Owls! Pre-K Sept 27, 2012

The fall always seems like a perfect time to read about owls!

Theme: Owls

34 kids
4 siblings
16 adults

Memory Box:  I forgot to put something in the box, but my friend Olive (my fox puppet) told me she had it covered.

It was a fox from Little Owl's Night.

We then looked at different kinds of owls (the kids were pretty fascinated!).

We ascertained that Hedwig from Harry Potter is a Snowy Owl and identified what kind of owl Ollie the Owl is.  Can you figure it out?

 

 

Ollie the Owl is a Great Horned Owl!





Books: 

 

Little Owl's Night by Divya Srinivasan.  Little Owl enjoys a night in the forest visiting his friends. 

 

Wow! Said the Owl by Tim Hopgood.  A curious little owl decides to stay awake to find out how the scenery at night looks during the day.

 

Music (with shakers):  "Owl" by Johnny Bregar.  This folksy song is filled with lots of rhythm!

 



Cube Roll:  Poet's Corner

I read a poem from Bustle in the Bushes.  It was fun afterwards to hop and rub our legs while chirping.

 

Grashopper

 

We grasshoppers do enjoy jumping

As our legs are incredibly strong.

And when we're not jumping,

We rub them together to make the most beautiful song

 

Letter of the Day:  Nn for nocturnal

 

Flannel/Puppets:  "Nocturnal Animals" by Nancy Stewart

 

http://www.nancymusic.com/Nocturnal.htm

 

 

We learned a few signs to use while singing about these nocturnal animals:

 

 

 





Wiggle Worms 9-24-12

Today we were in an open room called the Newsstand so it was a little crazy.  It's hard to be a toddler in storytime in a differnt room.  Even though we were all a little out of our element, storytime was great fun!

I got a request this morning to post my music choices, so I will link as much as I can.

37 toddlers
3 siblings
28 adults



"Good Morning" song from Wiggle and Whirl

Animals Puppet Song:  "If I Was a Bird"

 

Letter of the Day:  Oo for octopus.  Olive the fox was very excited to present today's letter because her name starts with an O!

Cube song:  Today it landed on "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" so we rowwed, wiggled, and swayed in our boats

Book: All Kinds of Kisses  by Nancy Tafuri.  Oh how I love this book!  Animals enjoy kisses as much as our little ones do.

Movement:  "Move Your Arms Like Henry".  I'm not typically the biggest Wiggles fan, but this song is so fun.  The kids all get a wrist ribbon to move their arms with my octopus puppet.

Flannel: 

Were going to the farm!
Knock on the barn.
Whooo's there?

I came up with this little rhyme to go with my barn foam poster.  We said the rhyme to introduce each new animal.  Before the animal popped out, I gave the kids a clue like, "It says mooo", or "He has a big, bushy, gray tail" while showing the kids the squirrel's tail through a door.

 

Fingerplay:  Helicopter

 

Do this sign for helicopter

 

The helicopter flies up

The helicopter flies down

It flies around and around and around

The helicopter flies left

The helicopter flies right

It flies up, up, up

and out of sight

 

Family Storytime

Miss Lesley does a family storytime at the Perry Branch every Thursday at 6pm.  She reads stories, does fingerplays and flannel rhymes, and keeps the kids engaged with age-appropriate movement activities and music.  Each week she introduces the children to a new animal friend and at the end of storytime she tucks him into bed while the children participate in an animal lullaby. 

I stepped out of storyime last week so I only really got pictures of the craft afterwards.  There isn't a craft every week, but every few weeks or so there will be one.

Come check out family storytime!

The start of storytime

 

Good night, Edward Elephant

 

 

A special lullaby for Edward Elephant

 

Craft Time

 

 

 

 

 

 

Look at this lovely family!  Proves you can't be too little to learn!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pre-K 9-20-12 Autumn!

Welcome, Autumn (on the 22nd)!  It's not quite cool yet here in AZ, but if I waited till it was I might never do my fall storytime.  This officially kicks off my favorite time of year!

Theme: Autumn

30 kids
3 younger siblings
32 adults

Memory Box:  Red squirrel from Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf

Books:

Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf by Lois Ehlert.  A child describes the growth of a maple tree from seed to sapling.

Sneeze, Big Bear, Sneeze! by Maureen Wright. Big Bear thinks that his tremendous sneezes are causing the leaves and apples to fall off the trees and the geese to fly away, but when the wind finally convinces him otherwise, he knows it's time to go to sleep.

Flannel:  Five Autumn Leaves (stand up and move rhyme)

Five autumn leaves hanging from a tree (five fingers)
I wonder if they'll fall for me (shrug)
The wind comes blowing wooooosh round and round (big arm movements)
And one little leaf comes fluttering down (flutter fingers down to ground)

 

 

Cube Activity:  Humpty Dumpty

Letter of the Day:  Ll

Lesley randomly opened the book A is for Autumn to L (which was perfect since we talked about leaves)                                                              

 

Music: "Bop Until You Drop"

We bopped, wiggled, moved in slow motion, floated, and spun in this song until it was time to "drop" for the lsat time when the song ended.

 

 



 

Activity:  Blowing leaves in the autumn wind

 

I played the song "It's Fall Again" while creating a wind storm with the parachute.  To surprise the kids I threw a ton of fall leaves in the middle and they flew everywhere.  Then the kids went under and when they looked up at the parachute over their heads they could see the leaves everywhere above them.  Pretty cool view.



Wiggle Worms 9-17-12

Short blog post but I wanted to give you the template for "10 Fluffy Chicks"

http://sunflowerstorytime.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/10-fluffy-chicks2.pdf

 

 

Those cute little black bird finger puppets are from folkmanis.com, but you can buy locally.

 



Pre-K Storytime Sept 13, 2012: Fire Fighters!

I've been back to storytimes for a couple of weeks now but am finally getting a chance to blog today.

I was still living in NY on September 11th when tragedy struck  11 years ago.  I remember the panic,  St. Joe's College dismissing all classes, the TV, the radio, how you couldn't even park at a blood bank because within minutes fellow NYers were being heroes in the best ways they could. 

To the brave fire fighters (my uncle was one of the heroes at Ground 0 ) and police officers who served and continue to serve, thank you!!

Theme:  Firefighters
 
28 kids
15 adults
 
Books: 

Fire Fighter Piggy Wiggy by Christyan Fox.  A young pig imagines what it would be like to be a fearless fire fighter who slides down a pole, drives a fire engine, and saves people from danger.

Fire Truck by Ivan Ulz, a children's performer.  We watched book on youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emv-Yn6g1r4

Music:

"Drive the Fire Truck" by Songs for Wiggleworms.  We used colorful scarves to dramatize driving a fire truck, putting a ladder up, putting the fire out, and then driving back.  All very FAST.  Whew!

"Sticky, Sticky Bubblegum" - - just because it's fun!!

Games: 

Who uses it?

Lesley wore the police hat and I wore the fireman's helmet and let the kids decide who uses what?

 

 

Practiced: Stop, Drop, and Roll

Cube Roll: It landed on "yoga" today so we did two poses from My Daddy is a Pretzel.  The kids had great balance for the "tree pose" and managed to roar with their tongues out in the "lion pose".

Letter of the Day:  Lesely randomly selected a page from Fire Fighters A to Z.  Our letters ended up being C for Chief and D for Dalmatian.