Walking Through the Jungle (Preschool and Two's)

Preschool Storytime

Opening: Big Books

App: Guess Jungle Sounds!

*I love using animal sounds in my storytime, and a jungle sounds app was the perfect thing to use. The kids knew the jungle animal sounds right away, which was great! I hope to incorporate more apps into storytime this fall, because this was so much fun!

Book: Who Woke the Baby?

*The kids loved this book, especially repeating all the animal noises with me. You will fall in love with the illustrations in this book, because they are truly breathtaking.

Fingerplay: Jungle Animal Action Cards

*One of our favorite activities is standing up and acting like animals!

Book:  Bearum Scarum

*I am head over heels in love with this book, and thankfully the kids really loved it too! I was really worried to use the word hunter, but everything went great. What I did was print out ten adorable hunters and placed them on rulers. Then I had my volunteer prop them up behind me on the puppet stage. As I read the book, an animal would sneak up behind me and take down a hunter, just like it happens in the book. At the end, the very last hunter runs away, so we all patted our legs to help the hunter run! This book is really cute, and I'm so glad that it went over well!

Fingerplay/Flannel: Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed

Book: Who Made Me Jump?

*The kids really liked this book, but I only wish it was much bigger. I have to give my kids credit, they are very smart and figured out all the animals by just looking at their eyes. As you can tell on the cover of the book, you guess what animal made Hugo the hummingbird jump!

Fingerplay: Lion Hiding Behind Door Guessing Game

Lion, lion, behind a door.

When we find you, let’s give a ROAR!!!!

*We ran out of time today to hunt our lion.

Action: We’re Going on a Lion Hunt!

*We ended storytime by trying to catch a jungle animal in my handy-dandy butterfly net!

Our craft today was a snake that was made from the letter "S". The kids had so much fun taking that snake and making it slither and hiss around! The kids glued everything down on the snake except for the wiggly eyes!

Time for Two's Storytime:

 Opening: Big Books

Fingerplay: If You Want to Hear a Story

Book: If You’re Happy and You Know It (Jungle Version)

*This is so much fun to read, and it was great having all the parents join in with me!

Fingerplay: Jungle Animal Action Cards

Fingerplay: Lion Hiding Behind Door Guessing Game

Lion, lion, give a roar!

Where are you hiding, behind which door?

Book: Snap! Snap! Guess the Animal

*I love this book, and a lift-the-flap book is always a good choice with the two's.

Fingerplay/Flannel: Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed

*I didn't intentionally plan it, but two of my books were singing books!  We had fun picking up the animals on our bus and singing.

Action: We’re Going on a Tiger Hunt!

Our craft today was a snake that was made from the letter "S". The kids glued everything down on the snake except for the wiggly eyes!

Extra Book:

Peekaboo in the Jungle

Puddle Weather (Preschool and Two's)

Preschool Storytime

Opening: Big Books

Guessing Game: Clouds

*I've got a flannel that is of different shaped clouds. For example, one is a teddy bear, another is a candy cane. I told my kids that I was going to show them different clouds, but I wanted them to tell me what they looked like. They had fun telling me what they saw.

Book/Flannel: Little Cloud

*The kids loved this book! I think the favorite part was telling me what each cloud was as I turned the page in the book.

Fingerplay/Flannel: Five Little Umbrellas

Five umbrellas waiting for rain to pour,

One was picked by Penguin, and now there are four.

Four umbrellas, saying pick me, pick me!

One was taken by Owl, and now there are three.

Three umbrellas, wondering what to do,

One was chosen by Bunnies, and now there are two.

Two umbrellas waiting for some fun,

One was picked by Alligator and now there is one.

One little umbrella, the rain is all done,

He went home with a cute little girl and now there are none.

*I love feeding items to my puppets, and today it was umbrellas! The kids went crazy over this! I found this fingerplay here.

Book: Mud Puddle

*This book is a classic story about mud! What I love to do with this is take brown fabric, and tell my kids that's the mud puddle. I have my volunteer stand near me, holding my pretend mud puddle. As I read the book, the mud puddle will creep over to me. When the mud puddle jumps onto the character in the book, my volunteer throws the brown fabric over my head, completely covering me up. The kids started squealing, and every time we did this they got more excited!

Fingerplay/Flannel: Little Cloud Hiding Game
This is just like the little mouse hiding game, but with big and little clouds. I have different colored clouds, and I hid behind them a little tiny cloud for the kids to hunt. I have seen this done with a moon hidden behind a cloud also.

Fingerplay: Wishy Washy Song (Tune:  London Bridge)

The cow jumped in the mud, in the mud,

in the mud.  The cow jumped in the mud.  

Now he’s dirty.

…pig rolled, …duck paddled.

WHO DO WE CALL TO WASH THE ANIMALS?  MRS WISHY-WASHY! (ADDED THIS)

The cow washed in the tub, in the tub, in the tub.  The cow washed in the tub.

Wishy, Washy.

…pig…duck.

The all jumped in the mud, in the mud,

in the mud.  They all jumped in the mud

they are dirty again.

*The kids loved this! I usually always read Mrs-Wishy, but didn't have time for it. When I found this fingerplay here, I knew I had to use it. The only thing I changed was I added one line, which is in caps. We had loads of fun jumping, rolling and paddling our hands. Of course, our puppets had to help us along with this fingerplay by jumping in our pretend mud puddle!

