Spooky Stories

October 29, 2013

Spooky Stories!!

Stories that are spooky, but in a good way!

Books:

What's in the Witch's Kitchen? by Nick Sharratt

Goodnight Goon: A Petrifying Parody by Michael Rex

Alpha Oops!: H is for Halloween by Alethea Kontis

Moonlight: The Halloween Cat by Cynthia Rylant

Big Pumpkin by Erica Silverman

It's amazing that we managed to get a whole 5 books in today!

Songs:
 Opening Song: Where is Thumbkin?

 Song 2: Skinny-Marinky-Dinky-Dink - 100 Singalong Songs for Kids

Song 3 (Our Theme Song Pick): There's a spider on the floor! - Raffi - Singable Songs for the Very Young

Song 4: Shake My Sillies Out - Raffi

Song 5: Dance Your Fingers / Clap Along With Me - Wee Sing for Baby

Song 6: Wheels on the Bus - 100 Singalong Songs for Kids


Felt Board / Magnet Board:
The Orange Ghost! - The Storyboard, 1989. Illustrated by DP Designs
The story of an orange ghost on Halloween night who cannot fly yet. For a ghost to be able to fly, he must scare someone and the poor orange ghost has never been able to scare anyone. So, he attempts to scare a witch, a black cat, and an owl - all of who tell him to go away and scare someone else. He finally comes to a pond and decides to scare a fish - he yells "Boo!" at the water and sees his reflection, thus scaring himself and gaining the ability to fly for scaring someone!

We have a range of these felt board stories that were doanted to our library from the Keflavik Library in Iceland. I wish I knew more about the company who put these out because they are really cute and very helpful during storytime!





Craft:
Easy Pumpkin Craft!

 We took a standard pumpkin coloring sheet and traced a template for two eyes, a nose, and a mouth on the bottom of the page for the kids to cut out. Super easy! Here is the template we created for this craft.

How Many Did You Have?

45 total made up out costumed audience!

How did it go?

We managed to get in 5 books and 1 felt board - I'd say we were pretty successful.

Spiders!!

October 22, 2013

Spiders!!

Today's theme was spiders! Since its so close to Halloween we wanted to do something with a little creepiness but not too much. And so, we came up with spiders.

Books:

Diary of a Spider by Doreen Cronin

The Very Busy Spider by Eric Carle

Aaaarrgghh! Spider! by Lydia Monks

The Itsy Bitsy Spider by Iza Trapani

Songs:
Opening Song: Where is Thumbkin?

 Song 2: Skinny-Marinky-Dinky-Dink - 100 Singalong Songs for Kids

Song 3 (Our Theme Song Pick): There's a spider on the floor! - Raffi - Singable Songs for the Very Young

Song 4 (Another Theme Song Pick): The Itsy-Bitsy Spider - Susie Tallman- Classic Nursery Rhymes

 Song 5: Shake My Sillies Out - Raffi

Song 6: Dance Your Fingers / Clap Along With Me - Wee Sing for Baby

Song 7: Wheels on the Bus - 100 Singalong Songs for Kids

If you want kids to be really excited about Spiders do Raffi's "Spider on the Floor!" You trace a spider's climb from the floor to the top of your head. We wiggled our hands like they were spiders to act out the song.

Susie Tallman's "Itsy-Bitsy Spider" was also a hit - this song expands on the song to include the traditional rhyme, a marching band version, a slowed down version, and a jazzy version.

Felt Board / Magnet Board

We found this Magnet Board printout at The Daycare Resource Connection - they have a lot of popular books in felt board/magnet board form that you can print from your computer. Here is the link to the PDF.

Craft:
Paper plate spider!

We cut a paper plate in half, colored it with black crayons, and then cut the edges into eight sections to make the legs. We got the idea from this Craft with Jack blog entry. Theirs came out a bit cuter than ours, but the kids didn't seem to mind.

How many did you have?

We had a full house: 54! With lots of brand new faces.

How did it go?

With such a large crowd, its difficult to keep the little ones calm and attentive so we had to cut our last book. We were going to read a simple Little Miss Muffet book and do a felt board of Little Miss Muffet with her spider and tuffet. However, when the little ones are clamoring you have to roll with it.

Silly Stories 2013

Tuesday October 15, 2013

Silly Stories!

Today's theme was Silly Stories - stories that are just plain silly and make us laugh. We sometimes like to get away from a specific theme and leave ourselves open to do, basically, any books that tickle our fancy.
  Books:

Open this Little Book by Jesse Klausmeier

The Boy on the Bus by Penny Dale

The Cow Who Clucked by Denise Fleming

The Watermelon Seed by Greg Pizzoli

Songs:

Opening Song: Where is Thumbkin? - Kimbo

Song 2: Skinny-Marinky-Dinky-Dink - 100 Singalong Songs for Kids

Song 3 (Our Theme Song Pick): Jack in the Box - Wee Sing and Pretend:

To the tune of Pop Goes the Weasel:

My name is Jack-in-the-Box
I love to hide from you.
I quietly stay inside the box.
'Til POP! I surprise you!

Down I go back into my box
to hide again from you.
I quietly stay inside the box.
'Til POP! I surprise you!

Song 4: Shake My Sillies Out - Raffi

Song 5: Dance Your Fingers / Clap Along With Me - Wee Sing for Baby

Song 6: Wheels on the Bus - 100 Singalong Songs for Kids

  Felt Board / Magnet Board:

There was an Old Lady who Swallowed a Fly!

I printed out the pieces from the Preschool Pintables and glues them to some thick poster paper we have in our supply room. Then I put magnet coins on the back of them and used out magnet board to tell the story!

I left out a few pieces because I couldn't find the immediately while I was going through the story, but I don't think anyone noticed. It helped to familiar myself with the rhyme beforehand - when I picked up "cat" I knew the next line was "imagine that! To swallow a cat!"

Craft:

http://www.first-school.ws/activities/crafts/holiday/pumpkin.htm

Our slightly lopsided Pumpkin Scarecrow - because it's fall you know!

How many did you have?
All together we totaled 37!

How did it go?
The kids liked the silly stories and a few, knowing the were silly, laughed at everything we said (whether is was actually silly or not). It's definitely one for giggles!

Shhhh!!

Tuesday October 8, 2013

Shhhhh!

Today's theme was Shhhh! 

A storytime about being quiet and loud and quiet again and loud again!

Books: 

Shhh! by Valerie Gorbachev

Too Loud Lily by Sofie Laguna

One Drowsy Dragon by Ethan Long

Shhh! Everybody's Sleeping  by Julia Markes



Songs:

Where is Thumbkin?
Skinny Marinky Dinky Dink
Twinkle Twinkle* 
Shake My Sillies Out
Dance Your Fingers/Clapping Song
Wheels in the Bus

We stuck with our staples and added Twinkle Twinkle to go with the sleepy time theme since it has such a sleepy feel to it. 

Magnet Boards:

Little Boy Blue Nursery Rhyme

Rockabye Baby Nursery Rhyme


Craft
Little Boy Blue toilet Paper Craft

http://www.dltk-teach.com/books/frank-baum/boyblue/mboyblue.htm

Lovingly borrowed from www.dltk-teach.com

How'd it go?!

Surprisingly well! 

We were able to let the kids be loud for all of the songs and then quiet again for the stories - that worked extremely well. 

Shhh! by Valerie Gorbachev was a clear winner - when the little boy quiets his toys all the kids said "Shh!" with us. 

I also paused while reading One Drowsy Dragon by Ethan Long while the dragons were tap dancing and playing, etc. to ask the kids "Is that being quiet?" to which they would yell "No!" Worked very well.