Baseball Story Time

Every year, I do the usual Mother's Day Story Time, but when June comes around and its time for Father's Day, I'm tired of making the same old card with a tie on it or just a picture portrait of DAD. So this year I went with baseball. 90% of Dads probably like baseball, right? (Not a real statistic). We received some really cute new baseball picture books and I paired them with a craft I did a few years ago and BAM! Baseball Story Time was born.

I had big plans for making a baseball themed flannelboard, but after just getting back from a vacation, I didn't have time! It worked out because the books were long and after not having story time FOR A WHOLE WEEK, the kids weren't really into doing anything except run around and say hello to friends!

The Books:

Bats at the Ballgame by Brian Lies

Who's on First? by Abbott & Costello

Good Night Baseball by Michael Dahl

 The Favorite:
I loved Who's on First? and even though it was a bit over the kids head (not to mention a little long to read!), they had a good laugh trying to keep the names of the animals together.

What's in the Memory Box?
I couldn't fit my baseball mitt, so I used a baseball cap! We're in Phillies country here, so I have my token Phillies hat for games.

The Craft:
Baseball dude complete with a hat, bat & ball to glue wherever they wanted! This was a cute craft to give to Dad or to color pink and keep for themselves.

Fish Story Time

Sticking with the water theme for rainy April, I read some fish stories, freaked out about sharks, and added paper fish to a paper fishbowl. I didn't realize my sub-theme was "fish that get eaten because they are bad" until I already read This is not my hat and halfway through Uglyfish. Whoops! I have too many favorites and when I pair them with other favorites it is easy to forget they might have more in common than I remembered. Oh well!

The Books:

My Goldfish by Stephane Barroux

Fish Eyes by Lois Ehlert

This Is Not My Hat by Jon Klassen

Uglyfish by Kara LaReau & Scott Magoon

The Favorite: This is not my hat by Jon Klassen was the favorite, which wasn't a surprise since he won the 2013 Caldecott. The kids kept asking me "WHAT HAPPENED TO LITTLE FISH!?!!" Lead to great discussion about what might have happened to him.

Flannelboard: Five Little Fishies (to the tune of Five Little Monkeys)

Five little fishies, swimming in the sea
Teasing Mr. Shark, You can't catch me!
Along comes Mr. Shark, as quiet as can be... CHOMP!

I just had different colored fish shapes randomly cut from scraps of felt, but I used this Shark hand puppet I made a few summers ago for "Make A Splash @ Your Library" summer reading program puppet show. The kids all wanted a turn to "CHOMP" up the fish with this puppet!

What's in the Memory Box?
This was a great week because not one kid shouted "AN EGG!" They all named things that live in water. Fish. An octopus. Shark. SURPRISE! They actually paid attention! yay!
 It was a shark. I couldn't make it too easy on them. And of course, they all wanted to "pet" the shark.

The Craft: What can you make with an empty fishbowl printed on paper and tiny paper fish? Glue as many as you want into the fishbowl and color them!!

Duck Story Time featuring a Rabbit

Of course, following April Showers has to be ducklings to swim in those puddles. (I'm obviously really working hard thinking of Story Time themes...) I really wanted to try the Duck Rabbit Craft that's all the rage right now. Pair that with multiple staff out due to sickness or vacation and crazy double shifts on every desk and that's how this year's Duck Story Time theme was born.

The Books:

Duck! Rabbit! by Amy Krouse Rosenthal & Tom Lichtenheld

Duckie's Ducklings by Frances Barry

The Duckling gets a Cookie!? by Mo Willems

Chicken, Chicken, Duck! by Nadia Krilanovich

The Favorite: It was a tie between Duck! Rabbit! and The Duckling gets a Cookie!? I really liked Duckie's Ducklings because it was just a cute counting book that was easy with the toddlers. Sometimes the Pigeon's rants go over 2 year old heads.  They really like counting ducks though.

Flannelboard: I'm doing really well with having an extra activity ready every week for story time and that's all thanks to this blog, which was the whole point. Since Story Time at my library was just books & a craft with the occasional flannelboard before I took over, I had spent a lot of time making flannelboards since we don't really have a collection of them.  I look forward to the day that I already have something made and don't have to make one quickly 15 minutes before Story Time!

