Ducks!

I was so excited to do this storytime — I love ducks and was incredibly lucky to find an amazing craft! Yes, this is one of those storytimes that was built around a craft. But I had nothing to fear, there are a plethora of great duck books, songs, and rhymes!

Storytime began with a classic: “Little Quack” by Lauren Thompson.

This is a wonderful story about five little ducks getting ready to swim with mama duck. Of course, one is scared and stays behind and that’s Little Quack. The kids loved the repetition of this book and were quick to pick up how the story was going to end. And after such a successful story (there was clapping at the end), I moved immediately to “Duck Dunks” by Lynne Berry.

This is another book from a seasonal series and we have all of the books in our storytime collection. I love the almost tongue-twister rhymes and the sweet, soft illustrations. In this book, the ducks are going to the beach, which was perfect for our summer session! Next up, the kids needed to get up and move, so we did our action rhyme:

“Little Duck”
I saw a little duck go hop, hop, hop (hop three times)
I told the little duck to stop, stop, stop (hold up hand for stop)
I went to the window to say, ‘How do you do?’ (hold out hand for handshake)
He wagged his little tail and far away he flew! (shake tail and fly away)

Just adapted an action rhyme that I’ve done before to fit my theme! And then followed it up by singing with our flannelboard:

“Five Little Ducks”
Five little ducks went out to play, over the hill and far away
Mother duck said, “Quack, quack, quack, quack”
And only four little ducks came back
(count down until)
Sad mother duck went out one day, over the hill and far away
Mother duck said, “Quack, quack, quack, quack”
And all of her five little ducks came back

I was positive that I learned this song from Kidsongs, but after searching, I’m not so sure. Either way, it’s a song that I know from childhood, and I actually had a few kids chime in — they had learned the song from their mom!

Next up, I read “Dimity Duck” by Jane Yolen & Sebastien Braun.

This is a great story about two friends — Dimity Duck and Frumity Frog — and their adventures together. I considered using this book for both my duck and frog storytime (which is upcoming), but ultimately chose it for duck storytime because Dimity is the main character.

Song: “Little Ducks”
Little ducks go quack, quack, quack
Quack, quack, quack
Quack, quack, quack
Little ducks go quack, quack, quack
In the springtime
Credit: Duck Theme – Step By Step

A quick song before finishing up storytime with “10 Little Rubber Ducks” by Eric Carle.

This story about rubber ducks was a fun deviation from real ducks! My favorite part is the ending, when the kids were quacking along with the real ducks, and I pushed the sound button for the rubber duck noise — they stopped quacking and started laughing. Storytime was over, and we got up to do our craft:

I found this great craft on Danielle’s Place and was immediately sold on doing it for a storytime. I couldn’t find paper plates in the right color yellow, so I did substitute plastic plates and also switched to Glue Dots. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, but those Glue Dots are a *lifesaver* when it comes to preschool crafts!

The kids had a great time at duck storytime, and left with a super adorable craft. There is nothing cuter than kids running around, quacking and chasing each other as they leave.

July 8, 2010 7 Comments Short URL, Family Storytime

Boats!

This is an ironic storytime post — it’s nothing but a plan! This storytime was supposed to happen the Thursday following ALA’s Annual Conference, and I was out of town until Wednesday at the conference. My staff forgot to do reminder calls the night before and no one showed up for storytime!

In my community, reminder calls are so important.

So, here’s what I planned to do and how I planned it:

I start off by picking 4-5 books. I’m a moody reader by nature and will almost never read all five, but I like to have options in case storytime isn’t working out the way that I planned.

I choose “An Island in the Sun” by Stella Blackstone to start off storytime. I adore Blackstone’s books. I think they are age-appropriate and that the illustrations are always eye-catching. I also really like rhyming stories, and prefer to start off storytime with a rhythm.

I had “Sail Away” by Donald Crews because whenever you do a transportation storytime, you have to include one by Crews! Obviously, my favorite is “Freight Train,” but what I like about Crews’s books are the quick, short text getting the point across in simple language for kids.

