Dinosaurs BIG, Dinosaurs small

Who doesn't like a giant lizard?
Today was all about that big extinct beast, the dinosaur.

Here are the books we shared :





















I love this silly take on "Baby Bumblebee" -- such a fun little number.

I'm bringing home a baby dinosaur,
Won't my mommy fall right through the floor?
I'm bringing home a baby dinosaur ...
Ouch! He bit me!

I'm bringing home a baby dinosaur,
Feeding him will make my mommy poor,
I'm bringing home a baby dinosaur ...
Hey, where did all the dog food go?

I'm bringing home a baby dinosaur,
My mommy says, "Don't bring home anymore!!"
I'm bringing home a baby dinosaur ...
Um, Mom? Where are you going with all your suitcases?

These dinosaur flannel pieces (courtesy of Piper Loves the Library) are absolute perfection for any storytime, for children of all ages :

One little dino went out to play
On a bright and sunny day,
She had such ENORMOUS fun
That she called for another dinosaur to come
"oh ... DI-NO-SAUR!!!!"
tromp, tromp, tromp
Two little dinos went out to play ...







For those of you who were unable to receive an activity sheet today, here is a copy of what I handed out -- please only use at home for personal use.

 

Cows in the Meadow, Moo! Moo! Moo!

Moooooo ....
It's a bovine celebration at storytime today!

Among the books we shared today are two of my absolute favorites -- Jackie French's Too Many Pears falls in my "perfect for storytime" category -- fantastic double-page illustrations, humor, a touch of the exotic (womat! Australia!) and a story that both toddlers and preschoolers can appreciate, as long as it is read during the front-end of storytime. It was my lead-off book for today.

David LaRochelle and Mike Wohnoutka collaborated to publish Moo!, a book that is a little gem and works extremely well in supporting the "Read Together" aspect of the ECRR2 curriculum. Additionally, they are from my area and all-around good guys, so you can't go wrong with this book. I love it.

Rounded out the selection with classics from Denise Fleming and Nancy Tafuri, both grand dames of the children's picture book publishing world.

There was a bit of discussion several weeks ago on Storytime Underground about which flannel sets were the most basic and important to have in your collection. Prompted by this, I decided to update my "farm animals" flannel (which can be used for a myriad of stories) to use at this storytime.

I adapted the "Brown Bear, Brown Bear" text to "Brown Cow, Brown Cow" -- since I ran out of traditional colors, I ended with a purple chicken which, naturally, everyone thought was very silly ... unless, of course, there is a purple marshmallow chicken in your Easter basket. I had all the animals end in the red barn at the end :

Versatility!
I'm sure I'll be using this set again at both my Family and Baby storytimes.



Along those same lines, I adapted the book Lunch! by Denise Fleming to involve a cow rather than a mouse -- why not??  In some ways, it was a lot more humorous because I used my Folkmanis cow puppet which has a large mouth and each food item was able to be "eaten" by the cow.

Who's Sick Today?

Ick!
We all hate being sick.

Today at storytime we shared stories about illness which included toothaches, sore throats, sneezes and sniffles. We also talked about washing hands to keep those pesky germs AWAY from our bodies!

Books We Shared Today
Who's Sick Today?  by Lynne Cherry (young stoats with sore throats!)
Hippo Goes Bananas  by Marjorie Dennis Murray
Llama Llama Home with Mama  by Anna Dewdney
Hunky Dory Ate It  by Katie Evans

For a hand-washing excersise, we shared this fingerplay rhyme.
I made these silly germ monsters with art work from dreamstime.com which I used on my fingers -- each germ was washed away as the rhyme progressed :

Five nasty germs going out to play
Along came the water ... and washed one away!

Four nasty germs trying to have some fun,
Along came the soap ... and one had to run.

Three nasty germs trying to make you sick,
Along came the scrubbing and said, "you're not going to stick!"

Two nasty germs got into a fight,
Along came the rinse and washed one out of sight.

One nasty germ thought it couldn't be seen ...
But I dried my hands with a towel and now my hands are nice and clean!


