Teddy Bears

Oh, teddy bears! I think every child has a stuffed animal that they will remember into adulthood. I put this storytime together with the help of the book STEP into Storytime: Using StoryTime Effective Practice to Strengthen the Development of Newborns to Five-Year-Olds by Saroj Nadkarni Ghoting. This book is an excellent resource! Here is what happened in toddler storytime:

This one was in big book format:

I got out the scarves right before reading this book and used them to help us move around like the bears. We had a dance break afterward. Songs and rhymes used throughout this storytime included “My Hands Say Hello,” “Open Them, Shut Them,”  “Round and Round the Garden Goes the Teddy Bear,” “The Bear Went Over the Mountain,” and “Wave Good-bye.” A coworker helped make teddy bears in pajamas for the flannel board "Five Bears in the Bed." I taught the children how to sign the word "bear" and repeated that sign throughout storytime. We ended with sensory teddy bears (smooth, squishy, soft, rough), a Corduroy puppet for play and a craft that included coloring pajamas on die cut teddy bears. Preschool storytime was only slightly different with the addition of the flannel board "Bear and Bees Everywhere" and the books:

Owls

Spring storytime season has begun! I started off with one of my favorite animals: owls. Here is what we read:

Great for color recognition and the kids caught on and began saying "Wow" with me!

Adorable book about neighbors, friendship, and night and day animals.

Oh my, this one is adorable and they got a kick out of seeing what happens to his scarf in the end!

We talked a bit about animals that sleep in the day and stay awake at night, and vice versa. I ended up using a flannel board called "Five Little Owls" and "Day and Night Critter" props. Both are things that other librarians have made (we collectively make flannel boards across all four libraries and share them with each other). Our craft to finish storytime was an owl die cut that they glued to a black sheet of paper, then glued on very large googly eyes. After they finished their craft, I let them use the dry erase board and draw owls with various sizes of circles (I had a how-to there for parents to reference). I ended up having a lot of interesting looking owls!