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. 

Robot Story Time

I found two cute picture books about robots while shifting/shelf reading the picture books and after finding "robot parts" online, I thought I could have a robot themed story time. I didn't do much for this story time because I had a meeting to go to and I didn't want to cancel story time for it. Since R Robot Saves Lunch is a little wordy, I stuck with only reading two books and we talked about what kind of robot we would like to have.

The Books:

Hello, Robots by Bob Staake

R Robot Saves Lunch by Nicholas Kuszyk

What was in the Memory Box? RAIN!
The robots in Hello, Robots get all discombobulated after being out in the rain and have to exchange heads.

Craft: 
I did another easy craft just like with the Snowmen. I gave everyone a colored piece of construction paper and gave the kids assorted "robot parts" to color and assemble with glue onto the paper. I don't have a photo of this either because I didn't make an example since I didn't want the kids to have robots that all looked like mine. There were some creative robots!

Mittens and Hats Story Time

I'm using a winter theme again while I still can with mittens & hats.  One of the books I chose to go with this theme ended up being really funny in terms of how old it was.

The Books:

Three Little Kittens by Marilyn Janovitz

Whose Hat? by Margaret Miller

The Missing Mitten Mystery by Steven Kellogg

Favorite: Three Little Kittens. The kids thought it was hilarious that the kittens would eat pie with mittens on. I was planning on reading the board book about the Three Little Kittens story from Despicable Me movie, but I forgot to bring it. The little finger puppets attached to the book are so cute. Forgetting the book was probably a blessing in disguise though because the kids were especially grabby today with the felt board, so I'm sure that book would not have survived if I brought it in.

Whose Hat? by Margaret Miller was a great book, except for a few dated hats. We had fun trying to figure out who was wearing a hat and got most of the right, except for the nurse's hat. Of course, there's really no need to discard this book for one page, so if I read this again, I might skip that page. This would actually make a great flannelboard. I'll have to get on that for next time.

Paper boat? What is it?????

Oh! A nurse!

Love the pants.

Flannelboard: Mitten Match
No rhyme. I just called out a color and had the kids come up and match their mittens to the one of that color.

What was in the Memory Box?
A felt cat. All the kids wanted to "pet" the cat. 

Craft:
I saw this cute idea online and even though it was painting (gasp! parents freak whenever I get out the paint!) I thought they would like the keepsake of their child's hand prints. And I was right.

This rebel didn't want to get his hands dirty, so we compromised with just one.

Snowman Story Time

Since it might not be Winter much longer here in NJ, I wanted to get the obligatory "snowman" story time out of the way. With the holidays and being closed, I haven't had much time to come up with a cooler theme. Eh, it happens.

The Books:

Snow Party by Harriet Ziefert

A Winter Day by Douglas Florian

The First Day of Winter by Denise Fleming

Spring Snowman adapted by Jill Barnes

I really liked The First Day of Winter by Denise Fleming even though it is about the beginning of winter, but it is about building a snowman, so it didn't really matter about the time of year.  This story has the potential to be a great flannelboard without lots of pieces.

Spring Snowman is the saddest book I've ever read. The illustrations are sad, but I really liked the idea. The forest animals are excited because Spring is coming and try to explain Spring to the Snowman. Of course, the Snowman melts and in its place grows a bunch of white flowers in the shape of a snowman, hence the Spring Snowman. Really cute story, creepily drawn animals. The book is so old that I couldn't find an image online. I had to take a picture of the book!

Activity: Five Snowmen
Made this from clip art and just colored their hats different colors.

What was in the Memory Box?
Since I couldn't hide actual snow in the box for fear of melting, (aw man!) I hid a snowman left from an old snowman craft. All the kids wanted to "pet" the snowman.

Craft: 
I don't have a picture of this, but I gave everyone a piece of blue construction paper, three circles, crayon and white paint. They were able to make finger print snowflakes with the paint after they assembled and colored their snowmen. Very easy craft.

Love Love Love Story Time

Since Valentine's Day is this week and some of the Valentine's Day books are too long for story time attention spans and my last-minute-way-of-planning-things so all the good ones are gone, I usually stick with a "love" or "pink & red" theme for story time. Of course, our craft always has to do with hearts!

The Books:

Clifford's Valentines by Norman Bridwell

The I Love You Book by Todd Parr

No Matter What by Emma Dodd

Activity: Down Around the Corner Flannelboard featuring felt heart cookies!

Down around the corner at the bakery shop
Were 5 heart cookies with icing on top.
Along came <insert name of kid> with a nickel to pay.
And they bought a heart cookie and took it away.

I gave out felt nickels to the kids so they had to pay me before grabbing a cookie off the flannelboard. One of the kids said he would rather just keep the money. Hilarious.

I'm so glad I found this on Mel's Desk because I use it a lot for story times when I need a flannelboard story quick.

It was so crazy during Toddler Time again this week, that I just have 10 felt brown hearts and 10 different colored heart felt "icing". I put the cookies on the flannelboard & gave out the icing, so the kids came up and put their icing on when I called their color. This was great since there are so many at Toddler Time and they all want a piece to put up at the same time!


What's in the Memory Box?
Race car! Egg! Tractor! ...... Every. Week. It cracks me up. 

Me: Did we read stories about a race car today?

Majority of Kids: NOooooo!  1 or 2 Kids: YESSSS!

Me: Are you sure?

1 or 2 Kids: YESSSSSS!

Me: Seriously?

Guess what. No race car. No egg. No tractor. AN ELEPHANT!!!!

 


Craft: Bouquet of heart flowers!

My favorite thing about a Valentine's Day story time is buying valentines to give out to the kids. Its like I'm in grade school all over again!