Build a Better Dance Party (SRP-Preschool and Two's)

Preschool Storytime

Opening: Big Books

Book: Dancing Feet

*The kids really enjoyed this book, and guessed all the animals really fast!

Fingerplay/Flannel: Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed

Book: Don’t Push the Button!

*I was hoping the kids would have enjoyed this book more than they did. But a few of them wanted me to push the button again at the end and read the book over. That's always a good sign!

Fingerplay/Flannel: Five Ballet Dancers

*This action fingerplay fit in perfectly with the theme, and since I was wearing my purple tutu I looked like a ballerina! You can find the words for this here.

Book: If You’re Hoppy

*At the last minute I decided to swap out books, and I'm glad I did! I was afraid I would confuse the kids, changing the words out to the traditional song "If You're Happy and You Know It". Thankfully they went right along with this book and had a blast dancing along with all the animals we saw.

Song: Silly Dance Contest

*Our take-home craft today was a pig in a party hat! For the preschoolers we didn't draw the mouth on the pig, so that they could do that when they made this at home.

Extra Books:

Boogie Monster

Elephant’s Cannot Dance! (I was so excited to read this with my volunteer, but I only got to do this with my group who visited on Monday.)

Hop is Up

Pete the Cat and the Cool Cat Boogie

Tap to Play

Extra Music:

Joel Reece Reach for the Ceiling

Raffi Silly Dance Contest

Freeze Dance

Time for Two’s Storytime

Opening: Big Books

Fingerplay: If You Want to Hear a Story

Book: Dancing Feet (With puppets)

*The two's loved this book, especially seeing the animals!

Fingerplay/Flannel: Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed

Book: Jump! by Steve Lavis

*I had down another book to read with the two's, and a little boy with the group that visited asked me to read this book instead.  It's a wonderful read, full of action and movement!

Fingerplay/Flannel: Lion Hiding Game

*The two's went crazy as soon as I told them we were going to look for the lion! They absolutely love hunting for my animals that I have hidden.

Fingerplay: Five Ballet Dancers

*Normally I am wanting to do something to get the two's moving, but today they were already way too riled up. But this is a wonderful action to do, that fits in perfectly with dancing. You can find the words for this here.

Book: If You’re Happy and You Know It (With Music)

*This book is wonderful to use, and it comes with a CD to play.

Action: Animal Dancing

*Our craft today, was a pig in a party hat! The two's glued everything on the pig. The ears, nose, hat, circle and squares. They were so happy with the pigs, they loved them!

Extra Book:

A Hop is Up

New Book

Unfortunately, we haven't been able to order many new books in a while.  But we got this wonderful new book in today I had to share!



The illustrations in this book absolutely make you fall in love with all the animals.  My favorite page?  The illustration with bear looking over at squirrel with his mouth full of a corn cob!  Oh my, you've got to check out this wonderful book about all the animals and precious bear.

Build a Better Tractor (SRP-Two's)

Time for Two's Storytime:

Opening: Big Books

Fingerplay: If You Want to Hear a Story

Fingerplay/Flannel: Five Little Farm Friends

*I have no idea where this came from, but the two's loved it today!

Book: I Spy on the Farm

*These books by Edward Gibbs are so great to use with the two's. They loved seeing the farm animals.

Action: Farm Animal Actions

Flannel Board:  Hide and Seek Pumpkin

*This time we just hunted for a duck behind our barn. But the next time I do this, I want to put different items behind each barn, like this website suggests. I really love that idea!

Fingerplay/Flannel: Five Little Cowboys Jumping on the Bed

*I ran out of time to do this one today.

Book: Driving my Tractor

*My favorite thing to do with this book is use boxes! Check out what I mean by clicking here. The only thing I will change is not holding up the book, because this seemed to confuse the two's. I had the music playing, showing the book and using the boxes. Just a little too much going on at once.

Song: Old McDonald Had a Farm

Fingerplay: Farm Animal Dancing

For our craft today, the two's glued all the animals around the barn.

Extra Book: Moo: A Counting Book

Peek-a-Boo Farm

Build a Better Dragon (SRP-Preschool)

Preschool Storytime:

Opening: Big Books

Flannel: Hippity-Hop

*This was so much fun to use! The only thing I changed was make the frogs see a dragon instead of the alligator. Because our storytime is about dragons. The kids had fun counting the frogs and telling me that we hadn't reached the top of my flannelboard yet. I found this wonderful idea here, and you can see it along with the words too.

Book: It Came in the Mail

*I decided at the last minute to read this book, and I'm really glad I did!  I took three felt mailboxes I bought for a dollar each, and put inside small animals inside them.  As I read the story I opened up my mailboxes to show the kids what I had gotten inside each mailbox.  The only thing I would do differently next time is make one giant mailbox that I can stuff lots of crazy and fun stuff inside.

Fingerplay: Dragon, Dragon

*We had lots of fun standing up and being dragons.  Check out the words for this here.