Many years ago, I made a book prop from the Lois Sachar book Monkey Soup. It is one of the best book props I have ever made and I use it every year. Best thing about this prop? You can always replace the pieces.

The book (which is out of print) tells the story of a little girl whose daddy is sick.
Just like mommy is making him chicken noodle soup to feel better, the girl is making "monkey soup", named such because of the help from her stuffed monkey (who ends up as a soup ingredient at the end). I skip the entire monkey part and just stick with the main ingredients.

They are :
crayons for Daddy's pale face
balloons to make Daddy happy
band-aids to make him feel better
a blanket to keep him warm
kleenex for all his sneezes
buttons for fun (because Grandma gave her a sweater with buttons she loves)
bubbles because who doesn't love bubbles??
a napkin so he stays clean while he eats
soap and a toothbrush so he can clean up before & after eating
YUM! Eat up!



Monkey Soup!


Finally, to finish we did "Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed". I brought along a phone prop so I could "talk" to the doctor after each monkey bumped his or her head.

I also had this available for parents to make at home -- the monkeys are two-sided so that they can turn to the hurt (or sad) side when they bump their heads :

All About Our Senses

Taste! Touch! Smell! Sight! Sound!
Today we celebrated the way most of us experience the world.
We talked briefly about people who had difficulty with sight and sound, but most of us can taste, touch and smell things -- sometimes all at once!

Books We Read Today :
My Five Senses  by Aliki
Five For a Little One  by Chris Raschka
Seven Blind Mice  by Ed Young
Polar Bear, Polar Bear  by Eric Carle

I borrowed heavily from Ryan the Librarian for this version of the chant/song/poem "The Five Senses" :

Rub your hands to get some feeling,
Stretch your ears to check your hearing,
Sniff to smell what's in the air --
Good or bad? Nose beware!

Blink, blink, blink - what can you see?
How many fingers - one? two? three?
Last it's time for tongue push-ups :
Up, down, left, right and round and round!

I ended up singing this text on an upward scale, going up stepwise and ending the ocatve on "nose beware!" I then made the trip down the octave stepwise, ending with the last line. Worked pretty well.



My flannel for the day wasn't really about the senses, but featured putting together the man in the moon complete with meatball eyes, cheese nose, and a pizza mouth ...
"Aiken Drum" Flannel :


The last story we shared is an old one from Book Props. It involves the antics of a silly goose and a siller duck who decide to play a game they call the standing-still-for-the-longest-contest. Unfortunately, they both want to win the game so much they do not move even when a fox comes and sweeps them both up in his bag for lunch and dinner.

The prop is based on the book Don't Fidget a Feather! by Erica Silverman.
While retelling the story, I took some liberties with the plot to incorporate the senses (the sound and feel of the bumblebee, the smell and feel of the tickly bunnies, the sharp claws and loud caw of the pesky crows, etc. etc.)

Let It Snow!

Now that (hopefully) the worst of winter is behind us, we can actually celebrate the season! Well, sort of ... it's only mid-January.

Books We Read Today
"Winter is the Warmest Season" by Lauren Stringer
"Under My Hood I Have a Hat" by Karla Kuskin
"The Snowy Day" by Ezra Jack Keats
"Pip & Squeak" by Ian Schoenherr






I recited this silly poem with flannel pieces.
The brilliant Jack Prelutsky wrote this and it can be found in the collection "It's Snowing, It's Snowing! : Winter Poems (An I Can Read Book)" :

My snowman has a noble head
He's broad and he is tall.
His ears are tin, his eyes are coal,
He has no neck at all.

Beneath his ragged hat he wears
A bit of tangled wool,
His barrel chest is buttoned up,
His belly's rather full.

My snowman has a handsome face
Complete with carrot nose,
His arms are long, his legs are short,
He hasn't any toes.

He wields a broom, the helpful guy,
His smile is wide and bright.
"He looks like you!" my father says.
You know ... he may be right!


I also shared one of the few cut-and-tell stories that I think actually works at storytime.
This one is titled : "Just Like That".

