Outreach Storytime: Spring

As it was seasonally appropriate, so many of my preschools and centers requested a “spring” theme. Needless to say, while this is a great storytime plan that worked well for every group that I visited, I’m very glad to put it away for the year.

The Plan

Books

Butterfly, Butterfly by Petr Horacek********
Plant the Tiny Seed by Christie Matheson*******
Splish, Splash Ducky! by Lucy Cousins******
When Spring Comes by Kevin Henkes****
Wow! Said the Owl by Tim Hopgood******

Extension Activities

Flannelboard: “Five Little Ducks”*******

Flannelboard: “Planting a Rainbow”****

Folder Story: “Old MacRainbow’s Flower Garden” (found at Fun With Friends at Storytime)****

Puppet: Flutter, Flutter Butterfly********
Flutter, flutter butterfly,
Floating in the spring sky
Floating by for all to see,
Floating by so merrily
Flutter, flutter butterfly,
Floating in the spring sky
Credit: Best Kids Book Site (site is down)

ASL: “Butterfly”********

Fingerplay: “Here is the Beehive”********
Here is the beehive. (hold up fist)
Where are the bees? (shrug)
Hidden away where nobody sees. (move other hand around fist)
Watch and you’ll see them come out of the hive (bend head close to fist)
One, two, three, four, five. (hold fingers up one at a time)
Bzzzzzzzz! (wave fingers)
Credit: Co-worker at old library

How It Went

Preschool 1: four classrooms
At this preschool, I presented in one of the larger classrooms and different groups rotated to storytime. This preschool was enamored with Wow! Said the Owl and did the best job of remembering our secret code to say “WOW!” together. (I wave my hand at the group instead of pointing.) As always, Butterfly, Butterfly is a sure-fire win due to the pop-up page at the end. And it worked so well with our ASL sign!

Preschool 2: two classrooms
My friends at this school remained in their classrooms and I traveled. Since it was only two storytimes and their classrooms were right next to each other, it worked out. This group really responded to the planting element of spring. Their favorite activities were definitely the “Planting a Rainbow” flannelboard and the folder story. I really appreciated the teachers in this group because they carefully wrote down each book and I could tell that they were just as engaged in the storytime as the kids were.

Preschool 3: eight classrooms (two per storytime)
I had a lot of fabulous surprises at this preschool — mostly especially the “thank-you” notes that were given to me as each set of classrooms came for their storytime. I had a child notice the endpapers of Splish, Splash Ducky which led to a great conversation about authors and illustrators and why that book had a picture of a person on the inside cover. My friend asked me after every book if there were any more author/illustrator pictures and we checked every time. These groups *loved* singing “Five Little Ducks” with the flannelboard, as well as the “Flutter, Flutter Butterfly” puppet and rhyme. I extend this song now to other silly actions (jumping, spinning, hiding) and the kids love when the butterfly peeks out from behind me during the hiding verse.