Storytimes and More: July 2015

Friday, July 24, 2015

Baby Storytime--Puppies!

One of the first animal sounds babies seem to learn is the "ruff-ruff" of dogs. So why not focus on puppies for a baby storytime?!

Songs/Bounces/Rhymes
Most can be found here

Clap, Clap, Clap
We Sing Hello
Little Bear
Here are Baby's Eyes
Bounce You Here
Itsy Bitsy Spider
Jack and Jill
Pudding on the Plate

Parachute with Jim Gill's "Alabama Mississippi"

Read Aloud

Hello, Puppy!

by Jane Cowen-Fletcher

Shared Reading
Variety of board books featuring dogs including Mark Newgarden & Megan Montague Cash's Bow-Wow series and Rosemary Wells' BINGO

Play and Learn

Tunnel!

Sunday, July 19, 2015

Outreach Storytime--Bugs!

I've had so much fun with bugs! The children at the centers seemed to really get into this theme.

Books
I read I Love Bugs and The Very Lazy Ladybug at all of my outreach storytimes. I love using these books!

I Love Bugs

Emma Dodd

The Very Lazy Ladybug (pop-up edition)

by Isobel Finn and Jack Tickle

I couldn't choose my favorite 3rd book; so I read one of the following at each center. The Fly and Fly! are both new, so I had to give them a try! The Fly is best suited to older preschool +.

Caterpillar's Wish

by Mary Murphy

The Fly

by Petr Horacek

Fly!

by Karl Newsom Edwards

Songs

After reading I Love Bugs we sang "There's a Spider on the Floor". I ask the children if they are brave enough to hold a spider. Most are relieved that they are just foam spiders!

There's a Spider on the Floor

There's a spider on the floor, on the floor

Who could ask for any more

Than a spider on the floor?

There's a spider on the floor, on the floor

Additional verses:

Knee--"Oh, how could it be? I've got a spider on my knee!"

Tummy--"Oh, it really isn't funny! I've got a spider on my tummy"

Arm--"Oh, it doesn't mean any harm, this spider on my arm"

Face--"Oh, what a big disgrace! I've got a spider on my face!"

Head--"Oh, I wish I was in bed! There's a spider on my head!"

Ladybug (Flannel Board)

Ladybug has one black spot

One black spot

Ladybug has one black spot

Pretty Ladybug!

Continue adding another black until you have three on each side (total of six).

I like to use math terms such as, add, equal, same when I do this flannel board.

Late Night at the Library!

I was so excited to help with our annual Late Night at the Library for kids going into 3rd through 5th grades. The program lasts from 7-10 PM. We had a nice turn out and the kids were very well behaved and had a good time!

Activities!

Create hoop gliders,

Torpedo fish.

Super Hero flyers...

Then throw them off the balcony!!

Parachute Fun

Snacks--Pretzels, grapes and water bottles

Laser Mazes

(Staff setting up the mazes)

Create Fundamas

Songs and Simon Says

BONUS: No mishaps! No tears! All parents picked up their children on time!

Let's Go to the Beach! Storytime

Have to have a beach theme in the summer! Most of these kids have actually been to a beach (unlike my kiddos in Nebraska!)

Books

Sea, Sand, Me!

by Patricia Hubbell; illustrated by Lisa Campbell Ernst

How will we get to the beach?

by Brigitte Luciani; illustrated by Eve Tharlet

Flannel Board/Song

We're Going to the Beach
(tune: Farmer in the Dell)

We're going to the beach
We're going to the beach
I bet we'll see some __________ there
We're going to the beach.

Flip-flops
Sandcastles
Beach ball
Seashell

The Ocean
(tune: Wheels on the Bus)

The sharks in the ocean go chomp, chomp, chomp
Chomp, chomp, chomp
Chomp, chomp, chomp
The sharks in the ocean go chomp, chomp, chomp
All day long!

Additional verses:
Octopus--wiggle
Crabs--pinch
Fish--swim
People (on the beach)--up and down

Play and Learn

Early Learning at Home--Cognitive
Number Creatures

Children choose a number between 1 and 5. They create a creature with that many eyes, arms, legs, etc. We had a variety of supplies to make these creatures: construction paper, feathers, googly eyes, sequence, pipe cleaners, foam stickers, crayons.

Beach Fun Outside!

Sand Tub
Water Tub
Shell Tub
Parachute
Beach Balls

So much fun!! (Why do I always forget my camera on such fun days!)

Heroic Birds of Prey

This week for Summer Reading we had the West Valley Outdoor Learning Center visit with a live bird of prey! Since I hosted two programs I got to see two different birds! The program was very informative and drew a large crowd for both events! Both birds are "rescued"--injured wings that makes it impossible to survive in the wild.

Harris's Hawk

Great Horned Owl

Cherries and Oranges and Grapes! Oh, My! A Fruit Storytime

At first I thought this might be a challenging storytime to pull together, but it was actually a lot of fun! The children loved to name all the yummy fruit they like to eat!

Books

Beautiful Bananas

by Elizabeth Laird; illustrated by Liz Pichon

The Watermelon Seed

by Greg Pizzoli

Flannel Board/Songs

Picking Up the Fruits (from Storytime Katie)

Picking up the apples and puttin’ ‘em in the basket

Way down yonder in the apple field

(Repeat with other fruits)

I made three of each kind of fruit and when we named that fruit I put them randomly on the board. As we sang the song I asked one child to come "pick" that fruit.

Ants Go Marching

The ants go marching one by one

Hurrah! Hurrah!

The ants go marching one by one

Hurrah! Hurrah!

The ants go marching one by one

The little one stops to suck his thumb.

And they all go marching down...

To the ground...

To get out of the rain

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Two by two--tie his shoe

Three by three--climb a tree

Four by four--shut the door

Five by five--shout, "I'm glad I'm alive!"

Play and Learn

Early Learning at Home--Language
Children decorated a bag, then cut questions apart to put in the bag. Parents and child would then take turns choosing a question and talking about it.

Watermelon Craft
Cut out the red and green watermelon "parts", glue together and make fingerprint "seeds" using washable ink.

Play fruit and dishes

Supersized Games!

I was able to help developed a Supersized Games program for summer reading for the "tweens". It is going out to all 10 libraries. I have hosted three of the events so far. I will be hosting two more this summer.

It has been a ton of fun, even if our numbers have been kind of low (any tween event is usually pretty small, though).

Supersized Games

Connect Four
A yellow shower curtain divided into 42 squares (seven across; six down)
The tokens were dessert plates. I used Velcro to attach the tokens to the shower curtain.

BINGO and Memory
To go along with our superhero theme we had two sets of 25 superheroes printed onto 8 1/2 x 11 cardstock. Each person/team put out their superheroes into a 5x5 grid and used dessert plates as markers.