I just went with the traditional Five Little Ducks Went Out to Play from childhood this time. You know the rhyme!

Five little ducks went out to play
Over the hill and far away.
The Mama Duck said,
Quack, quack, quack, quack!
But only four little ducks came back.

Repeat with 4, 3, 2...

One little duck went out to play
Over the hill and far away.
The Mama Duck said,
Quack, quack, quack, quack!
And no little ducks came back!
So the Mama Duck said,
QUACK, QUACK, QUACK, QUACK!!
And five little ducks came back!

While looking for cute clip art of ducks, I came across this adorable printable from Picklebums blog and knew I couldn't do anything as cute in such a large, easy capacity as I wanted! They are the cutest ducks I have ever seen! And since it was an easy printable, I printed enough for 20 ducklings. This worked out great since I could give every child a duck to take from the flannelboard. I only had to sing about 18 ducks that "went out to play." It worked really well for a big group and it was a blessing to be able to print them out. I love printables!! 

What's in the Memory Box?
A felt bunny! Of course, everyone had to "pet" the bunny which I wasn't expecting and now I invite the kids up to "pet" everything I hid in the box if it is an animal or bug.
 

The Craft:
We made the Duck/Rabbit Craft to go with the book Duck! Rabbit! which was really fun. I just used the template that I found on Pinterest, added a popsicle stick and Bam! Duck! Rabbit! Craft.

April Showers Story Time

There was no rainy day this week in New Jersey since I jinxed it with my April Showers Story Time theme. We even did a RAIN DANCE! It didn't work, but by the end of the book, the kids all wanted it to rain.

The Books:

 

Kipper's Rainy Day based on the books by Mick Inkpen

One Rainy Day by M. Christina Butler

Floop's New Umbrella by Carole Tremblay

Rain Dance by Kathi Appelt

The Favorite: Rain Dance was the last book I read because I had the kids get up and act out all the animal parts to make our "rain dance" and it is always tough to get them to sit back down on their mats for another story after movement!

Flannelboard:  Five Little Raindrops
I LOVE LOVE LOVE this rhyme from thestorytimelady! It was

Five little raindrops 
dancing on a walk.
Pitter, patter, pitter, patter
That's the way they talk.
Out comes the yellow sun
Shining in the sky,
And away goes one raindrop
Bye, bye bye!

The kids really loved making a "rainstorm" with all the "pitter-pattering" on their knees/the floor. I'll definitely be using this rhyme again soon!



What's in the Memory Box?
I used my felt rain again from when I did a Robot theme. The kids all thought a cat would be in the box because they remembered the cat hiding in a tree in Kipper's Rainy Day. I don't know if they will ever guess right, but its fun watching them try every week!

The Craft: Grumpy Rain Clouds
I was the only one who made a Grumpy Cloud. Everyone else made one with a happy face, flowers or the biggest hit: RAINBOWS! I'm happy with my grumpy cloud though. I just gave them clouds cut from white construction paper, raindrops cut from blue construction paper and blue streamers. I was going to have them glue cotton balls on the clouds, but they were more interested in coloring and making faces with crayons instead. I'm happy about that since whenever we do crafts with cotton balls, half of the cotton balls always end up on the glue sticks!

Bunnies Story Time

This week's theme was bunnies so I could get away with doing an "Easter" story time without actually doing it. This way, if the parents want to incorporate the "Easter Bunny" while they do the craft, that's up to them. However, I'm playing it safe by just calling them bunnies!

The Books:

You're Finally Here! by Mélanie Watt

Little Bunny Foo Foo by Cori Doerrfeld

Squish Rabbit by Katherine Battersby

The Favorite: Little Bunny Foo Foo was the favorite, which I was surprised since they are all equally my favorite bunny stories! I wasn't sure how the parents/kids would react to Little Bunny Foo Foo eating the Good Fairy at the end of the book, but it went over okay as far as I could tell. I had the kids do the finger play motions as I read the book.


