Bedtime!

We switched it up at morning storytime today and had bedtime stories! I was a little bit nervous that I’d hear, “No bedtime!” from one of the kids, but they really enjoyed this theme.

I started off by reading “Pajamas Anytime” by Marsha Hayles.

This is a super cute story about a little boy who wears pajamas for all different kinds of occasions — not just for sleeping. We sat very attentively for this book, and I was super proud of my kids!

Next, I did our flannelboard activity, which was “Hey Diddle Diddle.” We used to have a great nursery rhymes program for little ones, but we lost the staff necessary to maintain it. So, I’m trying this storytime session to incorporate nursery rhymes. (Especially since we just bought such good flannelboard nursery rhyme kits!)

I introduced our next book by asking if the kids were ready for bed. As expected, they gave a mostly resounding “No!” But then I said that we were going to read a story all about someone ready for bed. And that story was “Cornelius P. Mud, Are You Ready for Bed?” by Barney Saltzburg.

The kids *loved* this one. They keep shouting “YES!” to every question and I had one kid shout out, “You can’t feed cookies to a fish!” It was so nice to see them engaging with the pictures.

We were a little wiggly by now, so we practiced our “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes.”

And did a modified version of “Ten in the Bed,” starting with five instead of ten.

There were five in the bed (Hold up five fingers)
And the little one said, “Roll over, roll over!” (Make rolling motion)
So they are rolled over and one fell out. (Hold up one finger & surprised face)
// Count down until
There was one in the bed (Hold up one finger)
And the little one said, “I’ve got it all to myself!” (Spread out arms)

By then, we were pretty worn out so I read “Race You to Bed” by Bob Shea.

I love Bob Shea’s Dinosaur Vs. series and this is another hit for me. The kids really liked racing and while we did have one squabble (someone took someone’s toy car!) during the book, we were definitely eager to see if we would beat rabbit to bed.

Then we talked about what we sleep with, and I confessed that I still sleep with a teddy bear before going into “Teddy Bear.” Since we were pretty tuckered out already, I just went with a simple version instead of the full version I had planned. I love having activities that can be shortened or stretched out depending on how wiggly the kids are during the storytime.

Teddy bear, teddy bear, turn around
Teddy bear, teddy bear, touch the ground
Teddy bear, teddy bear, reach up high
Teddy bear, teddy bear, touch the sky
Teddy bear, teddy bear, touch your knees
Teddy bear, teddy bear, sit down please

Finished up our book reading with “Papa, Please Get the Moon for Me” by Eric Carle.

I had never read this Carle book as a child, but it is easily one of my favorites as an adult. Pages fold out and up and down, and the kids were absolutely delighted with the pop-out moon spread. This was a hit as far as I’m concerned and I can’t wait to try and find another storytime to use it in.

What bedtime storytime would be complete without singing “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star?” Which is exactly how we ended before moving to our craft.

We made a slightly different version of this craft: Night Sky – Sprout Online. I ditched the foil because I was worried about some of my little guys putting it in their mouths, and instead used colored paper.

My teen volunteers punched out the stars using a scrapbooking set of punches. (I highly recommend using paper punches whenever possible. I keep a set of three different sized circles and now three different sized stars at the library just for preschool crafts. Makes it way easier than cutting out ten circles per kid for a train craft.)