Go, Shapes, Go! (Two's)

Preschool Storytime

"Go, Shapes, Go!"

Opening Fingerplay: Big Books

Fingerplay: "If You Want to Hear a Story"

Book: "Mouse Shapes"

*My new favorite shape book of all time!  I made all of the characters in the book out of construction paper, and laminated them for the flannelboard.  While I read the book, my volunteer placed them on the flannel.  We also used a cat puppet and three mice finger puppets.  It was so cute, I can't wait to read it again!

Fingerplay: "Shape Guessing Game" 

*I took basic shapes and labeled them on the front, and on the flip side I had pictures of items.  The kids then had to guess what was behind each one.  For instance, our triangle was a watermelon and our circle was a cookie. 

Action: "Shape Dancing"
*We handed out stars and hearts, and the kids danced around with them before our last story.

Book: "What Am I?  Looking Through Shapes at Apples and Grapes"

*This book was a great one to read with our kids, they loved guessing what fruit is revealed.  It's also an awesome book to help teach shapes and colors too.

Fingerplay/Flannel: "Baby Kangaroo, Behind Which Shape Are You?"
*Click here to visit the website that I found this great flannel on.  I just used the shapes from the earlier flannel, and made a little baby kangaroo to hide behind the shapes.  (We ran out of time for this fun game.)

Extra Read-Aloud Books:

• Achoo! by Morgand
• Dinosaur Shapes
• Go, Shapes, Go!
• Little Cloud
• Shape by Shape
• Walter's Wonderful Web

Click here to visit the website where I found the shape house craft.  I have found so many cute shape crafts, that I had to save them all on my pinterest board for future storytimes!  Below is our shape house craft that we did.

*All of the books went over great and the kids loved this craft.  I can't wait to do this theme again.  We had games today, and they were all a big hit!  I forget how much the 2's love beanbag games, and they went crazy!  I just cut a square and triangle out of a box, and had matching beanbags to go with it.  We also had shape bowling, and a pom-pom chute game.  Here is where I got the idea for the pom-pom chute game, and it was the most popular, I think.

T is for Tractor (Preschool)

Preschool Storytime

"T is for Tractor"

Opening Fingerplay: Big Books

Book: "Dog Wants to Play

*This book was the favorite pick by far!  All through the story, dog is wanting to play.  When?  Today!  Every time I read today, I had the kids shout it out with me.  By the end of the book, everyone had caught on.  Dog getting to meet all the animals on the farm was a big hit too.

Fingerplay/Flannel: This Little Chick

*The kids went crazy shouting out the colors of my chickens. You can get your copy of this great flannel at this website.

Book: “Do You Know Noses”

*I was really excited to use this book, and the kids enjoyed guessing what animal nose was being shown. It wasn't the favorite book read out of the bunch, but it feature all farm animals but the last one, which was a koala.

Fingerplay/Guessing Game: “Animal Farm Sounds”

*For this game, I used this free app through amazon.  I told the kids it was time to guess what farm animal they heard.  The turkey had all of them confused except one little boy, who yelled it out right away!  This app is okay, but next time I will probably look for a different one to use.

Book: “Cindy Moo” (With Puppets)

*This book takes the traditional nursery rhyme about the cow jumping over the moon and turns it into a great rhyming story. The kids enjoyed it, but not as much as I hoped they would. Still a great read-aloud.

Flannel: “Animal Match-Up” (Below is what mine look like.)

*For this, I decided to make a flannel game for the kids. I took three farm animals that I made and cut them in half. *GASP* It wasn't fun! I paired them up not correctly, and then presented them to my kids. Right away they started screaming out that I had messed all of the animals up. It was a lot of fun getting my animals right, and the kids had to correct me multiple times.

Book/Music: “Driving My Tractor”

*This books is so adorable! A great CD will play music and sign the whole book for you. We ended up doing something a little different with this one. To see what we did, you can view it at this page.

We got our craft idea from Oriental Trading, and below is what ours turned out like.  We decided to add some mud to the craft also.



Once a month I try and do games after storytime and you can check out our farm themed games by clicking here!