Flannelboard: 5 Little Bunnies Rhyme found on storytimekatie.com

Hippety hop and hippety hay,
Five little bunnies went out to play.
Hippety hop and hippety hay,
One little bunny hopped away.
(Repeat until there are no bunnies left)
No more bunnies are playing today,
I hope they come back another day.


The best part about this rhyme is having the kids repeat "Hippety hop and hippety hay" over and over before I started the rhyme to "make sure they could say it" and they were really excited to say it with me and kept them from grabbing the bunnies down from the flannelboard.


What's in the Memory Box? 
I put a tiny felt mouse in the box this time for the field mice that Little Bunny Foo Foo was bopping on the head. I wish I had put one of my felt cupcakes in there instead since that's what the mice stole from Foo Foo to make her chase them. I'll have to remember for next time.

The Craft: Bunny Finger Puppet
This craft was so simple! I remembered seeing a finger puppet paper dog on Pinterest some time ago and thought I could use that idea and make it into a bunny. Some of the kids didn't want holes and just covered them up with another white bunny head.

This is my first pattern-turned-PDF to share!

Butterfly Storytime

To celebrate the first day of Spring, I was all about caterpillars turning into butterflies for this story time. 

The Books:

Butterfly, Butterfly by Petr Horacek

 Butterfly, Butterfly has a great pop-up butterfly at the end of the story!

Good Night, Sweet Butterflies by Dawn Bentley

The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle

 Flannelboard: The Very Hungry Caterpillar

I made everything from the story out of felt and I have a great puppet of the butterfly at the end of the book, but of course, I can't find it! I love this story, so I'll use the flannelboard again this summer and hopefully I'll find the puppet by then!

All the food the caterpillar eats. 1 apple, 2 pears, 3 plums, 4 strawberries, 5 oranges, a piece of chocolate cake, an ice cream cone, a pickle, a slice of swiss cheese, slice of salami, a lollipop, a piece of cherry pie, sausage, a cupcake, and a slice of watermelon!

Big fat caterpillar ready for his cocoon!

I love this one because it has so many pieces. Most of the kids got to put up more than one piece of food.

What was in the Memory Box?
One of the oranges that the Very Hungry Caterpillar ate!

The Craft: Coffee filter butterflies

Mine is boring because I didn't paint it, but I gave the kids watercolor paint and they loved being able to make multicolored butterflies.

Green Story Time

It's time for another story time for St. Patrick's Day without having a holiday specific theme besides "green things"! I really like everything about St. Patrick's Day when thinking of a craft or activity, but as far as stories go, there's slim pickings for toddlers. Those leprechaun books are always so wordy and have paragraphs on each page.

So every year, I settle on stories & a craft that have to do with something "green."

The Books:

Five Green and Speckled Frogs by Priscilla Burris

Where is the Green Sheep? by Mem Fox

In the Tall, Tall Grass by Denise Fleming

We have an assortment of those ridiculously large picture books that I hardly ever use because they are hard to read and hold up due to their size. In the Tall, Tall Grass is one of those books, but I know this story by heart, so it wasn't a problem to turn the almost-life-size-pages so the kids could see.
I remember my School Librarian having a special stand for these large books, but we don't have one and I don't really care enough to get one. The big books that we do have aren't my favorites, so I wouldn't want to get one just for when I occasionally feel like using the big version. Ugh. #LibrarianProblems. Haha.






Flannelboard: Five Green and Speckled Frogs
I just used the props on the flannelboard to make the story interactive. While I read the story, I called up kids by name to grab a frog off the board. Notice the poor one-eyed frog. I have one toddler that really loves pulling eyes off of any felt with an eye. I'm just glad it was only one eye this time.

What was in the Memory Box?
I put a fly in there. This fly is from my super creepy "Lady Who Swallowed a Fly" doll that I bought at a NJLA Youth Services Forum. The reaction from the kids was split: either some were totally creeped out or some wanted to "pet" the fly. 

The Craft: Frog masks complete with party blower "tongue" to catch those flies.