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. 

 



 

 

 



 

Wiggle Worms

Daycare 1's and 2's: 18 total
10:30 group: 105 total
11:15 group: 47 total

Today I did a little bit of a bird theme for the toddler groups.

Song with puppets: "If I Was a Bird" from the Wiggleworms Love You album.

Letter of the Day: Bb for bird

Book:  Little Green by Keith Baker.  Miss Michelle and a hummingbird finger puppet helped act out this story about a little boy watching all the ways a hummingbird moves.

Movement:  We danced with shakers to "Rockin' Robin" from the Songs for Wiggleworms album.

Flannel:  "So Many Birds"
I adapted this from Nancy Stewart's song Lots of Cars

So many birds up in the sky (pat legs)
What color bird is flying by (flap arms)?

.... add one color at a time ....

So many birds up in the sky
What's the biggest one flying by?

Smallest?

With polka dots?

Movement Rhyme:  "Little Bluebird"
I adapted this from the classic rhyme Little Robin Redbreast

Little bluebird stood upon a rail
Shake, shake went his head
Wiggle, waggle went his tail
and he hopped closer...

I repeated this a couple of times as the kids hopped closer towards me and then had them fly back to their nests.

Pre-K 4-4-13 Spring!!

Oh the vivid memories of melting snow, April showers, flowers growing, the warmth....  Not so much the same in AZ, but it's fun to talk about seasons in other parts of the country too!

Kids: 36
Siblings: 6
Adults: 27

Memory Box: Rabbit from Hurray for Spring!

Books:

 I often find myself torn between 3 books, but never get to the third because of time.  My 3 choices for today were:

Hurray for Spring! by Patricia Hubbell.  I love the large, bold illustrations and delightful text in this book about a boy exploring spring.

 

Old Bear by Kevin Henkes. With great storytime-sharing illustrations, this book follows a hibernating bear as he dreams his way into spring.

 

 

Spring is Here by Will Hillenbrand. Excited that spring as finally arrived, Mole tries to wake Bear.

Game:

Guess the Baby Animal: Baby animals often hatch or are born in the spring.  Can you guess some of these?  I held up several pictures and was surprised by some of the correct answers!

 

Movement Activity:  "The Ants Go Marching" with scarves

First we watched this video so the kids could visualize the ants marching out of the rain and going underground:

 

 

Afterwards, we pretended we were the ants as I played a different version and we marched with colorful scarves.

 

Letter of the Day:  Uu

Most Pre-K kids know their letters, so I usually try to challenge them with a game (besides, Olive gets so excited about the Letter of the Day):

 

The kids will also get these kinds of worksheets from now on to take home and practice writing: http://www.first-school.ws/t/alpha_tracers_zb1/u1.htm

 

Flannel:  "Hooray for Springtime!" (From book by Liz and Dick Wilmes)

 

We moved colorful scarves along with the action words and raised them up high to cheer the final line of each verse. 

 

Now it's time to fly our kites (fly scarves up high)

Fly our kites, fly our kites

Now it's time to fly our kites

HOORAY FOR SPRINGTIME!

 

Watch the worms twist and wiggle (twist up scarves and wiggle them)

Twist and wiggle, twist and wiggle

Watch the worms twist and wiggle

HOORAY FOR SPRINGTIME!

 

Watch the lightning snap and crack (clap above head)

Snap and crack, snap and crack

Watch the lightning snap and crack

HOORAY FOR SPRINGTIME!

 

ETC...

 

 

 



Fingerplay:  Here is the beehive (for all those bees in Hurray for Spring!)