Driving My Tractor Storytelling

One of my favorite farm books is:


This adorable book comes with a great CD that follows each page.  What I decided to do was put all the animals inside the book onto boxes.  As the book progresses, we stacked another animal on top of the tractor.  Needless to say, the tractor was getting loaded down very quickly!  When the tractor hits a bump and all the animals in the book go flying away, guess what?  The boxes all got knocked down.  Much to the kids delight!  This was a really fun way to tell the story and make it more interactive.  I ended up playing the music and showing the pictures, while my volunteer stacked the boxes.

Farm Games & Sensory Bins

Once a month I like to have some games ready for the kids to play, before or after they do their craft.  This theme was based around the farm, and it was a lot of fun to plan.  I can't say the top pick for games, but it was a tie between the two sensory bins, for sure!



1.) Here is the website where I found this adorable game, sorting the pig tails.  We made our own version, which is pictured below.  The kids loved digging through our rice to find the pig's tails. 



2.) The next game was another sensory bin, and in this game the kids got to dig out the letters from the bin filled with rice.  Then they matched the letter with the corresponding barn.  For this one, I used barns and then added the letter and picture of the animal.  Again, the kids loved digging in the rice but also seemed to enjoy matching up the letters.  We used six barns, but below is a picture of what two of the barns looked like.




3.) The last game was bowling, and we took a bowling set we had and taped farm animals to it.  Bowling is always a big hit with the kids!

More new books!

More new books baby!



What a fun interactive book for bedtime!  This fuzzy little rabbit needs to go to bed, but not without your help!  Each page asks you to do cute things to help rabbit prepare for bed, ending with turning off the light.  Great for a bedtime storytime.


Another wonderful addition to this series.  I encourage you to check out all in by this author.  Each page features a cut-away that will reveal a wonderful scene behind it.  So much fun!


*What a fun book to explore!  I have to warn you, this book if full of little flaps to flip and explore.  I don't know how much of a life span this has on the shelf, but I've had a blast enjoying all the detailed illustrations and the rhyming texts.


*What a fun book about a cute, goggle wearing scientist!  Little Ada just wants to know why your nose curls up at smells!  With bouncing rhymes all through the book and adorable drawings to go along, follow Ada as she tries to figure out what makes our noses cringe!


Are you spooky?  This book is set to the tune we all know, if you're happy and you know it!  Kids will follow along very easily as they sing along to a Halloween themed dance party!


Think you know your noses?  A great guessing game for your kids, especially the younger ones.  Each page has a very close-up shot of a nose, and afterwards you will see a shot of the animal.  I love that all the animals in the book feature real pictures of the animals.  Execpt for the last animal featured, the koala, this is a great one to use for a farm theme.

New Books

I have new books to share!  Yeah!

This book is perfect for Halloween!  This book is filled with fun farm animal all decked out for Halloween.  If you like Halloween jokes, this book is for you!  If you're not familiar with the first book in the series, I highly recommend you check it out.

Another great book by Doreen Cronin starring the animals from Click, Clack, Moo.  It's birthday time on the farm, and all the animals pitch in, including little yellow duck!  Not only is this great for birthday theme storytime but you can also use it for bath time too.

A great movement and dancing book starring a cute puppy and a precious boy. Kids will love hopping, jumping and moving with you as you read this book.

Who is making that awful sound?  Is it a monster?  Oh no, it's just silly wolf!    All the animals gather, worried that the AAA-OOO is a monster just waiting to eat them up!  I can't wait to use this book during October.

Another precious and interactive book by Britta Teckentrup.  Can all the animals float over tiger with their balloons?  What happens if one pops?  Tiger wakes up to find his surprise, a birthday party!  The kids have to help keep tiger asleep by rubbing his nose, patting his belly and other fun things.

Pouch Flannel

Flannel: "Pouch"

The flannel below is based on the book "Pouch" by David Ezra Stein.  In the book baby kangaroo keeps jumping inside and out of his mama's pouch when animals scare him.  I decided to use a coloring page I found online and make two kangaroos for us to use so that our baby kangaroo could hop along with us as we read the story.

Ahoy Pirates! (Two's)

Time for Two's Storytime

"Ahoy Pirates!"

Opening Fingerplay: Big Books

Fingerplay: "If You Want to Hear a Story"

Book: "Pirate Treasure Hunt!" (With props)

*This book reads just like "We're Going on a Bear Hunt".  The ending of it teaches kids that the real treasure is books, of course! For this age group, I had little yellow circles to represent gold.  When we opened up our treasure chest to find the treasure chest full of gold coins, I threw my pretend gold coins on the kids.

