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.