used copy from amazon and think it's definitely worth it for a pizza storytime!

Music:

"Pizza Dance" by Laughing Pizza.  Listen here  This song is so cheesy (haha) but really fun!

 

Watch video of my group dancing here 

 

"I am a Pizza" by Linda Arnold.  Listen here
There are lots of versions, but I used the one above.  It's really fun to act out the building of a pizza in this call-and-response song and then the pizza's sad demise at the end:

......"Out of the oven
Into the box
Into the car
and upside down
I am a pizza.... dropped on the ground
I was a pizza
I was the best
I was a pizza
Now I'm a mess"

Letter of the Day:  Pp for pizza
Pepperoni also starts with P... which led into a "discussion" about the other toppings that can go on pizza... which led into our last activity.

Flannel Activity:

I read the poem "A Pizza the Size of the Sun" by Jack Prelutsky and we imagined how big this pizza really is!
Read poem here

Afterwards, we managed to arrange the kids into a large enough circle to build a large (70") pizza in the middle. My awesome co-worker helped build the pizza as the kids recalled ingredients from the poem (pizza dough, sauce, cheese, red and green peppers, mushrooms, peas, sausage, olives, tomatoes).

 

Note to fellow programmers:
Then we sang the goodbye song and everything was great until in a lapse of judgement I told the kids that if they were gentle they could touch the big pizza and naively imagined them pretending to eat it while parents took pictures... but they descended on it like" zombies" - literally tearing the props apart.  So unless you have a mellow group, I would leave this prop as HANDS OFF!

Christmas: Pre-K and Family Storytime

I have accumulated just too many fun Christmas books, flannels, music, and activities over the years!  I found myself agonizing over what to do and what to not do in storytime today.  Here are some of the winners from today's Pre-K and Evening Family Storytime:

Books:

Books I used today:

 

Jingle Jingle by Nicola Smee.  This is becoming one of my favorites!  I (sometimes with co-worker help) ring bells and we all chime in with, "Jingle jingle, Jingle, jingle" each time the text calls for some jingling.  As they go down the hill, we jingle faster and faster and faster and FASTER!

 

Who Will Guide My Sleigh Tonight? by Jerry Pallotta. Santa Claus has a big job to do and he tries out lots of animals until he discovers reindeer!

 

Dinosaur Christmas by Jerry Pallotta. Santa Claus reminisces about "the good old days" when dinosaurs pulled his sleigh.

 

Bear Stays up For Christmas by Karma Wilson. Bear's friends are determined to keep Bear away for Christmas so they wake him up and fill his day and night with lots of fun!

 

Music / Movement:

"Kris Kringle's Jingle Bell Band" (Listen here)

 

The morning group of kids all picked an instrument and we paraded around the library.  I don't know if parents love getting up and walking around, but the kids, staff, and library customers sure do! 

 

 

"Reindeer Pokey"

 

I found a recorded version of this song that has all the little reindeer dancing their antlers, hooves, noses, tails, and reindeer bodies.  I'm sure I can find the album/artist I downloaded from - just ask if you want me to find it!

 

 

"The Dancing Christmas Tree" 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlr4uXAz-JM

 

You have to watch this video.  Kids of all ages go nuts over it!  Kids dance with the Christmas Tree.

 

Flannels:

 "Santa's New Suit"

I really want to credit who shared this idea, but I'm just not sure anymore.  Sorry!
It may be a spin off of Laura Rader's Santa's New Suit.  Recipes for Reading created a flannel for this book.

Anyway...
 The story I told starts with Santa trying on his suit a couple days before Christmas Eve:

 

Oh no!  It is dirty with last year's chimney soot!:

 

Santa calls, "Ohh, Elllves!" (It's funny when the kids cup their hands around their mouths and call the elves with Santa).  "Please wash my suit."  So the elves wash it in really hot water and put it in the drier on really high heat.  Oh no!  It shrinks!:

"Ohh, Elllves!"  Santa asks for their help two more times, but they just can't find any red fabric:

 

What's this?  A gift from busy Mrs. Claus?:

 

 She made the perfect suit for Santa!"

 

"Rudolph, Rudolph":

 

I think everyone knows how this flannel goes:

 

Rudolph, Rudolph

What will you do? 

You can't guide Santa's sleigh

If your nose is blue

 

...etc...

 

Rudolph, Rudolph

The children are in bed

I know you are ready now

Because your nose is red



 

I knew I wouldn't have time to actually play this game in storytime, so we did one verse and then I sent the kids home with this so they could play with their adult at home:

 

"Santa's Hat"

 

Which hat is Santa's?