Flip, Flap, Fly! (Preschool and Two's)

Preschool Storytime:

Opening: Big Books

Book: I Spy in the Sky (Special guest doing ASL.)

*I was afraid this book might have been too simple for the preschoolers, but it wasn't. Some of the birds inside this book I couldn't even guess on my own!

Flannel: Bird House Matching Game

*The preschoolers love telling me what I've done wrong on my flannelboard, and this presents the perfect opportunity! I just made my own version on publisher, and I've included a picture below of what it looks like. Of course, I never start out with each bird in the correct house, that would be too easy!

Book: There Is a Bird on Your Head!

*I love to literally bring a book, so to do that I have a nest that I put right on top of my head.  No, it's not a real one, just pretend.  I read/act out the part of Elephant and my volunteer reads/acts out the part of Piggie.  This year the reactions of the preschoolers was just too cute!  I have all the birds already inside my "nest".  It's nothing more than a bowl that we've taped to a headband.  That way it won't flop off of my head when I move around.  If you've never acted out an Elephant and Piggie book before in storytime, I highly recommend that you do!

Action: Owl Counting

*The preschoolers love when we are counting animals and all of a sudden one animal disappears! This precious counting rhyme is perfect for that! I had five owls propped up on my puppet stage, and we all jumped and flapped until one would fly away!

Credit:https://www.facebook.com/ivyhandmadedesign2014/photos/pcb.856769371084615/856769147751304/?type=1&theater

Book: Shhh! We Have a Plan

*This book went over pretty good, but I think the preschoolers wanted me to "catch" the bird with my net.  All through the book you are trying to catch a bird.  To do this, you will tiptoe, climb, paddle your way to the little bird.  It's a precious book and the preschoolers did enjoy doing all the actions with me.

Our craft today was a peek-a-boo birdhouse! I wanted to do something different, so on the outside the preschoolers glued down some decorative red paper. Then you opened up the birdhouse to find the mama bird, eggs, and her nest. We did have games today, so unfortunately I didn't get to see many of the crafts. You can check out our games that we did here!

Extra Books:

Time for Two’s Storytime:

Opening: Big Books

Office Book: Butterfly, Butterfly

*This is a stunning pop-up book, because right at the end the butterfly pops right out at you! The two's did great telling me all the insects you find throughout the book. I didn't say anything about the butterfly jumping out at the end, and they just loved it!

Fingerplay: Farm Animal Action Cards

Fingerplay/Flannel: Mouse and Cheese Hiding Game

Credit: Etsy Shop

Storytelling: Very Hungry Caterpillar

*I absolutely love to tell this story, and even though our crowd was very low today, most of the two's could tell me what the caterpillar was eating. Ever since I've worked here, we've had a little butterfly fingerpuppet that slips right over your finger. So, you put that inside your caterpillar sock, without letting anyone see you. Then, when the caterpillar goes into its cocoon, you wrap the sock over your hand. Once the caterpillar breaks out of the cocoon, you reveal the butterfly hiding! The two's gave me the best reaction today! They were just enthralled to see that butterfly appear right before their eyes!

Action: Owl Counting

I had five owls propped up on my puppet stage, and we all jumped and flapped until one would fly away!

Credit:https://www.facebook.com/ivyhandmadedesign2014/photos/pcb.856769371084615/856769147751304/?type=1&theater

Our craft today was a peek-a-boo birdhouse! The two's glued down everything you see, which I thought was a whole lot, but it took them no time to do.

April Sensory Bins and Games

1.) Rabbit Sponge Ball Push
For this game, the kids matched up the sponge balls to the correct colors on the bunny.  Each paw had a different color.  Or they could just go crazy and push the balls in wherever they liked!

2.) Bug and Leaf Color Matching
Credit: Busy Little Bugs




3.) Caterpillar Pom-Pom Push
Credit: (If this is your idea, please let me know!)





4.) Chicken and Egg Bowling
Credit: Oriental Trading





5.) Owl Addition
Credit: Make, Take & Teach
*I was so excited to use addition in our sensory games.  How did it go?  Not good at all.  Unfortunately the preschoolers aren't quite ready to tackle this yet, but I have never tried addition with them before.  I do have to say that they are doing amazing with spelling, so that's great!