On Sunday it snowed ... just like that  (show piece of blank white paper)
On Monday I made a snowman ... just like that (cut out a snowman from the paper)
On Tuesday the wind blew ... just like that (cut away some of the snowman)
On Wednesday it rained ... just like that (cut away yet more of the snowman)
On Thursday it rained and RAINED! ... just like that (cut away most of the snowman)
On Friday the sun shone ... just like that (cut snowman until it is a small puddle)
On Saturday I stayed inside ... just like that (make "harumph" sound and cross arms)
On Sunday it snowed ... just ... like ... that ... (show a new piece of blank white paper)


Finally, we did one of my all-time favorite fingerplays ... first we did this as an actual fingerplay with no props. Then I got out my prop carrot and prop bunny and we did it again. Love this.

There was a little snowman (show L fist)
Who had a carrot nose (show index finger of L fist)
Along came a bunny (R hand makes rabbit ears)
And what do you suppose?
That hungry little bunny
Was looking for some lunch ... (bunny ears turn to "look" at snowman)
He saw the snowman's carrot nose,
Nibble ... nibble ... CRUNCH! (hop bunny all the way over to snowman and "eat" carrot)

The Marvelous, Magestic Moose

OK, so when I planned this storytime with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (aka the MN DNR) I admit that I was a bit influenced by my passion for the moose. When Jan Welsh from the DNR told me that she could bring some moose artifacts to add to my storytime, I about fainted with delight.

(side note : the moose in Minnesota are suffering from climate change and their numbers are significantly dwindling ... find out more here)



There are some absolutely fabulous moose-themed books out there, mostly because there is nothing like a moose so how fun is it to write a children's book about this wonderful creature?

Here are the two books I selected for today :
Elusive Moose  by Joan Gannij
A Moose's World  by Caronline Arnold

Then, somehow from the recesses of my brain, I recalled a call-and-respond song from my Girl Scout Days. Perfect. Fit. Here is a video clip for "Da Moose" performed by the wonderful Susan Salidor. Just as I remembered it from my childhood!

Family Storytime - Hiberrrrnation!

In honor of the first snowfall forecast for later on this week, we said good-night, sleep tight to all our furry forest friends as they prepared for a long winter's nap.

Here are the books we shared :

I liked including some nonfiction ("Not a Buzz to be Found : Insects in Winter") plus it told the hibernation story from a non-mammal point of view (where do all those ants, ladybugs and honeybees go in winter anyway??)

We sang the "Grizzly Bear" song, which I do every year ... and which kids L-O-V-E :
Grizzly bear, oh grizzly bear is sleeping in his cave
Grizzly bear, oh grizzly bear is sleeping in his cave
(make the ASL sign for "bear" : hands shaped like claws, crossed over chest, "scratch" twice)
Shhhhh ....
(finger over lips)
Please be very quiet ...
Very ... very ... quiet ...
If you wake him,
If you shake him,
He is sure to growl -- GRRRR!!!
(clawed hands up and out)

Our "action" song was a bear hibernation song based on "The Ants Go Marching" :
The bears go marching one by one, hurrah, hurrah
The bears go marching one by one, hurrah, hurrah,
The bears go marching one by one,
The little one knew that autumn was done ...
And they all go marching down 
To their den
Because winter had set in ...

Two by two ...
Little one stopped to sneeze : a-a-achooo!

Three by three ...
Little one stopped to claw a tree

Four by four ...
Little one stopped to eat just a bit more

Five by five 
Little one stopped to whisper : "nighty-night!"

I also shared this flannel, based on "Five in the Bed" :

It was winter ... and all the animals were getting ready for bed.
First bear climbed into bed,
Then raccoon,
Then skunk,
Then chipmunk,
And finally little mouse.
But mouse did not have any room!
So he wiggled and squirmed until ...
There were five in the bed
And the little mouse said,
"Roll over! Roll over!"
So they all rolled over and bear fell out - whoops!
(and so on ...)

Happy Hibernation!