Book: I Will Not Eat You

*I love the pair of eyes peering out of the cave on the cover of this book!  The kids really enjoyed this book, especially making all the animal noises!  When we discovered it was a dragon hiding in the cave, a big dragon popped his head up over our puppet stage, much to the delight of the kids.

Fingerplay: Dragon Hiding Game

Little dragon, little dragon, where can you be?

Are you hiding behind the {red} tree?

*I wanted a hiding game to play today, and this is what we did!

Fingerplay: Five Dragons Jumping on the Bed

*Of course we had to jump up and down, so instead of monkeys we were dragons!

Book: Not Your Typical Dragon

*This book is great, but very lengthy. To make it shorter, I did skip a lot of the words, but still got the point of the book across. Baby Crispin the dragon can't breathe fire, but he can breathe everything else! From marshmallows to teddy bears! I had all the items cut out of paper, and every time that baby Crispin tries to breathe fire and doesn't, I would throw out the item that appears in the book. They went crazy!

Action: Dragon Hunt

*We ran out of time today to go on a dragon hunt.

Our take home craft today was a dragon made out of a toilet paper roll.  So cute!  Check out the instructions for this fire-breathing dragon here!

  

Extra Books:

How to Draw a Dragon

How to Dress A Dragon (The next time I read this I want to make a flannel to go along with the book.)

One Drowsy Dragon

There Was an Old Dragon Who Swallowed a Knight

Build a Better Crayon (SRP-Two's)

Time for Two’s Storytime

Opening: Big Books

Fingerplay: If You Want to Hear a Story

Book: Monsters Love Colors

*The kids loved this book! What I did was make each colored monster, and hid them inside a secret pocket inside my cauldron. I showed my empty to the kids before starting. Then when I dropped my monsters inside and mixed them together, out came the different colored monster. The kids thought I was magical, it was awesome!

Fingerplay/Flannel: I Have a Crayon

For this flannel I fed my crayons, to the puppets who visited me. Click here to see this fabulous crayon fingerplay and much more!

Fingerplay/Flannel:Pete the Cat Hiding Game
*Today we hunted for Pete the Cat underneath different colored shoes.

Book/Flannel:Cat’s Colors  

*I love the illustrations in this book, especially the way the colors pop out. I asked the kids to tell me what color cat sees on each page, and they got really excited to tell me! Cat gets a colored dot on his fur for each color he sees, so I had my puppet visit me while I read. I had all the colored dots cut out, and placed these on the puppet while I read the book. Check out this great website for more ideas to use with this book.

Song/Flannel: Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed

Book: Pete the Cat: I Love My White Shoes

*I ran out of time to read this favorite book of mine, but I did find wonderful flash cards to use! You can view them here!

Action: Crayon Dancing

For our craft today, we made my favorite color crayon, purple!  The kids glued on purple squares and the word purple.

Extra Books:

Colors All Around (Awesome book!!!)

I Know a Wee Piggy

Build a Better Robot (SRP-Preschool)

Preschool Storytime

Opening: Big Books

Draw and Tell Story: Robot
*Most of the kids guessed right away it was a robot, but I still had a blast doing this. You can find the story and the instructions for this here.

Book: Beep! Beep! Go to Sleep!



*I love the three little robots in this story. When I was reading this to my groups that visited, they caught on very quickly when it was time to say "Beep! Beep!". It was so precious!

Flannelboard: “Five Noisy Robots”

*I didn't do this wonderful fingerplay, but I still wanted to include it.  I planned on feeding robots to my puppets.  I found this great fingerplay here.

Fingerplay: Robot, Robot, Turn Around

Robot, robot, turn around.

Robot, robot, touch the ground.

Robot, robot, turn left and right.

Robot, robot, flash your lights.

Robot, robot, bloop and bleep.

Robot, robot, go to sleep.

*It's always fun to stand up and move around.  This fun fingerplay is about robots, check it out here!

Book: Raybot (With puppets)

*This book was so much fun to read! Cute raybot is looking for a puppy, but runs into all the wrong animals. I had my animal friends with me, and the kids loved getting to see them. At the end, raybot thinks the parrot is the right friend, because it barks back at him! Such a great book for robots or an animal storytime.

Fingerplay: Robot Hiding Game

*I love using hiding games, and today we found the robot! I found this great game here!

Fingerplay/Flannel: Five Little Robots Jumping on the Bed

*At the last minute, I decided we needed to jump, so I took my five little robots and put them on our bed.  We jumped up and down like robots, instead of monkeys jumping on the bed.  Always a hit!

Fingerplay: The Lights on the Robot (Tune: The Wheels on the Bus)

*Another great fingerplay to do, but we ran out of time for this one.  You can see it here!

Book: Big Bot Small Bot: A Book of Opposites

* I was a little worried about doing a book with opposites, but most of the group caught on super quick!  The illustrations in this book are awesome!

Our take home craft today was a robot! We just used a bunch of random shapes and put it all in a ziploc bag for the kids.