I inter-library loaned “Alistair and Kip’s Great Adventure” by John Segal for a different program and fell in love with it for storytime. It’s a very simple story about two friends who build a boat and wind up having a great adventure. It’s a bit of a different pick than what I normally choose because it’s a linear story with a little dialogue in the illustrations.

Another book that I was surprised by was “I’m Mighty” by Kate & Jim McMullan. It’s the story of a tugboat who pulls boats to and from the dock. The illustrations are bold, bright, and colorful. I hoped that the theme of being small would resonate with my preschoolers.

Last, but not least — a settle-down book — “Boats for Bedtime” by Olga Litowinsky. I loved the ending of this book, and really thought it would be a great end to a storytime.

Other than my starting book and ending book, the others would have been moved around as I went. And I never plan where my extension activities are going to go, because I try to meet the needs of the kids as we go. If they need to get up and move before the next story, we do that. If they’re okay with sitting for a flannelboard before moving, we do that.

Flannelboard: “Five Little Boats”
The first little boat went chug, chug, chug.
The second little boat went tug, tug, tug.
The third little boat went row, row, row.
The fourth little boat went ohhhh sooooo slooooooow.
Here comes the sailboat, watch it go!

Action Song: “Riding ‘Round in My Little Boat”
Riding ’round in my little [red] boat
Riding ’round in my little [red] boat
Riding ’round in my little [red] boat
Zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, splash!

Song: “Row, Row, Row Your Boat”
Row, row, row your boat
Gently down the stream
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily
Life is but a dream

And our very simple craft came from DLTK’s awesome craft section: Halves Boat Preschool Craft.

The biggest “wow” with this craft would be using tissue paper!

July 1, 2010 10 Comments Short URL, Family Storytime

Kids Art: Whales

“Kids Art” was a program created to pair a book with a larger art project. The library already hosts a monthly craft program for grades 1-6, but our little kids were not getting much art — other than my storytime attempts. Thus, “Kids Art.”

This month’s Kids Art was inspired by “Alistair and Kip’s Great Adventure” by John Segal. (And a pretty awesome whale kit from Oriental Trading.)

This is a simple story, but I particularly chose it for the part that the whale plays in the story — he saves the day! The best part about this story/art pairing was that I had a kid who announced the connection between the two at art project. He proudly proclaimed, “It’s a WHALE. Like in the STORY.”

A quick song before craft:

“Baby Beluga”

Baby beluga in the deep blue sea,
Swim so wild and you swim so free.
Heaven above and the sea below,
And a little white whale on the go.

Baby beluga, baby beluga,
Is the water warm? Is your mama home,
With you so happy?

Way down yonder where the dolphins play,
Where you dive and splash all day,
Waves roll in and the waves roll out.
See the water squirting out of your spout.

Baby beluga, oh, baby beluga,
Sing your little song, sing for all your friends.
We like to hear you.

Baby beluga in the deep blue sea,
Swim so wild and you swim so free.
Heaven above and the sea below,
And a little white whale on the go.
You’re just a little white whale on the go.

Craft time!

I paired the whale craft kit from Oriental Trading with a simple Saran Wrap painting idea. The kit was a hanger craft originally, but the whale did not hang nicely, so I had the kids glue the whale onto a piece of painting paper after we had painted the ocean with a piece of crumpled up Saran Wrap. The kids glued their whale pieces together and while everything dried…we broke out our brand-new parachute.

I recycled a super simple game from another program for grade-school kids. I had my teen volunteers cut out foam fish from different colors. And while the rest of the kids shook the parachute, I called a kid by name to “dive under” and find a certain color fish. This is a great game, not only for color recognition, but because the kids laughed the whole way through it.

After the parachute, we settled down for “Rub-a-Dub-Sub” by Linda Ashman.

Once we were all done, kids had the option of taking their craft or leaving it to dry (we did have quite a few that needed more time to dry!), and the program was done.

June 22, 2010 4 Comments Short URL, , Special Programming

Fish!

Our theme for summer reading this year is “Make a Splash,” so we’ll be doing water-based storytimes for the next seven weeks. This week’s theme was easy — fish!

