Movement

The collaborative theme for Texas libraries this summer is "On Your Mark, Get Set ... Read!" It was only logical to start off summer storytimes with movement! Here is what we did:


 We sang along with the flannelboard "Five Little Monkeys." Our craft was a drum made out of a cup, wax paper and a rubber band. I used my sample of the drum craft during the dancing feet book, and explained how the kids could sound out the syllables of their names with beats. I brought out different puppets and asked the kids to tell me what the animal was, what sound it made and what color it was, then they kept a beat while I made the puppets dance. We used scarves to dance with and used several songs from Jbrary. If you haven't checked out their videos yet, you must! I opened the storytime doors early for preschool time, and we did many of the yoga poses from You Are a Lion. Those kids had zero problems moving like a frog, butterfly, mountain, etc. I had planned on having them play with the parachute at the end, but there were way too many kids in the room and chaos would have ensued. Parachute is great for groups of 10 or less, in my experience.

Watercolors!

We have a once a month series at my library for school age children, where they work on different projects based on a theme. Our Spring series focused on STEAM themes. So far we have done volcanoes, squishy circuits, Rube-Goldberg machines and recently we made watercolor paintings. Each kid got one sheet on watercolor paper and a black crayon. They then used a random assortment of circular objects to trace overlapping circles on their paper. Next, I let them choose several watercolor pencils and they filled in the "painting". They then used clean brushes and water to "paint" the pencil markings they made. It's actually very cool to see the sharp lines the pencils make turn into soft watercolors.

Pets!

To celebrate National Pet Day, the theme for Monday's storytime was Pets! The books for toddler and preschool time were slightly different, so here is what we did:

Toddler:
What Pet to Get? by Emma Dodd
 
 Puddle Pug by Kim Norman

Preschool:
Max the Brave by Ed Vere

What Pet to Get? by Emma Dodd
 
Children Make Terrible Pets by Peter Brown



We played with a flannel board titled "Five Little Birds"; we practiced counting and colors. Typically with these types of flannel boards, I will hand them out to the children and then have them place them on the board when they hear their color, ex. "If you have the green one, the green one, the green one, if you have the green one, please put it on the board." We finished with a dog ear headband craft (just like this one from About Home). Our educational element was a dog "run"; you connect paper tubes on the wall using tape and have the kids place a ball at the top of the run and watch it fall to the bottom. In this case, it was "give the ball to the dog."

Update

This last year has been incredibly busy for me! I switched libraries within my system and have a lot more on my plate, which is nice, the days go by quickly. My husband and I also purchased the party supply store he has worked at for over 16 years, so free time has become a thing of the past. That being said, I'm going to attempt to post storytimes themes right after they happen. I don't have my first Spring storytime until February, so until then here are some of the recent displays I have put together, book stacks, and a couple of pictures from our "Build a Sweets House" and pumpkin decorating programs as well. See you in February!

Books stacks:

Displays:

 Inspired by images here and here.

Build a Sweets House program and Pumpkin Decorating Program:

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!

Boo! It's Halloween!

I changed books the day before this storytime because I just wasn't satisfied with what I had pulled, and the books that I had requested weeks ago were not turned in in time for me to use them. Everything went well though, and the kids had the most fun with our last book. I'm now conducting preschool and toddler storytimes instead of family storytime and here is what we read today:

We sang the rhymes “Five Little Pumpkins,” “Monster, Monster,” “Flutter, Flutter Little Bat,” and “Pumpkin, Pumpkin” while dancing with scarves. I used the flannel boards Skeleton Dress Up and Halloween Farmer in the Dell. Storytime ended with a Halloween sensory tub and a toilet paper tube monster craft.

Jump, Jump - Frogs!

My library system has four locations, and this week I moved from a small branch to the main library! Very exciting for me! Now instead of conducting one family storytime, I have toddler and preschool storytimes. It is a bit different, a little rowdier, but I love the excitement shown when we sing Itsy Bitsy Spider, even though I know they have probably heard it a hundred times. This week the theme was "frogs" and I used several books that the previous librarian had already pulled, since our switch was so sudden and she had already planned that part of the storytime. Here is what we read:

I used a "Five Green and Speckled Frogs" flannel board that was pre-made by another librarian many moons ago. I made a flannel board that spelled out GREEN, and used this rhyme from Preschool Education:

Green added 9-16-99 Original Author Unknown
Sung to: "B-I-N-G-O"
There is a color we all know
Can you guess what it is?
G-R-E-E-N
G-R-E-E-N
G-R-E-E-N
Green is what that spells.
The grass and leaves outside
Are green as green as they can be.
G-R-E-E-N
G-R-E-E-N
G-R-E-E-N
Green is what that spells.

I made a song cube very similar to this and they loved it! It is a great early literacy tool and the fun was getting to throw it into the corner of the room. I don't think I'll ever lack volunteers for that task! 

At the end we made a frog in a pond craft, inspired by this image: http://nikarella.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/photo6.jpg 
I made numbered lily pads using this pattern and lined them up near the exit so kids could jump on the lily pads on their way out of the storytime room. It was a fun morning!

All Mixed Up!

This week's storytime was all about mixed-up, silly stories. We used a Mixed-Up Chameleon flannel board that my library already had made and ended with a mixed-up chameleon coloring craft. I put out different hats for them to dress up with and act silly. We read:

Collage Art

I kicked off a new monthly art series at my library on Saturday! We started with magazine collage art. It was very easy to prep and extremely easy to execute. I cut thin strips from donated magazines and made die cut shapes of animals on manilla paper. The kids glued (using glue sticks) the strips of paper to the die cuts, then flipped the die cuts over and cut along the outline of the shape. I then let them pick out any color of construction paper they would like and they glued their collage animal to it. I let them do as many as they could finish in an hour. I loved teaching them about how to collage and the other types of materials they can use. Everyone had a good time and they helped me clean up at the end (added bonus!)

I read this book to start so that everyone knew what making a collage means.

Then I had instruction sheets on the board with picture examples in case anyone needed help remembering the steps. Here is what my finished project looked like:

Days of the Week

And we're back! Fall storytime season started this week and I'm looking forward to the themes to come. Here is what we did for a "Days of the Week" storytime:

I used the "Very Hungry Caterpillar" flannel board and we sang the song "7 Days in a Week" song using American Sign Language. It is amazing how quickly kids pick up sign language! The kids made a hungry caterpillar craft from here (the 2nd and 4th ones on the page put together): http://welcomebabyuc.blogspot.com/2013/04/playgroup-very-hungry-caterpillar.html
We ended with a week color match sensory and educational activity. The idea came from here: http://b-inspiredmama.com/2013/08/learning-the-days-of-the-week/

Sensory Items This Summer

This summer I decided to add a sensory/play element to my storytimes. Here is what we have done so far. I have my last summer storytime next week and we will be playing with a magnetic fishing game.