In addition to recognizing St. Patrick's Day, we also recognized that winter is over and spring is on the way - which means the world will soon turn green again.
I couldn't believe how many green-themed books were available for storytime. I think it's one color that is highly recognizable by young children and it is found in a variety of areas (nature, food, animals) which makes it a color into which many themes can be combined.
Here are the books that were shared at storytime today :
"Green : Seeing Green All Around Us" by Sarah Schuette from the "Colors All Around Us" series is a good starter for a green-themed storytime. Large photos illustrate the green objects being described in the rhyming text.
"The Great Big Green" by Peggy Gifford is a fun guessing game - the book's text asks the reader to try and guess what the great big green thing is. Turns out it's the earth ... which is also blue!
"Good Luck Bear" by Greg Foley from his series of books about bear was my token St. Patrick's Day book. Actually, it's not about St. Patrick's Day so much as it is about four-leafed clovers, but that's about as in-depth on St. Patrick's Day as you want to get with a bunch of 3-and-4-year olds.
Ended with "Green" by Laura Vaccaro Seeger, one of my favorite books about the color green.
We also sang "Five Green & Speckled Frogs" and I highlighted singing as my early literacy tip. I handed out this activity sheet for families to take home as an extension activity.
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| For home use only |
I also shared another guessing game "What Is Green?" through a flannel board story. I described the green thing that I was thinking of and for the most part kids were able to guess what I was describing. For some reason 'snake' was a tricky one ... but they eventually got it. Nice thing to use since most of these flannel pieces were "borrowed" from other flannel stories I own, making varied use out of other pieces that I'd made in the past.
For my grand finale I had brought along my fiddle! I played two tunes, "Sheebeg & Sheemore", perhaps the first Irish fiddle tune most folks learn, and after playing I asked kids (based on how the tune sounded) what they though Sheebeg and Sheemore were. Boats? Flowers? Girls? No! Turns out the song is about two mountains in the misty, cloudy Irish landscape (actually, they are two mountains beneath which a big ol' battle happened with lots of death and destruction, but I didn't mention that part). I also played "The Road to Lisdoonvarna" which is a nice tune with a rocking beat meant to represent walking down a road.
Then ...GREEN SNACKS!
Fun storytime all around.
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