Hunt

February 4, 2014

We skipped a week due to an unprecedented ice storm that hit our area, basically shutting down EVERYTHING including the library! We were scheduled to do "Woods" in the week we missed and were all prepared (with books and everything!) but sadly it was not to be. Needless to say, Hunt was a bit of a scramble but we got through it (somehow!).

Anyhoo, we present: Hunt... a storytime about hunting for things :-)

Books: 

Hunting the Daddyosaurus by Teresa Bateman
A-Hunting We Will Go! by Steven Kellogg
We're Going on a Book Hunt by Pat Miller

We had to skip a few with We're Going on a Book Hunt - it's the story of a trip to the library and how to select a book, but we don't have shelf placement cards (which are a really good idea, however!) in our library so we passed over that section. The other books were very successful, especially A-Hunting We Will Go as the tune is pretty familiar to everyone.

Songs:
Opening Song: Where is Thumbkin? - Kimbo

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

 Song 3: The Frost Song




  Song 4: Dance Your Fingers / Clap Along With Me - Wee Sing for Baby

 Song 5: Shake your Sillies Out - Raffi

 Song 6: Walking, Walking - Wee Sing for Baby

 Song 7 (Theme Song Pick): A-Hunting We Will Go - 100 Singalong Songs for Kids


 Song 8: Walking, Walking - Wee Sing for Baby

 Song 9: Wheels on the Bus - 100 Singalong Songs for Kids

Felt/Magnet Board:
This week we did We're Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen for our magnet board section of storytime.

 We did a combination read-aloud-from-book and display-magnet-board-pictures-and-act-it-out for this week. As the story was read outloud, we showed printed pictures of the various obstacles (tall, wavy grass; thick, oozy mud; etc.) with physical hand motions ("Can't go OVER it. Can't go UNDER it. We have to go THROUGH it). It worked very well - the kids paid very close attention and even joined in with the motions. In case you didn't catch it - kizclub.com has great printables for many stories.

Craft:

We made a bear craft this week. We printed the templates from dltk-kids.com which is ALWAYS a major help when we need it the most. We have a ton of those inner cardboard tubes from toilet paper in our store room and always take the opportunity to use them when we can.

How Did It Go?
Honestly - it wasn't that bad. The kids are restless with the cold and ice (we're not used to that down here). We doubled up our songs between each book/activity and it really helped the kids refocus their attentions.

How Many Did You Have?
We had 51 this week :-)

Windy!

January 21, 2014

Windy!

In keeping with our W's for the month of January, we did a WINDY storytime with books devoted to windy and stormy weather.

Books:

The Magic Hat by Mem Fox
One Winter's Day by M. Christina Butle
Kite Day: A Bear and Mole Story by Will Hillenbrand

Songs:
Opening Song: Where is Thumbkin? - Kimbo

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

 Song 3(Theme Song Pick): The Frost Song

 Song 4: Shake your Sillies Out - Raffi

 Song 5: Walking, Walking - Wee Sing for Baby

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

 Song 7: If You're Happy and You Know It - 100 Singalong Songs for Kids

 Song 8: Wheels on the Bus - 100 Singalong Songs for Kids

We've settled into a fairly standard song list for this month, though that's mostly because of the rush of the morning before storytime. This storytime was the day after a holiday so we only had an hour or so to truly prepare our arrangement

Felt/Magnet Board:
 This week we pulled off TWO magnet board presentations.

 

The first one was a simple rhyme that starts "One little kite in a sky so blue" lovingly borrowed from Storytime Katie. I wish I were creative enough to come up with such a rhyme on my own, but Google does the trick too!
The rhyme goes:
One little kite in the sky so blue,
Along came another, then there were two.
Two little kites flying high above me;
Along came another, then there were three.
Three little kites, just watch them soar,
Along came another, then there were four.
Four little kites, so high and alive
Along came another, then there were five.
Five little kites dancing across the sky,
What a sight to see, way up so high!

Our second magnet board was the classic "Five Little Ducks Went Out To Play."
It goes like this:
Five little ducks went out one day,
Over the hills and far away,
When mama duck said,
“Quack, quack, quack,”
Four Little ducks came running back.

Four little ducks…
Three little ducks…
Two little ducks…
One little duck…

No little ducks went out to play,
Over the hills and far away,
When mother duck said
“QUACK, QUACK, QUACK!”
Five little ducks came running back.

The kids LOVED yelling the QUACK QUACK QUACK - it was the perfect thing to bring their attention back to us at the end.

Craft:
A decorate it yourself FLAG!

We rifled through our storytime crafts closests and came across this leftover gem from the summer and what a perfect match it was! Flags fly in the wind afterall, don't they?

How Many Did You Have?
We had 46 total for this go 'round!

How Did It Go?
As you may have gathered, we've been losing the crowd around Book 3 recently, but the magnet board was a perfect thing to bring them back again!

Warm and Toasty!

January 14, 2013

Warm and Toasty!

A storytime devote to things that warm you up on a cold wintry day!

Books:

Knitty Kitty by David Elliott

Snow Dog, Go Dog by Deborah Heiligman

Soup Day by Melissa Iwai


Songs:

Opening Song: Where is Thumbkin? - Kimbo

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

 Song 3(Theme Song Pick): The Frost Song

 Song 4: Shake your Sillies Out - Raffi

 Song 5: Walking, Walking - Wee Sing for Baby

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

 Song 7: If You're Happy and You Know It - 100 Singalong Songs for Kids

 Song 8: Wheels on the Bus - 100 Singalong Songs for Kids

Felt/Magnet Board:

This week we chose to go a magnet board, and more than paraphrased. version of Jan Brett's The Mitten.

 

This Ukrainian folktale is humorous and adorable. Jan Brett is even kind enough to have a PDF of her animals and mittens on her website so that you can have this as a classroom activity or use to make your own telling of the story.

For our magnet board, we simply printed out pictures of the various animals and used Jan Brett's mitten outline to squeeze all the animals inside.

Craft:

The craft today was one of the easiest possible - a printable snowman to dress up! You can download the original here for FREE! The kids colored (or scribbled all over, depending on the age) the snowman and his clothing and parents helped cut the pieces and assemble them onto construction paper with glue. Super cute and super easy!

How Many Did You Have?

Today we had 49 all together - wowzers!

How Did It Go?

Overall, I'd call it a success. Honestly - the boys in our group were not particularly interested in Knitty Kitty but you can't win them all :-)