Pets!

This week, I decided to go ahead with a pets theme!

We read “Bark, George” by Jules Feiffer first.

The kids sat really still for this book and loved the animals noises. I had one three-year-old who was determined to guess every animal that comes of our George’s mouth, but boy was he stumped by the ending!

Next, we went ahead and read “Pet Wash” by Dayle Ann Dodds.

The adults at my storytime were really chuckling at this one. It would have been a great pick for preschool storytime, but my group skewed way too young for this book to be a real success. We did like when the baby brother showed up to get a wash. One of my two-year-olds laughed hysterically at this part.

Next, we took a break from books and did our flannelboard — “Five Little Puppies.” (We used the BINGO dogs that I had made for farm storytime last spring — I made the B-I-N-G-O removable in case I needed the dogs for something other than BINGO.)

And then, we practiced our “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes” which is the action rhyme that I’m hoping to have them memorize throughout the whole eight week session.

Then, I picked up a book and we sat back down for “Posy” by Linda Newberry and Catherine Rayner.

The kids were pretty restless during this one, but I brought them back to the story using my favorite technique — counting! We counted how many Posys were on each page. They LOVE counting, and I love using it.

Since we were wiggly, we did “The Wiggles.”

I finished up storytime by reading “Pet Shop Lullaby” by Mary Ann Fraser.

This was a great choice as the final book. The kids were tired from wiggling and head-shoulder-knee-toeing, so they sat very quietly for this excellent story about a hamster who can’t sleep in the pet shop.

We sang a few songs at the end — “How Much Is That Doggy in the Window?” and our “ABCs” and they moved on to our craft:

From DLTK’s Crafts — Paper Cat Craft.