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: