storytime katie

Once upon a time, I did a dance themed storytime. I found some clip art, laminated the ballerinas and went with it:

Three years later, I stumbled upon this pin on Pinterest which I immediately pinned and downloaded the template from Ei Menina! (The entire site is in Portuguese, but if you scroll down or search “bailarina” you’ll get to the template.)

And then, the Blackhawks made the playoffs this past spring. And I needed something to do while I “watched” the games since playoffs make me nervous. So I made these felt ballerinas to distract myself.

And I took some close-up, detail pictures too:

This is the rhyme that I used with this flannelboard:

“Five Dancing Ballerinas”
Five dancing ballerinas
Prancing on their toes
They twirl and spin and jump
Then off the stage she goes (count down)

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When I was originally brainstorming for my Languages storytime, I wanted to incorporate as many languages as possible. While Braille isn’t classified as a language, but rather as a writing system (from my understanding), I still wanted to include it to talk to my kiddos about the different way people communicate.

To make this flannelboard, I used puffy paint to create the raised dots. I tried to use the same color puffy paint as I did for the matching felt number so that it was easier for the kiddos.

I passed out the numbers set and had the Braille set on the board. I asked if anyone had the number one and the child who did would (hopefully) come up and be able to run their hand over the Braille number one. And so forth. If I had had over ten kids at this storytime, I would have passed out all of the pieces. Then I would have asked the child with number one to come up and put it on the board. Then I would have asked if someone had a dot piece with hot pink paint. Both kids would then be able to touch the Braille piece for number one.

I used a posterboard set of numbers as my template for the numbers. Other than that, I freehanded black squares.

The kids were very excited to get to come up and pet the flannelboard (which is one of their favorite activities). And they did a great job matching the matches!

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Up, up, and away! Superheroes!

I bought this clipart on Etsy from revidevi, which is one of my favorite clip art stores. I made sure to get clipart that had both female and male superheroes, and I really liked how preschool-like the kids were.

I used this in Superheroes storytime with the song “Ten Little Heroes” modified from a childhood song that I’m sure you all know and recognize:

One little, two little, three little heroes
Four little, five little, six little heroes
Seven little, eight little, nine little heroes
Ten heroes ready to fly!
(count down)

or you could use it with this fingerplay that I got from Jbrary:

Five superheroes ready to fly,
Here comes a villain. Stop that guy!
This superhero can save the day.
Off he/she flies – up, up, and away!

Either rhyme/song you chose, it will be sure to be an excellent time!

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Today’s Flannel Friday was inspired by Artistic Literacy — counting windows!

These are so versatile — you can use them every time you do a “Five Little Whatsits” rhyme.

Protip: Craft stores often sell felt letters as stickers. Use them to your advantage when making this set!

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

A quick laminated set of alligators for this Flannel Friday!

This was a clipart alligator and I just made five of him/her. I used this in Alligators & Crocodiles storytime, with this rhyme from Esther Storytimes:

One little alligator swimming in a pool
Another comes along and now there are two
Two little alligators swimming by a tree
Another comes along and now there are three
Three little alligators swimming near the shore
Another comes along and now there are four
Four little alligators swim, splash, and dive
Another comes along and now there are five
Five little alligators having lots of fun
Mama calls, “It’s time for bed!” and now the fun is done!

It occurs to me as I write this post that these could also potentially be crocodiles because I have no idea what the difference between the two animals are! Maybe the clipart will work for both.

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I got this flannelboard from Confessions of a Homeschooler — which also has a template for you to download!

I used this in an outreach Thanksgiving storytime last year. I had a great time with this group and asked them to help me match turkey’s feathers to his buttons. This lead to great conversations about color and we did this several times so each child could button the feather to turkey.

I’m not sure if I’ll be using this flannelboard again any time soon because I do not do holiday storytimes unless it’s an outreach request. But maybe sooner than I think!

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

This amazing flannelboard came from Miss Mary Liberry.

I used this in Socks and Shoes storytime. I was brave and puffy-painted it up!! I did not make an amazing Washer/Dryer tissue box though.

The kids had a great time matching up the socks and I would definitely use this again at a future storytime.

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This prop was created by the amazing Melissa of Mel’s Desk and I…um, I kinda of ran with it.

I started using this rhyme wheel in my Pajama Storytimes as a way to teach nursery rhymes and songs in a participatory way. Since I didn’t want to buy hundreds of the cake circles, I instead laminated the rhyme/song and taped it to the cake circles. That way I can change them out depending on the day and the rhyme.

Pictured above, I have “Baa, Baa Black Sheep” and “Hey Diddle Diddle”. I’ve also made “Five Little Ducks” so far and then…well, I went and got a new job so I stopped temporarily.

The kids and parents really enjoyed these rhyme wheels and I’m glad that I got to teach them some of the nursery rhymes and songs that I grew up on!

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

Travel the world in this Montessori-inspired flannelboard:

I first got this idea from Pinterest, which led me to Living Montessori Now. I used one of the templates that they provided.

This flannelboard has no rhyme to go along with it — I used this in Number Seven storytime and talked with the kids about the continent that we live on and what the other continents were called. We found where approximately Chicago was and pointed to it. The kids and I had a good time talking about the world and I loved working some geography into storytime!

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