Giddyup! Horses in the Library!

We had a very special guest star at storytime today ... and his name was Joey. Joey came to us along with his handler Chris. They both are from Half-Pint Horses out of Bloomington, MN who specialize in bringing miniature horses to community events and hospitals.

Before Joey made his grand entrance, we shared a few horse stories :

 

Horses : Trotting! Prancing! Racing!

by Patricia Hubbell

Horse
by Malachy Doyle

We ended our mini-storytime with the silly song "Alice the Camel."

And then ... JOEY!

Thank you, Half-Pint Horses!

 

Trees & Leaves

Fall is upon us in Minnesota ... which means it's time to celebrate the changing colors of the trees!
Today at storytime we shared the following books :

The Busy Tree  by Jennifer Ward
Fall, Leaves, Fall!  by Zoe Hall
Fall is not easy  by Marty Kelley
Leaf Man  by Lois Ehlert








I purchased craft leaves at Michael's for our leaf fingerplay. I have used "real" leaves for this but find that by the time I get the leaves to storytime they've lost a lot of their brilliance. Fake ones do just fine.
We all learned the ASL sign for "tree" which was incorporated into this rhyme.
I held the leaves high aloft while my attendees provided the wind to blow them down ...

this can be sung to any "five little ..." tune you know
Five little leaves, so bright and gay
Were hanging on a tree one day,
The wind came blowing through the town ...
And one  little leaf came tumbling down.
one by one I dropped the leaves
at the end, I "raked" them up into a pile

I included this Native American story which explains why some trees lose their leaves and some stay green all winter long (a big deal in the north). The story is titled "The Evergreens" and comes from the Vancouver Coast region. My only substitution here was I made a maple tree rather than a willow tree. I love this story and had a lot of fun making Jack Frost.

Let's Eat!

Everyone loves food and there are so many good titles to choose from. Here is a sampling of what we read at our food-themed storytime today :

Too Many Pears  by Jackie French (love her cow, Pamela)
"Hi, Pizza Man!"  by Virginia Walter (always a favorite)
The Little Mouse, the Red Ripe Strawberry and the Big Hungry Bear  by Don & Audrey Wood

Flannel/Book/Puppet Story
Lunch  by Denise Fleming

This is such an easy book to expand in so many directions (colors, foods, textures).
We shared this book with a mouse puppet and flannel. As each food was listed, I had the mouse "grab" the food off the flannel and chow down.