Flannel: "Make-a-Pirate"

*Click here to view the flannel I made for this.  The kids had lots of fun telling me everything that I did wrong and correcting me with this flannel.

Fingerplay/Flannel: "Five Little Pirates Jumping on the Ship"
  Five little pirates jumping on the ship
  One fell off and took a dip.
  The captain yelled out on his sip,
  No more pirates jumping on my ship!
  -Continue singing until no more pirates, then:
  No little pirates jumping on the ship,
  The captain's all alone with a pouting lip.
  The pirates climb aboard and drip, drip, drip.
  Back to work, let's sail our ship!
*Here is where I found this great rhyme, along with a lot of other great pirate fingerplays.  When the pirates take a dip we sprayed the kids with water and they went crazy!

It's Dolly Parton Imagination Library week here in Tennessee, and I was asked to help promote it.  So we read a book that was on one of the lists.

Book: "Pouch"

*This book turned out to be so much fun to read.  I used a coloring page of a kangaroo and made this flannelboard, which you can see here.  The kids loved being able to hop, and we counted aloud as we hopped up and down.

This website is where we found the idea for our paper bag pirate.  For the girls, we laid out a braid on the table, to help them turn their pirate into a girl.  Below is a picture of our craft.


Extra Read-Alouds:
Pirates Love Underpants
Pirates Lullaby
Port Side Pirates


How could I end my pirate post without a picture of my loot?  This is the wonderful pirate chest my co-worker let me borrow, with my books of course!  Anytime I can dress up for storytime is always a winner with me!  Until next time mateys!

Ahoy Pirates! (Preschool)

Preschool Storytime

"Ahoy Pirates!"

Opening Fingerplay: Big Books

Book: "Pirate's Perfect Pet" (With props)

*This book was so much fun to read to the kids!  Near the end of the book the parrot poops on the pirate.  Of course, I had to dress up in my pirate costume, and the parrot was above my head.  We took a piece of batting and had it land on my head.  Several of the grown-ups laughed along with the kids when I started screaming.  By far a new favorite pirate book of mine!

Fingerplay/Flannel: "Five Little Pirates Jumping on the Ship"
  Five little pirates jumping on the ship
  One fell off and took a dip.
  The captain yelled out on his sip,
  No more pirates jumping on my ship!
  -Continue singing until no more pirates, then:
  No little pirates jumping on the ship,
  The captain's all alone with a pouting lip.
  The pirates climb aboard and drip, drip, drip.
  Back to work, let's sail our ship!
*Here is where I found this great rhyme, along with a lot of other great pirate fingerplays.  When the pirates take a dip we sprayed the kids with water and they went crazy!

Book: "Pirate Treasure Hunt!"

*This is such a great interactive book and it reads just like "We're Going on a Bear Hunt".   The ending is precious because it shows kids that the true treasure is books, of course!  We hid our books inside a real treasure chest that a co-worker let me borrow.  

Flannel: "Make-a-Pirate"
*Click here to view the flannel I made for this.  The kids had lots of fun telling me everything that I did wrong and correcting me with this flannel.

Fingerplay: "If You're a Pirate and You Know It"
  If you're a pirate and you know it, wash the deck (swish, swish)
  If you're a pirate and you know it, wash the deck (swish, swish)
  If you're a pirate and you know it, then your face will surely show it.
  If you're a pirate and you know it, wash the deck (swish, swish)
  Continue with: walk the plank, stomp stomp & say ahoy!
*We didn't have time to sing this one today, but it's always a great one to do.

It's Dolly Parton Imagination Library week here in Tennessee, and I was asked to help promote it.  So we read a book that was on one of the lists.

Book: "Pouch"

*This book turned out to be so much fun to read.  I used a coloring page of a kangaroo and made this flannelboard, which you can see here.  The kids loved being able to hop, and we counted aloud as we hopped up and down.

This website is where we found the idea for our paper bag pirate.  For the girls, we laid out a braid on the table, to help them turn their pirate into a girl.  Below is a picture of our craft.