We started off with one of my favorite books — “Hooray for Fish!” by Lucy Cousins.

The children loved looking at all of Little Fish’s friends. We had a lot of side chatter during this book — “That’s MY favorite fish! The stripey one, Miss Katie!” — but no one lost interest! When we got to the “How many can you see?” spread, we had several little ones just start counting out loud, so we took a break and counted together which was an excellent practice for our next book…”Fish, Swish, Splash, Dash” by Suse MacDonald!

I absolutely love this book — the counting is told in a cut-out format where one fish turns into two fish, and so on. Then, we you reach the end of the book, you turn the book upside down and count down from ten. You can turn the book rightside up again at the end and start over if you want to. I think if the kids were given the option, we would spend all of storytime reading just this book. But, we did move on to our flannelboard:

Flannelboard: “Five Little Fishes”
Five little fish swimming by the shore
One got caught then there were four
Four little fish swimming in the sea
One got caught then there were three
Three little fish swimming in the blue
One got caught then there were two
Two little fish swimming in the sun
One got caught then there was one
One little fish swimming straight for home
Decided he would never roam

I am trying to break out of my comfort zone by using more puppets. We sang this song with Pinkie the Fish. (The kids pretended to have their own fishes, but I should have had the foresight to make popsicle stick fish or something.)

Did You Ever See a Fishy? (Tune of “Did You Ever See a Lassie?”)
Did you ever see a fishy, a fishy, a fishy
Did you ever see a fishy, swim this way and that?
Swim this way and that way, and that way and this way?
Did you ever see a fishy, swim this way and that?

We settled back down with our next book: “Big Fish, Little Fish” by Ed Heck.

I used this book several times over the course of the summer and each time it was very popular with my storytimes and group tours. It’s such a short, simple story that really works wonderfully. Next up, an action song!

“One, Two, Three, Four, Five”
One, two, three, four, five, (hold up fingers one by one, while counting)
Once I caught a fish alive. (put hands together and wiggle like a fish)
Six, seven, eight, nine, ten, (hold up fingers one by one, while counting)
Then I threw it back again. (make throwing motion)
Why did you let it go? (hold hands out asking why)
Because it bit my finger so. (shake hand, as if hurt)
Which finger did it bite? (hold hands out asking why)
This little finger on my right. (wiggle pinky finger)

And we closed our storytime with “Fidgety Fish” by Ruth Galloway.

Our craft was very simple this week — fish scratch art! You can either make your own (most online craft stores sell “Magic Color” paper) and then you can die-cut your own shapes, or you can buy the kit online.

June 17, 2010 4 Comments Short URL, Family Storytime

Summer!

Seasons are an easy go-to theme, especially when you live in Chicago and the area has definite seasons! Our welcome song for this cycle is “Mr. Sun” and we’re still singing our “ABCs” for our closing song.

Started off storytime with “Mouse’s First Summer” by Lauren Thompson.

I really love the Mouse series — these are great books to use in introducing a season. Simple, bright illustrations and really adorable characters in Mouse and Minka. And even though the books are very formulaic, the kids are always excited to shoot “Hooray” with Mouse at the end.

Next, we read “It’s Summer” by Jimmy Pickering.

This is another series that has an installment for each season. We have another pair of cute characters here — Sally and her dog — and follow them as they explore the differences between the seasons in rhymes.

Afterwards, we needed to get up and shake around a bit, so we did our action rhyme:

Action Rhyme: “Swimming”
Swimming in the water cool and bright (pretend to swim)
I kick my feet with all my might (kick feet)
And when I’m tired I turn and float (spin and hold arms out)
Pretending that I’m a boat
I like to hold my breath and dive (pretend to take breath and dive)
I swim beneath the water and count to five (count to five)
Wow! What a dive!
Credit — Hummingbird Educational Resources

And then listened to our flannelboard: Ice Cream Colors (Credit: Step By Step).

Next up, “Summer Wonders” by Bob Raczka.