Extra Books:
If You're A Robot and You Know It

Build a Better World (SRP-Preschool and Two's)

Happy summer reading! This is the first storytime of the summer. Below are my group and normal storytime plans. We are having Monday, Tuesday and Thursday morning storytimes. We have five storytimes a week, weather permitting the groups being able to walk to the library. Yeah for summer reading!!!

Group & Preschool Storytime

Opening: Big Books

Fingerplay: Things That Go

*This was such a fun flannelboard to do, and the kids loved telling me how I had my items in the wrong place. I found this delightful flannelboard here.

Book: Pete the Cat and the Five Little Ducks

*I tend to forget how much the kids love Pete the Cat! For this story, I had five ducks that I taped to rulers, and my volunteer propped them behind me, on our puppet stage. As I read the story, a little duck would disappear behind me. The kids went crazy hollering and squealing when the ducks disappeared! I had so much fun with this story, and am so happy that the kids really got into the story with me!

Fingerplay: Five Frogs

*The kids loved this! I've used this once before, and the kids went crazy over it, so I had to pull it out again. To see this hopping good fingerplay, visit this website.

Book/Puppet Show: It’s A Beautiful World  

*A couple of years ago, a puppet show was made for the song "What a Wonderful World." Every time I hear this song, I want to cry, it's just so gorgeous. I only did this with the group at 9:30, and they were just so excited to see things pop up over the puppet stage, that it was hard for us to hear the music! But overall, it's a great thing to do for your group.

Fingerplay: Clifford, clifford, where’s your bone?   

*Usually when I play hiding games on the flannelboard, I only hide the one item we are looking for. When I found this fingerplay, I loved the idea of hiding something different under each item. I used a dog and doghouses that I had made previously. Usually we just look for the dog bone. I didn't tell the kids there would be other items hidden. The kids loved seeing different items under the doghouses. We ended up finding a heart, pumpkin, and a cat! I found this wonderful idea here.

Pete the Cat: I Love My White Shoes

*As you can tell, Pete the Cat is a big favorite of mine. What really made this book fun was the wonderful activity cards I found on this website. After I read the story, I held up more of the cards and asked the kids what color Pete's shoes would turn if he stepped in the different items. We had lots of fun naming the colors.

Fingerplay: Birdhouse and Bird Matching Game

*I love having the kids tell me what I have wrong on my flannelboard, and I found a great birdhouse flannel on this website. I decided to make my own version, so I made red, yellow, green and blue birdhouses and the birds to match. I mixed them all up and showed the kids. Right away the kids told me that my birds were in the wrong house, and it took me a few tries before I got every bird in the correct house.

Action: Animal Dancing

Book: Achoo! By Morgand

*I am heads over heels in love with this book, and the kids are too! Probably because I throw paper pieces out onto them as I read, but that's okay! All the animals in this book sneeze and loose their ears or eyes. I have the kids help me sneeze, and after I do that, I have the shape "rain" down onto the kids. They go crazy grabbing for the pieces as they fall down. It's organized chaos, but so much fun!

Our craft today was a paper tree. The kids glued down everything but the brown paper.

Time for Two’s Storytime

Opening: Big Books

Fingerplay: If You Want to Hear a Story

Book: Book: Pete the Cat and the Five Little Ducks

*I tend to forget how much the kids love Pete the Cat! For this story, I had five ducks that I taped to rulers, and my volunteer propped them behind me, on our puppet stage. As I read the story, a little duck would disappear behind me. The kids went crazy hollering and squealing when the ducks disappeared! I had so much fun with this story, and am so happy that the kids really got into the story with me!

Fingerplay: Five frogs from Splish Splash storytime

*The kids loved this! I've used this once before, and the kids went crazy over it, so I had to pull it out again. To see this hopping good fingerplay, visit this website.

Book: Bottoms Up! (Board Book)

*I love the little pig butt on the front of this book! I switched out my book at the last minute, and I'm so glad I did! The two's loved guessing the animal hiding in the book. It really helped that this is a lift-the-flap book. The next time that I use this book, I will use puppets.

Fingerplay: Clifford, clifford, where’s your bone?   

*Usually when I play hiding games on the flannelboard, I only hide the one item we are looking for. When I found this fingerplay, I loved the idea of hiding something different under each item. I used a dog and doghouses that I had made previously. Usually we just look for the dog bone. I didn't tell the kids there would be other items hidden. The kids loved seeing different items under the doghouses. We ended up finding a heart, pumpkin, and a cat! I found this wonderful idea here.

Book: Achoo! By Morgand

*I am heads over heels in love with this book, and the kids are too! Probably because I throw paper pieces out onto them as I read, but that's okay! All the animals in this book sneeze and loose their ears or eyes. I have the kids help me sneeze, and after I do that, I have the shape "rain" down onto the kids. They go crazy grabbing for the pieces as they fall down. It's organized chaos, but so much fun!

Our craft today was a paper tree. The kids glued down everything but the brown paper. The trees turned out looking adorable! I love picking out crafts were the kids can make it look however they want. To me that's what makes it their own, unique craft!