Classic Children’s Books and Authors

The Plan

Books

Bark, George by Jules Feiffer
Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? by Bill Martin, Jr.
Color Zoo by Lois Ehlert
Dear Zoo by Rod Campbell
Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus by Mo Willems

Extension Activities

Flannelboard: “Very Hungry Caterpillar”

Flannelboard: “Seals on the Bus”

Fingerplay: “Two Little Tigers”
Two little tigers sitting on a hill
One named Jack, the other named Jill
Run away Jack, run away Jill
Come back Jack, come back Jill
(Other verses: cloud/quiet & loud; pole/fast & slow)
Credit: Modified from childhood

Song: “Red and Yellow, Green and Blue”
Red and yellow, green and blue
These are the colors over you
Red as a flower, blue as the sea
Yellow as the sun, green as a green
Red and yellow, green and blue
These are the colors over you
Credit: Read Sing Play

How It Went

Site Information
At this location, I visit four classrooms total, reading to five classrooms total. The first classroom is a combined two-year-olds classroom. Then I visit two three-year-old classrooms and finally a four-year-old & five-year old classroom. I’m at the facility for about two hours, and my voice is definitely feeling it by the end of the visit!

Topic
This particular facility selects themes for me to do ahead of time to tie into their curriculum. They were doing an author study each day this week: Eric Carle, Kevin Henkes, Leo Lionni, Tomie dePaola, and Beatrix Potter. I was asked to do classic authors without reading books by these authors. (You can see I did use an Eric Carle flannelboard and a Bill Martin Jr. book that Carle illustrated, but I felt that was okay.) So I took it in the direction of “new” classics.

Two-Year-Olds (Combined classes)
I’m going to be really honest here — I was shaky as heck as I started this storytime because I was dealing with a medical issue and had spent the first hour of my day trying to get in to see the doctor before I went to ALA Annual on Friday. I do not know how I managed to pull this off, but the toddlers were absolute angels. I sang “Brown Bear” and that was definitely their favorite. They also loved when I passed out the scarves!

Three-Year-Olds (First classroom)
This classroom is my least favorite in terms of set-up. I’m right next to the door and was interrupted a few times by attendance checks and meal counts. I did my best as putting that aside. One of the girls in this classroom knew the book “Dear Zoo” by heart and I had to ask her not to reveal the animals to everyone. This group loved getting to be quiet and loud during “Two Little Tigers”.

Three-Year-Olds (Second classroom)
This group made a lot of great connections between the tiger and “Color Zoo” and our “Two Little Tigers” rhyme. I was impressed that also knew hexagon and octagon as shapes! They absolutely loved “Bark George” and I got the biggest laughs of the day when George said hello at the end. This was also the group that told “Very Hungry Caterpillar” with me since they knew it so well!

Four-Year-Olds & Five-Year-Olds (Single classroom)
These kiddos became my best friends immediately since I was carrying my books in an Elephant and Piggie tote bag. It was a natural segue to start with “Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus” which they loved. This was also the class that made me laugh the hardest. During “The Seals on the Bus”, I always ask what everyone thinks the boy and girl will say. One little boy stood up and shouted, “LET ME OFF!” which I decided to sing instead of the traditional HELP HELP HELP.