I adore this season series — bright colors, easy rhymes — and my favorite part is that there is always a vertical spread in each book. The kids are always really excited when I suddenly turn the book around on them. We have this whole series in our storytime collection, always ready to read.

Song: Summer’s Here (Tune: Frere Jacques)
Days are longer, sunshine’s stronger.
Summer’s here! Summer’s here!
Let’s jump through the sprinkler, let’s make lemonade
Summer’s here! Summer’s here!
Credit — Summer Preschool Lesson Plan

And we finished up the storytime by reading “Playground Day” by Jennifer J. Merz.

I really wanted to close the storytime with something that every kid could do over the summer. We have some awesome playgrounds around here and I hope that this book inspired parents to take their kids. Also, this one was definitely a winner — it’s a guessing animals book! As the girl plays on the various equipment, readers are invited to guess what animal she is acting like. Guessing animals is always a crowd pleaser.

For craft, we went with a pre-made kit from Oriental Trading: Tropical Visor Craft.

As for prep to make this one storytime appropriate, I punched out the foam pieces, pre-assembled the sun (base, face, and glasses) and decided to use glue dots instead of glue. This was our second time using glue dots, so my parents knew what was going on and I will definitely continue to use this product.

(Also, the recommended age on Oriental Trading has changed to 8+ since I ordered this kit. I really think that it works fine as a preschool craft. Some parents insisted that their kids make the scene exactly as the picture shows — but some of the cuter crafts were the ones where the kids had more free rein. And just so you know — this craft was entirely made of foam.)

June 17, 2010 3 Comments Short URL, Family Storytime

Bubble Party

This was an insane program that I did over the summer for 3-year-olds to 7-year-olds. I had twenty-three kids hopping around, and to make matters more complicated — I needed our bigger programming room for space, but also needed our smaller programming room for painting! (I’ll show you how I solved this with ease!)

First off, I read the book “Bubble Trouble” by Margaret Mahy.

This is a pretty long book to read about a baby who accidentally gets trapped in a bubble. And I definitely recommend practicing this one *several* times because there are a lot of tongue-twisty areas. But! The kids loved this story. We had massive amounts of giggling throughout its pages.

A couple of quick songs before launching into the bulk of the program: bubbles!

“My Bubbles” (Tune: “My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean”)
My bubbles flew over the ocean,
My bubbles flew over the sea,
My bubbles flew over the rainbow,
Oh come back, my bubbles, to me.
Come back, come back, oh come back my bubbles to me!

“Big Bubble” (Tune: “Do You Know the Muffin Man?”)
Can you blow a big bubble?
A big bubble, a big bubble?
Can you blow a big bubble,
With your bubble wand?

Credit for both: Bubble Theme – Step by Step

And then the kids played some quick games:

Bubble Dance – A game where the goal is to simply pop bubbles, not letting the bubbles hit the ground. I played a Dora CD while the children played the game which made it infinitely better. We have a bubble machine, and I literally just let it go, set up on a table. The kids were *thrilled* to be able to pop them to their heart’s content.

Bubble Bounce – A different kind of bubble. You throw balloons into the air and have the children keep the “bubbles” afloat. Super simple, I left the CD playing while we played this one too.

Bubble Race – This game can turn into a disaster very quickly if you let it. We purchased some giant bubble wands and let the kids run with them. Instead of a disaster though, the kids practiced their turn-taking and we made lines. My older kids were great examples for my younger kids and this was actually pretty flawless in terms of execution.

Our transition between spaces was easily solved by grabbing a bubble set and leading the kids through the library on a bubble parade. Simple, and totally effective.

And the whole reason why we needed to move downstairs — our craft was Bubble Art. Add 2 teaspoons of paint to bubble solution. I had the kids blow bubbles onto white construction paper. Make sure to provide lots of different kinds of tools to make bubbles. I had straws, bubbles wands, bubble pipes, etc. set out and every color of the rainbow to use. This went great, and was again, super easy and effective.

This is a program that I would definitely consider doing again — especially because I didn’t take pictures amidst all the chaos!

June 16, 2010 3 Comments Short URL, Special Programming

Food!

