Green!

And another catch-up for storytime posts — this time it’s my daycare series on colors. (Previously, we’ve already done Red, Orange, and Yellow.)

I opened up storytime with a crowd-pleaser, “Where is the Green Sheep?” by Mem Fox.

This book was seriously made for storytime. With great rhymes, a driving task (find the green sheep), and a wonderful refrain for the children to say with you — it’s always a perfect fit!

[Side story: my three-year-old twin cousins came to my sheep storytime this winter and one of the girls, when I saw them next, looked at me and said, “We read stories about sheep. Where is the green sheep?” AWESOME. Storytime retention!]

After the kids found the green sheep, I went ahead with a modified version of “Baa Baa Black Sheep” that Abby suggested a long time ago, using different sheep colors. And somehow…I wound up finding Mel’s pop stick puppets and made my own to go with the song.

Next up, I asked the kids to name a bunch of green things, and one of the first things named was grass — direct segue into “In the Tall, Tall Grass” by Denise Fleming.

I love the bright green grass, and the many different kinds of bugs in this book! The kids enjoyed naming the different bugs, and I flipped back a few times through the book to rename some bugs. Then, we talked about things growing and that they’re green which led us to vegetables…and some peas:

Fingerplay: “Five Green Peas”
Five green peas in a peapod, pressed (make fist)
One grew, two grew, and so did all the rest (raise fingers one at a time)
They grew and grew and they did not stop (stretch fingers wide)
Till one day that peapod just had to go…POP! (clap)
Credit: Harris County Library

Followed by the adorable, “Little Pea” by Amy Krouse Rosenthal.

This book is always a big hit, and it remained so at this reading. It’s always a surprise for the kids to find out that Little Pea hates candy and loves his vegetables. This leads to a lot of laughs. My only sadness with this book is that it’s such a small book — someone please adapt it to a big book size so that it’s better equipped for storytime, please!

Now it was time for some green monsters to show up. I did my version of “Go Away Big Green Monster” by Ed Emberley on the flannelboard. This is a great participation story and I love doing it on the flannelboard so that the kids can shout away that scary old big green monster. Then, a little activity to get them settled back down:

Action Rhyme: “Monster, Monster”
Monster, monster, turn around
Monster, monster, touch the ground
Monster, monster, reach up high
Monster, monster, touch the sky
Monster, monster, touch your nose
Monster, monster, grab your toes
Monster, monster, touch your knees
Monster, monster, sit down please
(Which as we all know is just “Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear.”)

And then it was on to “Lizette’s Green Sock” by Catharina Valckx.

This was a very sweet story about a little duck who finds a green sock while walking one day and sets off to find its match. My kids are always very concerned where there is something missing in a story, and they pay close attention until the end to make sure that everything turns out all right.

Then it was time to shift gears to our last green animal of the day — frogs!

Started off with a flannel version of “Five Green and Speckled Frogs.” And then a brief little puppet show:

Poem & Puppets: “The Frog on the Log”
There once was a green little frog, frog, frog
Who played in the wood on a log, log, log
A screech owl sitting in a tree, tree, tree
Came after the frog with a scree, scree, scree
When the frog heard the owl in a flash, flash, flash
He leaped in a pond with a splash, splash, splash!
Credit: Preschool Education

And then our last book for the day, “One Frog Sang” by Shirley Parentau.

The kids joined me in making all the different frog sounds in this book, and it was definitely a big hit. And then it was time for our flannel game, “Can We Find?” followed by our goodbye song, and then our craft!

Craft was from Busy Bee Kids Crafts. Everything was pre-cut; kids assembled using Glue Dots.