Extra Read-Alouds:
Pirates Love Underpants
Pirates Lullaby
Port Side Pirates
This Little Pirate
Vitricia Malicia: Book-Loving Buccaneer

How could I end my pirate post without a picture of my loot?  This is the wonderful pirate chest my co-worker let me borrow, with my books of course!  Anytime I can dress up for storytime is always a winner with me!  Until next time mateys!

Make a Pirate Flannel

Flannel: "Make a Pirate"

In the flannel below, I start out by telling the kids that my pirate needs some help in getting dressed.  When I put the hats on, I always put on the wrong things first, and that way they can yell out that's wrong!  They love correcting me, and after two wrong attempts, we finally get the correct pirate hat.  Next, we move onto the shoes.  I don't have pictured below the pets, but I tell them my pirate needs a pet that starts with "P".  I put up a pig and of course that's wrong, so we end with a parrot.  (The idea for this came to me from seeing the blog here for a make-a-pig flannel.  I thought why not make a pirate!)

Boxed In at Storytime (Two's)

Time for Two's Storytime

"Boxed In at Storytime"

Opening Fingerplay: Big Books

Fingerplay: "Here Is a Box"
  Here is a box where something is hid
  I wonder whatever is under the lid.
  Let's listen for a shout.
  And see who comes out!
  (I pulled out a clipart of a rabbit to introduce our first story.)
Click here to go to the website where this great fingerplay is found.  There are also other great ideas for a box storytime, including a flannel I used below.

Book: "Not a Box" (With props)

*This blog has the most precious idea for turning this book into a great storytelling book.  I used a white box and hand drew the pictures inside the book, like they demonstrated.  Our rabbit puppet helped as I hung my pictures on thumbtacks stuck into the outside of my box.

Action: "Box Cube Animal Actions"
*For this I just covered a box I had with posterboard, and then put animal movements on it.  We rolled our box and then did whatever movement popped up.

Fingerplay: "Here Is a Box"
*This time I pulled out clipart of a lion from inside my box.

Storytelling: "Dear Zoo"

*Click here to get great clipart to turn this book into a version you can make interactive.  I used velcro to place the boxes over the animals.  After the kids tried to guess what the animal was that the zoo sent me, I lifted off the box and revealed the animal.

Fingerplay: "Little Fox, Little Fox"
  Little fox, little fox, are you under the {pink} box?
*Where I found the great "Here is a Box" fingerplay also had this great flannel guessing game.  The kids loved hunting for little fox.

Fingerplay: "Here Is a Box"
*This time I pulled out clipart of a bus from inside my box.

Fingerplay/Flannel: "Wheels on the Bus"

Fingerplay: "Here Is a Box"
*This time I would say that my box is empty!  All the animals ran out of my box and inside my last book.  

Book: "Who Is Smiling?"

*Sadly, I ran out of time to read this book to my group.  Would you know by looking at the cover that it's a monkey inside smiling at you?  All through the book you get little clues as to the animal, and the kids have to guess what animal is smiling at them.

*This website has a great zoo craft, and it gives you an idea of what you can do.  Below is how we did our craft.  The kids got to glue on the straw, banana and bars.  

Boxed In at Storytime (Preschool)

Preschool Storytime

"Boxed In at Storytime"

Opening Fingerplay: Big Books

Fingerplay: "Here Is a Box"
  Here is a box where something is hid
  I wonder whatever is under the lid.
  Let's listen for a shout.
  And see who comes out!
  (I pulled out a clipart of a lion to introduce our first story.)
Click here to go to the website where this great fingerplay is found.  There are also other great ideas for a box storytime, including a flannel I used below.

Book: "The Lion Inside" (With puppets)

*This is a great rhyming book about a little mouse who wants to be brave and roar like a lion.  It has a great meaning behind it also.

Action: "Box Cube Animal Actions"
*For this I just covered a box I had with posterboard, and then put animal movements on it.  We rolled our box and then did whatever movement popped up.

Fingerplay: "Here Is a Box"
*This time I pulled out clipart of a rabbit from inside my box.

Book: "Not a Box" (With props)

*This blog has the most precious idea for turning this book into a great storytelling book.  I used a white box and hand drew the pictures inside the book, like they demonstrated.  Our rabbit puppet helped as I hung my pictures on thumbtacks stuck into the outside of my box.  By far, this was the biggest hit with the group, telling me what my box was, according to the pictures.