(These are very old storytimes, so I don’t remember every detail about them. Instead of my regular post, I’m just going to write down the plan & craft, with a brief commentary on how it went.)

Books

Eating the Alphabet by Lois Ehlert

Little Pea by Amy Krouse Rosenthal

Mouse Mess by Linnea Riley

Pizza at Sally’s by Monica Wellington

Extension Activities
Flannelboard: Five Big Lemons
Five big lemons in the bowl (hold up five fingers)
One fell out and started to roll (fold down one finger, and roll hands)
Where did it go? (hold hands out) It hit my toe! (point to toe)
How many lemons left in the bowl? 1-2-3-4 (count up with fingers)
(Repeat until “no more lemons left in the bowl”)
Credit: Early Literacy

Song: “Apples and Bananas”
I like to eat, eat, eat apples and bananas
I like to eat, eat, eat apples and bananas (Repeat with other vowels sound)
Credit: Childhood

Fingerplay: Pattycake
Pattycake, pattycake, baker’s man
Bake me a cake as fast as you can
Roll it and pat it and mark it with a B
And put it in the oven for baby and me
Credit: Childhood

Craft

Got this pizza craft a long time ago for a Pizza Taste-Off with my K-5th graders and bookmarked it on the computer. Used it again in storytime. Craft is from Making Friends.

How It Went

This was the first time that I used a big book in storytime (Eating the Alphabet) and I was shocked when parents started reading along with me. This was a great way to get the kids engaged in the story. The craft was a great one too — the kids LOVED gluing toppings onto their pizzas even though each child told me they liked cheese the best.

May 20, 2010 4 Comments Short URL, Family Storytime

Things That Go!

(These are very old storytimes, so I don’t remember every detail about them. Instead of my regular post, I’m just going to write down the plan & craft, with a brief commentary on how it went.)

Books


Cars! Cars! Cars! by Grace Maccarone


Freight Train by Donald Crews


A Truck Goes Rattley-Bumpa by Jonathan London


Who Is Driving? By Leo Timmers

Extension Activities

Flannelboard: “The Wheels On the Bus”
The wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round, round and round.
The wheels on the bus go round and round, all through the town.
The wipers on the bus go Swish, swish, swish; The doors on the bus go open and shut; The horn on the bus goes Beep, beep, beep; The Driver on the bus says “Move on back, The people on the bus go Up and Down; The baby on the bus says “Wah, wah, wah”; The mommy on the bus says “Shush, shush, shush.”
Credit: Childhood

Action Rhyme: “The Airplane”
The airplane has great big wings (arms outstretched)
Its propeller spins around and sings “vvvvvv!” (make one arm go round)
The airplane goes up (lift arms)
The airplane goes down (lower arms)
The airplane flies high (arms outstretched, turn body around)
Over the town! (fly around)
Credit: Preschool Rainbow

Action Rhyme: “Choo-Choo Train”
Everyone rubs their hands together in a circular motion to make the noise, slowly at first, getting faster, the librarian says the following:
Choo, choo, choo, choo
Too-too, too-too, too-too
Choo-choo, choo-choo, choo-choo
Ding-dong, Ding-dong, Ding-dong, Ding-dong
Hissssssssssssssss
Credit: In-House Activity

Craft

Paper Train – Templates are from Danielle’s Place.

Teens had cut-out everything. Kids assembled train and decorated with stickers.

How It Went
This was a frustrating week for me because I had put so much into planning, and for whatever reason we had very sad attendance (this week before was 14; this week was 7). I must say though that the kids that attended storytime LOVED the craft. And even though I was low on attendance, everyone was very enthusiastic about the theme — so it worked out. Yay!

May 13, 2010 2 Comments Short URL, Family Storytime

Kids Art: Gardens

“Kids Art” was a program created to pair a book with a larger art project. The library already hosts a monthly craft program for grades 1-6, but our little kids were not getting much art — other than my storytime attempts. Thus, “Kids Art.”

This month’s program was inspired by Kevin Henkes’s new book: “My Garden.”