6.) Dinosaur Spelling
Credit: Pocket of Preschool
*The preschoolers did amazing with this!  It's been a little while since we've done spelling like this, but they had no problem at all with it!

We're Going on a Bug Hunt (Preschool and Two's)

Preschool Storytime:

Opening: Big Books

Book: What Does the Bee See?

Fingerplay: Hiding Game?

Little bug, little bug, are you under the {red} rug?

Book: Bye, Bye, Big Bad Bullybug!

*I adore using this book for bug storytime, because the big bad bullybug appears one little piece at a time. This time the preschoolers went crazy screaming and hollering when the full picture of the bullybug appeared. It was so much fun!

Fingerplay: Bug Action Cards

Storytelling: Very Hungry Caterpillar

Credit: I apologize, I can't give credit, there was only a picture, no link.

*I wanted to do something different with this story when I tell it to the preschoolers. I was a little nervous, because I've never given them items to hold onto while I'm telling the story. But the preschoolers did great waiting to feed the caterpillar.  They all waited to bring up their food and loved feeding my caterpillar. They were just awestruck when the butterfly appeared, this hasn’t happened in a really long time!

Our craft today was a torn paper bumblebee! (The yellow of the body is torn paper.) Instead of the black torn paper like the link shows, we had solid stripes. We did this to make the craft a little easier for the preschoolers.

Credit: http://www.primarythemepark.com/2016/04/bee-craft-template/

Extra Books:

Time for Two’s Storytime:

Opening: Big Books

Book: Where’s the Ladybug?

*These are amazing lift-the-flap books. The primary reason why? The flaps are made out of felt! The two's loved seeing the felt flaps in the book.

Fingerplay: Bug Action Cards

Fingerplay/Flannel: Little Bug, Little Bug, Are You Under the Rug?

Credit: Storytime With Miss Tara

Book: Bye, Bye, Big Bad Bullybug!

Fingerplay: Here is the Beehive

Here is the beehive (hold out one fist)

But where are the bees?

Hiding inside where nobody sees (point to fist)

Watch as the bees come out of their hive

1...2...3...4...5! (count on fingers)

Buzzzzz!

(Buzz them fast, slow, high, low!)

Credit: http://www.abbythelibrarian.com/2015/04/preschool-storytime-bugs.html

*I forget how important doing rhymes like this are, and the two's loved doing this. After we revealed our bees inside our had we stood up and danced around.  One little girl even gave me suggestions, so cute!

Book: Buzz-Buzz, Busy Bees

*The two's loved seeing the puppets pop up behind me, but this book was a little long to do read at the end of storytime. Next time I will try and remember to do this book at the beginning.  The two's really enjoyed seeing the bees disappear inside the book.

Our craft today was a torn paper bumblebee! (The yellow of the body is torn paper.) Instead of the black torn paper like the link shows, we had solid stripes. We did this to make the craft a little easier for the preschoolers.

Credit: http://www.primarythemepark.com/2016/04/bee-craft-template/

Today was our game day!  Check out what we did here!

Dinosaur Party (Elementary)

Well, let me say I am one tired dinosaur!  Earlier this week we did our first dinosaur party!  ROAR!!!!!!!!  Our crowd really surprised us, but in a very good way.  We had a total of 229 people!!! 139 kids and 90 adults.  This has set a record for us with our elementary age party.  What really made it work out so well was we had things set up outside, otherwise we couldn't have allowed everyone into our auditorium at the same time.  My boss has graciously allowed my creative mind to go wild, in that I'm allowed to plan and present things like this every couple of months.  What will be happening in August?  Stay tuned!


1.) Triceratops Craft
Credit: Arty Crafty Kids
The original craft for this was a paper plate, but we had so many of these to make, we made our craft out of construction paper.  In the middle of this picture we taped down a sample for everyone to see, and this worked out wonderfully!  My favorite part of this craft is that the mouth opens up and you can see all the teeth!