Fingerplay: "Little Fox, Little Fox"
  Little fox, little fox, are you under the {pink} box?
*Where I found the great "Here is a Box" fingerplay also had this great flannel guessing game.  The kids loved hunting for little fox.

Fingerplay: "Here Is a Box"
*This time I pulled out clipart of a sign for the zoo from inside my box.

Storytelling: "Dear Zoo"

*Click here to get great clipart to turn this book into a version you can make interactive.  I used velcro to place the boxes over the animals.  After the kids tried to guess what the animal was that the zoo sent me, I lifted off the box and revealed the animal.

Fingerplay: "So Many Crayons"
  So many crayons in the box, some for me and some for you!
  But the little one that rhymes with head, it's the crayon that is red.
  Repeat with:
  But the one that rhymes with shoe, it's the crayon that is blue.
  But the one that rhymes with bean, it's the crayon that is green.
  But the one that rhymes with sink, it's the crayon that is pink.
*Here is the website where I found this fingerplay.  I did change the words around a bit.  Crayons do come in boxes, so they fit in nicely with this theme.

Fingerplay: "Here Is a Box"
*This time I would say that my box is empty!  All the animals ran out of my box and inside my last book.  

Book: "Who Is Smiling?"

*This book was my favorite pick from the bunch.  Would you know by looking at the cover that it's a monkey inside smiling at you?  All through the book you get little clues as to the animal, and the kids have to guess what animal is smiling at them.

*This website has a great zoo craft, and it gives you an idea of what you can do.  Below is how we did our craft.  The kids got to glue on the straw and the banana for the monkey.  After that they wrapped the yarn over for the cage.

Extra Read-Alouds:
A Box Can Be Many Things
Meow and the Big Box
My Book Box
Near, Far
Sitting In My Box
Spots in a Box
This Little Pirate
Warning! Do Not Open This Book
What To Do With a Box
Wolf's Coming!

Teddy Bears' Picnic (Two's)

Time for Two's Storytime

"Teddy Bears' Picnic"

Opening Fingerplay: Big Books

Fingerplay: "If You Want to Hear a Story"

Fingerplay: "We're Going on a Picnic"
Click here to view this fingerplay.

Book: "Bears Sees Colors" 

*The kids really enjoyed telling me what color bear sees.  I also made flannel pieces to go along with the book and had the kids tell me what bear sees.

Fingerplay: "Berry Dancing"
*I handed out strawberry and grapes.  We danced around with these before we fed our bear.

Fingerplay: "Feed Bear"
Here is where I found the fabulous idea of feeding our bear berries!  (We taped our bear to the front of an empty Kleenox box.)  I told the kids that I had a bear that needed berries just like the bear in our book.  They had a blast feeding the hungry bear strawberries and grapes.

Fingerplay: "We're Going on a Picnic"

Book: "Ants at the Picnic"

*This book turned out to be so much fun to read and make the props for.  Below is a picture of my props that I used.  I had my volunteer have the ants steal the picnic food as I read the book.  The kids had so much fun yelling out that the food had disappeared behind me.  A great book to use.


Fingerplay/Flannel: "Feed Animals Food"
(Click here to view this.)
*I ran out of time to do this.

Book: "Help! The Wolf is Coming!"

*I ran out of time and didn't get to read this book.  But it's a great interactive book to use.  I hate that I couldn't use it but plan to in the future.

Here is the website where we based our craft on and below is what our craft turned out like.


Extra Read-Alouds:
About a Bear
Bear & Hare: Where's Bear?
Bear Day by Cynthia Rylant
Bears Big Breakfast
Best Picnic Ever
I Went Walking
Lemons Are Not Red
Teddy Picnic

Feeding Animals Food Fingerplay and Flannel

Fingerplay: "Feeding Animals Food"

I don't have a rhyme for this activity but what I did is I based it off Eric Carle's book:

I apologize because I am sure I found this online, and I can't remember where, so if you came up with this brilliant idea, then please say so!  What I did is make food to place on the flannelboard.  Then the corresponding animals will pop up and I ask the kids to tell me what food they are suppossed to eat.  Then I will feed the animals their food.  Quite often I will get the wrong food by mistake so that the kids can correct me.