This is an excellent addition to my storytime collection. While “Old Bear” will always be my favorite Henkes, “My Garden” is a very close second. The kids had a great discussion about what kind of things they would plant in their gardens once we finished.

Then, we did a little bit of extension activities:

Action Rhyme: My Garden
This is my garden (Extend one hand forward, palm up)
I’ll rake it with care, (Make raking motion on palm with 3 fingers of other hand)
And then some flower seeds (Plant motion), I’ll plant in there.
The sun will shine (Make circle with hands)
And the rain will fall, (Let fingers flutter down to lap)
And my garden will blossom (Cup hands together; extend upward slowly)
And grow straight and tall.

Song: “The Garden Song” (Tune: “Row, Row, Row Your Boat”)
Dig, dig, dig your garden
Make it smooth and neat
Push, push, push that shovel,
Push it with your feet.

Plant, plant, plant your seeds
Push them down an inch
Cover your seeds with some soil
Cover with a pinch.

Water, water, water your seed
This will help them sprout,
Sprinkle lightly and let’s not pour
And don’t let them dry out.

Sun, sun, sunshine
It will turn them green,
Carrots and radishes and peppers, too
Tomatoes and some beans.

Watch, watch, watch them grow
See them grow so tall
Put a scarecrow in the ground
To protect them all.

Pull, pull, pull the weeds
Keep your garden clear
To make them grow up and out
And stretch out here and there.

Pick, pick, pick your feast
Cook some veggie soup
You’ll have lots and lots to eat,
Enough to feed the group.

Credit for both: Step by Step – Garden Theme

And then we moved on to our craft, a garden cup!

This was a craft that one of my co-workers did a few Mother’s Days back. My teen volunteers had pre-cut the shapes and taped the straws to the back of the flowers. The kids used a cut up sponge to do the sponge painting, but I had them grip the sponge with a clothespin. It completely eliminated most of the mess — I only needed some hand wipes to wipe a few fingers.

While their flowers dried, the kids played “Duck, Duck, Goose.” (Which is kind of springtime-ish, right?)

After that, they “planted” their flowers in cups lined with clay at the bottom (otherwise the flowers are too top-heavy and tip the cup over), and filled it up with plastic grass. A hugely successful program — I hope some of the Moms were given flower cups for Mother’s Day when they got home!

May 11, 2010 0 Comments Short URL, Special Programming

Farm!

(These are very old storytimes, so I don’t remember every detail about them. Instead of my regular post, I’m just going to write down the plan & craft, with a brief commentary on how it went.)

Books


Clip Clop by Nicola Smee


The Little Rabbit Who Liked to Say Moo by Jonathan Allen


Old MacDonald Had a Farm by Jane Cabrera


Pepo and Lolo Are Friends by Ana Martín Larrañaga

Extension Activities
Flannelboard: Bingo
There was a farmer who had a dog and Bingo was his name-o.
B-I-N-G-O, B-I-N-G-O, B-I-N-G-O
And Bingo was his name-o.
(Repeat, replacing one letter with a clap each time.)
Credit: Childhood

Song/Puppets: “Over in the Barnyard” (Tune: Down By the Station)
Over in the barnyard
Early in the morning
See the yellow chickies
Standing in a row
See the busy farmer
Giving them their breakfast
Cheep, cheep, cheep, cheep
Off they go (remove finger puppet)
[Also, pink piggies and spotted cows]
Credit: Teach-nology Farm Songs

Action Rhyme: “Farm Chores”
This is the way we ______, ______, ______
This is the way we ______, so early in the morning.
(Feed animals, plants seeds, water plants, pick plants, eat crops, etc.)
Credit: Preschool Education – Animals, Farm

Craft
Paper Plate Pig – Busy Bee Kids Crafts

How It Went
This was a very fun storytime to do. This was my first time using puppets, and I thought that it went really well — and definitely prompted me to buy more finger puppet sets from Manhattan Toy. And my parents flipped over the craft. They are always very impressed with the amount of things that we make out of paper plates.

May 6, 2010 4 Comments Short URL, Family Storytime

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