Sun & Moon

What lives in the sky?
What can you see at night?
What can you see during the day?


All was revealed at storytime today ...


I started with the now out-of-print book by Nancy Tafuri, "What the Sun Sees/What the Moon Sees". Kids got a big kick out of the fact that the book was a two-for-one that flipped over to tell two stories.

My second selection was one of my MOST FAVORITE STORYTIME BOOKS EVER ... "Kitten's First Full Moon". The awesome power of Kevin Henkes and his silly little kitten always make me smile ...

POOR KITTEN!

I shared two fingerplays, one on the sun and one on the moon.
Despite the fact that these are not one fingerplay, if presented correctly together they can make one cohesive rhyme :


Grandma Moon, Grandma Moon (make a "c" in the air with your R hand)
You're up too soon! (shake L finger at moon in the air)
The sun is still in the sky ...
Go to bed ... (head on hands, mimicking sleep)
And cover your head ... (cover head with hands)
And wait for the day to go by (twirl finger in air)
In the morning the sun wakes up (point to the left)
And marches all the day (move pointing finger up)
At noon it stands straight overhead (point directly up in the air)
And at night? It goes away ... (move finger down to other side and behind back)


Our next book was Frank Asch's "The Sun is My Favorite Star" which is always interesting to share with preschoolers ... they don't quite believe you when you tell them that our sun is actually a star ... moment of disbelief.

I got to do a DRAW AND TELL STORY (be still my heart) which I did adapt a little bit to make more understandable to preschoolers and toddlers ... but such a cute little story about mouse and the sun & moon ...

How Mouse Became Small and Grey

A long, long time ago sun and moon were in the sky

... and they became caught in a snare!



Back then, the biggest animal on earth was mouse.
So all the animals asked if mouse would go up and free the sun and moon from the snare so that earth could once again have night and day.

Mouse went up to the sky and gnawed on one side of the snare to try and free sun.
Mouse was unable to free sun and in return the hot sun burned bright and covered mouse's body with a fine grey ash.

Mouse tried to free moon by gnawing on the other side of the snare.
Mouse gnawed and chewed until finally ... the sun and moon were set free!

However, the heat from the sun burned so hot that poor mouse melted away until he was practically nothing at all.
But all the animals on earth knew what mouse had done and gave him a safe place to live on the forest floor.
And that is how mouse turned small and grey. 

This story went beautifully into my last book, "The Mouse Who Ate the Moon" by Petr Horacek.

I ended storytime with a flannel version of Frank Asch's "Happy Birthday Moon". As soon as I started one kid yelled, "oh, I know this story ..." so I had to gently shush him so he didn't give away the surprise ending!

to make into a flannel, simply make the bear, the hat, the moon and the tree.

Our take-home activity sheet was a "Talk Together" activity where kids could have a discussion about what they do during the day as opposed to the night with their caregivers.

for at-home or at-library use only