storytime katie

Just in time for you to make some for the Thanksgiving holiday! This template and inspiration came from Frog Paper Paperie.

I used this in an outreach Thanksgiving storytime from TWO years ago (I know, I know!) with the rhyme of “Two Little Turkeys”:

Two little turkeys sitting on a hill
One named Jack, one named Jill
Fly away Jack, fly away Jill
Come back Jack, come back Jill
(sitting on a pole/fast and slow & sitting on a cloud/quiet and loud)

Preschoolers love this rhyme and I’m thrilled to continually make new versions of finger puppets to go with it!

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Nikki is hosting the round-up today! You can also check out our website, Pinterest, or Facebook!

Two gorgeous sets of finger puppets up this week!

Fruit Puppets!

Veggie Puppets!

Templates for these puppets are available here at Precious Patterns Etsy shop. (Link to fruit pattern I purchased here.) & Link to vegetable pattern I purchased here.)

I have no idea what I’ll be singing or doing with these yet, but here’s a slew of ideas on these pages: Fruit & Vegetable Songs and Preschool Education Music & Songs: Vegetables.

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Melissa is hosting the round-up today! You can also check out our website, Pinterest, or Facebook!

A labor of love that I made during Midwinter this past year: flower finger puppets!

You can find the pattern for these amazing puppets on Etsy at the Precious Patterns shop. (Link to the puppets here.)

I used this in my Garden storytime for families this spring. I sang “Ten Little Flowers”:

One little, two little, three little flowers
Four little, five little, six little flowers
Seven little, eight little, nine little flowers
Ten flowers growing tall!

For the puppets, I had them attached to my finger puppet gloves so I didn’t have to spend a lot of my time putting all ten finger puppets on while my families waited to sing with me.

And a bonus second flannel today, inspired by Library Village’s “Planting a Rainbow”!

I used this in the same storytime — gardens with my famliies. I used these pieces on the flannelboard as I told the story. I didn’t make bulbs or seed packets or anything like that and just counted on the “wow” factor of the flowers to be enough. You also could read the book up until the flowers start to grow and then use the flowers on the board.

As for a template, I just made photocopies of the book.

The kids LOVED these pieces and I had several compliments from caregivers as well. I did back them with black felt to give them more stability since I knew the kids would want to play with them. And play they did!

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Kathryn is hosting the round-up today! You can also check out our website, Pinterest, or Facebook!

Another gorgeous, GORGEOUS set of finger puppets from Widia’s Etsy shop FloralBlossom.

I am adding these for the song “You Can Hear” as I did with the first set.

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I made these cute little dragons from Makezine.com:

To me, they also totally look like dinosaurs. I chose not to make the popsicle flames just because trying to handle that many pieces in toddler time doesn’t sound super thrilling to me.

I plan on using these with a modified “Two Little Blackbirds.”

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Kathryn is hosting the round-up today! You can also check out our website, Pinterest, or Facebook!

It’s another set of finger puppets, finally photographed and up on the blog!

The amazing pattern for this set came from FloralBlossom on Etsy again — I cannot say enough wonderful things about Widia’s shop! I used these back in Cats Storytime with this rhyme:

Action Rhyme & Puppets: “Five Little Kittens”
Five little kittens standing in a row
They nod their heads to the children so
They run to the left, they run to the right
They stand up and stretch in the bright sunlight
Along comes a dog, who’s in for some fun
M-e-oooow, see those kittens run!
Credit: Los Angeles Public Library

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Melissa is hosting the round-up today! You can also check out our website, Pinterest, or Facebook!

Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water….

SHARK WEEK ON FLANNEL FRIDAY!

This amazing finger puppet set came from Repeat Crafter Me and includes a template, so please visit!

I’m planning on using this in storytime with a modified “Two Little Blackbirds” or with “Baby Shark.”

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Sharon is hosting the round-up today! You can also check out our website, Pinterest, or Facebook!

Today, I present my finger puppet glove. I used to have a puppet mitt at my last library and I found I really missed have that resource here. So I made my own!

This was easily done with four simple things:

1. A hot glue gun
2. Magic stretch gloves
3. Felt stickers (I don’t know why only the owls are available online…)
4. Velcro dots

To get the gloves ready, I hot-glued a Velcro dot to each finger. I did originally try just Tacky Glue and the dot did come off after a few uses. To make sure the hot glue didn’t go through the thin layer of the glove, I used a piece of cardboard and kept it inside where the finger should go.

To make the felt stickers work with the glove, I used the back on the sticker as my pattern. I cut a piece of felt the size of the sticker, sewed a Velcro dot onto the back and glued the felt piece to the back of the sticker.

I wound up doing five different sets: monkeys, frogs, owls, birds, and snowflakes:

All in all, a little bit of a time consuming project, but highly cost-effective!

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Kathryn is hosting the round-up today! You can also check out our website, Pinterest, or Facebook!

Today’s Flannel Friday is our Halloween extravaganza! I don’t have a Halloween flannel to share since I don’t do Halloween storytime at the library (only outreach!), but I will tie this back to Halloween!

The one costume I never got to dress up as and always wanted to was an…

astronaut! But now I have two astronauts to wear while doing any number of rhymes:

Two little astronauts afraid of the Sun,
One blasts off, now there is one.
One little astronaut alone is no fun,
He blasts off, now there are none.

Climb Aboard the Shuttle
Climb aboard the shuttle,
We’re going to the moon.
Hurry and get ready,
We’re going to blast off soon.
Put on your helmets,
And buckle up real tight.
Here comes the countdown,
Let’s count with all our might.
10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1—BLAST OFF!!

Both rhymes from this awesome storytime/powerpoint, here.

I also do “Two Little Whatevers” a lot since my kids LOVE that rhyme. Even though astronauts don’t normally sit on a hill or wall, I think I can make a quick “Two little astronauts sitting on a SPACE HILL” adjustment and they’ll stay with me!

The template came from Crack of Dawn Crafts.

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K is hosting the round-up today! You can also check out our website, Pinterest, or Facebook!