Outreach Storytime: 7/25

During the summer, I visit several area preschools to do storytime. They all request specific themes, relevant to their curriculum. At this school, I visit a total of six classrooms. Each classroom doubles up with another group creating three storytimes at the visit. I’ll star the materials each time I use it. This week’s theme was inventions.

Normally, I’m able to use many of the same books over and over, but not with this theme. I basically created three separate storytimes.

The Plan

Books

Going Places by Peter Reynolds*
Hoop Genius by John Coy*
Imaginative Inventions by Charise Mericle Harper*
Meeow and the Blue Table by Sebastian Braun*
The Most Magnificent Thing by Ashley Spires*
Not a Box! by Antoinette Portis*
Rosie Revere, Engineer by Andrea Beauty**
Tip Tip Dig Dig by Emma Garcia*

Extension Activities

Flannelboard: “Building Blocks”**

Props: “Song Cube”***

Fingerplay: “Five Little Nails”**
Five little nails, standing straight and steady
Here I come with my hammer ready!
Bam, bam, bam! That nail goes down.
Now there’s just four nails left to pound.
(count down)
Credit: Mel’s Desk

Action Rhyme: “Zoom Zoom Zoom”**
Zoom, zoom, zoom, we’re going to the moon
Zoom, zoom, zoom, we’re going to the moon
If you want to take a trip,
Climb aboard my rocket ship,
Zoom, zoom, zoom, we’re going to the moon
5, 4, 3, 2, 1, blast off!
Credit: Jbrary

How It Went

Toddlers
Books: Meeow and the Blue Table, Not a Box!, Tip Tip Dig Dig.
Inventions are a hard theme for toddlers! I went with very simple books and some fun rhymes/fingerplays to keep their attention. They really liked acting out all the construction vehicles in Tip Tip Dig Dig and also enjoying “Zoom Zoom Zoom” after I read Not a Box!. (Rabbit imagines a rocketship in the story.)

Preschoolers
Books: Going Places, The Most Magnificent Thing, and Rosie Revere, Engineer.
I would normally do four books with preschool, but Rosie is such a long story that I stuck to three! This group really benefited from my Monarch reading. Two of the titles are current 2017 Monarch Award nominees! This group LOVED “Five Little Nails”!

School-Age
Books: Hoop Genius, Imaginative Inventions, Rosie Revere, Engineer.
I really feel like the School-Age group got the best books. Hoop Genius is another Monarch book and tells the story of how basketball was invented. They were so excited about this book. I have a lot of boys in the school-age group and I could just see their engagement during this whole text. I read out the index (which let me do a little information literacy about how books are organized!!) of Imaginative Inventions and had the kids pick some of the inventions that interested them most. What a fabulous storytime!