2.) Dinosaur Headband Craft
Credit: (No link for this, just a picture on pinterest.  If this is your idea, please leave a comment!)
This turned out to be so popular with all of the kids!  The best part was watching them all run around with their headbands on!  The cutest thing was, I had one of my storytime kids show up the next day wearing his headband, so precious!


3.) Torn Paper Volcano
Credit: Preschool Crafts for Kids 
I was really excited about this craft, because usually any torn paper craft the kids go crazy over.  For whatever reason, this was the only craft that we had any left of.  Granted, it wasn't a lot that we had left, but all of our others crafts we didn't have hardly anything left.


4.) T-Rex Craft
Credit: Teachers Pay Teachers
There is a wonderful dinosaur bundle you can get through the link above.  We only needed one dinosaur craft, so we made the one below.  We had some very creative and terrific dinosaurs made!

5.) Dino Decorations
Sadly, time just got away from me, with trying to get decorations ready for SRP.   That's honestly not a good excuse at all.  I really had all these giant decorations in mind for this party, but there is always next time!  I did get some things done, and I've included them below.  I have to give kudos to one special volunteer, my mom.  She made every craft you see above, helped cut and put up all the decorations, and stayed all day, from early morning to that evening.  She helped set up, work the whole party, then cleaned up that evening.  She will never see this blog, or I highly doubt it, but she does every craft for our weekly storytime, every party, she's an amazing woman and I love her very much!

This is our tabletop decorations, isn't it cute!  It's a paper towel roll, with paper leaves, river rocks at the bottom, and shredded paper confetti.

Below is a picture of dino footsteps leading into our auditorium.  I hope the kids liked these, I was too wild running around to see their reactions!

We had games setup outside, which was amazing!  I ordered these dino balloons off ebay, so I wanted to draw attention to our dino footsteps.  Unfortunately the wind blew many of the footsteps away, as you can tell if you look closely in the picture!  But I am so thankful that the Lord blessed us with a glorious day, it was picture perfect!


I have to be silly, don't you know me by now?   I posed in our dino headband, in front of our "dig site" door.  This caution tape is amazing, and I still have a whole roll left!  

6.) Dinosaur Bones Matching
Credit: Catch My Party
I had hoped the kids would have enjoyed this more than they did, but I wasn't outside with it, so hopefully they did.  I ordered a dinosaur skeleton sand molds off ebay, and used stepping stones dry concrete mix to pour into the molds.  Word of advice, spray lots and lots of pam into your molds and grease every nook and cranny of them.  That way each piece of the skeleton will pop right out!  I made two sets and a partial of my third set.  I think next time I do this party, I will just hide the skeleton set inside our sand pit, which is the next game I've included below.

7.) Dinosaur Egg Excavation
I would have loved to do the cool science experiments where we make our dinosaur eggs fizz or explode, but with our crowd we were expecting, it just wasn't feasible.  So, I took jumbo easter eggs and put plastic dinos inside them.  Next, we buried them in sand!  The only thing was I needed more dinos and couldn't find them at the last minute.  Everyone seemed to go crazy over this, so I'm already racking my brain for what I can do next time!

8.) Tricera-Toss
Credit: (There is no link, just a picture on pinterest.  If this is your fabulous idea, please let me know! That way I can give you credit.)
This game was such a big hit!  Our game is weighted down by river rocks, because the wind was blowing.  I laid out rubber rings that you can use in the pool to toss around, and they worked perfectly!  The only thing was our horns kept getting torn off, but otherwise this was perfect!

9.) Dinosaur Bingo
Credit: Artsy Fartsy Mama
I think the kids would have played bingo non-stop, which they almost did!  This is the most amazing set of dinosaur bingo I've ever seen, be sure to check it out!

10.) Dinosaur Eggs

11.) Dino Bones

Credit: (No link, just picture. If this is your idea, leave a comment please!)

12.) Dino Sours

Credit: (Link no longer found, I apologize.)

13.) Dino Scales

Credit: Love Always, Mommy

I end my dinosaur post by a picture of myself as a cavewoman.  Looking back, I always have bittersweet feelings about the parties.  Yes, I stress way too much, but knowing everyone enjoyed them, that's what matters.  Hopefully we show them that a library is a place of happiness and that they will come back to us for literacy, learning and so much more.