Chickens

This week storytime was about chickens! The kids all wore chicken hats, graciously donated by my mother, who made them for a "hen" party pre-wedding. What surprised me was that I put on a chicken hat and told the kids if they also wanted to wear one they could come up and pick a color. Nobody budged. I made a fool of myself by making chicken noises until a few of the older kids put some on. Once the older kids had approved it, the younger ones had no problem looking like a silly chicken and all 22 of us had hats on. Out of all the books below, the one with the most audience participation was Bob. The craft took a bit longer, but there was a lot of cutting and logical thinking required to put the Little Red Hen together. All in all, we had a good time!

Flannel Board Template

Craft Template

Heroes

Having a storytime on September 11 can be a bit challenging, but I wanted to get across the idea that all of us can be superheroes when we need to. We talked a lot about community helpers and what they do. We read some books about dressing up as a superhero and having adventures. I tried to balance the fun with the serious, but I don't think I quite got there. I'll try to bump things up a notch for this particular storytime before next year. We read the three books below, did a Community Helpers Dress-Up flannel board and the Best Super Hero Suit flannel board, and made super hero bracelets/cuffs with construction paper, then taped the ends together to fit their wrists.

End of Summer Reading

I've read a lot this summer but here is the latest (that I can remember!). Click on a book to read a description.

Teachers

At the start of each fall storytime season, I like to use a Back to School theme. This year it was teachers! We read a book about the first day of school, and one about the last day of school. We read about a student who thought her teacher was so great that she wanted to become one herself. We sang the song "APPLE" using the tune of "BINGO" and used a flannel board called "There's a Bug on My Teacher" where you place a bug on the parts of the teacher the rhyme describes. As our craft, we used a die cut apple that the kids could color or write their name on, and glued it to a clothespin that had a magnet on the back. Now they can hang school papers on the fridge so everyone can see their good work!

I Love My Library!

We're back from our after summer break and the kids are ready for storytime!

This week we read books about the library and reading. We used a flannel board named "Five Little Books in the Library" created by another librarian in our system. We sang the alphabet and talked about the library, librarians, library cards, and the parts of a book. We made a bear toilet paper roll craft to have our own "book bear."