Fingerplay: Spiders Up the Spout (Tune: Farmer in the Dell)  

        {Five} spiders up the spout. (Wiggle five fingers)

        {Five} spiders up the spout. (Wiggle five fingers)

        It rained and rained and washed one out! (Wiggle all fingers downward)

        {Four} spiders up the spout. (Wiggle five fingers)

*I love this wonderful fingerplay, but I can't find the link for it, I apologize. But I wanted to do something different with it, and I had an idea. I turned it into the picture below, and my inspiration was from a firefighter fingerplay and their wonderful idea, which I found here. I took fishing line and velcro so that all my spiders could be attached and removed at random. But I ran this fishing line all around my posterboard, so that my volunteer holding this up could move the spiders up and down the spout. I was so excited to use this with the kids, but they didn't seem as excited with this as I was. I think it was just too late in the storytime for this. Next time I will do this near the beginning.

*I love to make it rain on the kids, and I do this by throwing paper raindrops on them. In all the excitement of showing them their craft and explaining the games, I forgot!

*Our craft today was a torn paper cloud with streamers attached.  The kids glued down the torn paper and raindrops.  I found this idea here.

Extra Books:

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Hogwash
Little Blue Truck

Stuck in the Mud

Today was game day!  Click here to see all the games and sensory bins we had today.

Time for Two’s Storytime

Opening: Big Books

Fingerplay: If You Want to Hear a Story

Book: Little Cloud

*The kids loved this book! I think the favorite part was telling me what each cloud was as I turned the page in the book.

Fingerplay/Flannel: Five Little Umbrellas

Five umbrellas waiting for rain to pour,

One was picked by Penguin, and now there are four.

Four umbrellas, saying pick me, pick me!

One was taken by Owl, and now there are three.

Three umbrellas, wondering what to do,

One was chosen by Bunnies, and now there are two.

Two umbrellas waiting for some fun,

One was picked by Alligator and now there is one.

One little umbrella, the rain is all done,

He went home with a cute little girl and now there are none.

*I love feeding items to my puppets, and today it was umbrellas! The kids went crazy over this! I found this fingerplay here.

Fingerplay: In the Rain (Tune of: “Farmer in the Dell”)

       We’re stomping in the rain

       We’re stomping in the rain

       We can’t go yet, we must get wet!

       We’re stomping in the rain

       Repeat with: clapping, hopping

*We had fun stomping, clapping and hopping!  You can find this fingerplay here along with some great other ones!

Book: Move Over, Rover!

*I love reading this book, especially because we have a pop-up house we place all our puppets in! Lots of fun!

Fingerplay/Flannel: Little Cloud Hiding Game

This is just like the little mouse hiding game, but with big and little clouds. I have different colored clouds, and I hide behind them a little tiny cloud for the kids to hunt. I have seen this done with a moon hidden behind a cloud also.

Fingerplay: Wishy Washy Song (Tune:  London Bridge) USE PUPPETS

The cow jumped in the mud, in the mud,

in the mud.  The cow jumped in the mud.  

Now he’s dirty.

…pig rolled, …duck paddled.

WHO DO WE CALL TO WASH THE ANIMALS?  MRS WISH-WASHY!!!!

(ADDED THIS)

The cow washed in the tub, in the tub, in the tub.  The cow washed in the tub.

Wishy, Washy.

…pig…duck.

The all jumped in the mud, in the mud,

in the mud.  They all jumped in the mud

they are dirty again.

*The kids loved this! I usually always read Mrs-Wishy, but didn't have time for it. When I found thsi fingerplay here, I knew I had to use it. The only thing I changed was I added one line to this, which is in caps. We had loads of fun jumping, rolling and paddling our hands. Of course, our puppets had to help us along with this fingerplay by jumping in our pretend mud puddle!

Extra Books:

Raindrop-A Book of Colors

*Our craft today was a torn paper cloud with streamers attached.  The kids glued down the torn paper and raindrops.  I found this idea here.

Extra Books:

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Hogwash
Little Blue Truck

Stuck in the Mud

Today was game day!  Click here to see all the games and sensory bins we had today.

Flower Games and Sensory Bins

Today we played games that were based on flowers and all things you find outside in your garden.  I had so much fun with these games!  Sadly, I won't be doing any more sensory games until the fall.  We start our summer reading program next month, and I'm not brave enough yet to pull out sensory bins and games with our crowds during the summer.  But we are going to work up a sensory play day for next year, so I am very excited about that!  

Below are pictures of the games we played, along with a description.  I included a link to show where I found the idea for our games.  I hope you can enjoy them as much as the kids did!

1.) Flower and Vase Matching

This game is so adorable!  All I did was print out the flowers and vases.  I taped the vases to cups and filled them with Easter grass.  Then I took the flowers and velcroed them to small popsicle sticks.  I was a little worried the kids wouldn't understand what to do, but they had no problem figuring it out!  Only the preschoolers did this game.   I found this game here.

2.) Bee Sensory Bin

I wanted to have another sensory bin for the kids, and remembered last month we did a color matching game.  The kids did awesome with that game, and I wanted to use something I already had on hand.  I keep a bag of items laminated that I hand out to the 2's that they can dance around with and stick to the flannelboard, and inside my bag were different colored bees.  So all I needed were my flowers!  I hid the bees in easter grass, and the 2's matched them up to the correct flower.  They did wonderful!  Yes, some easter grass ended up on the floor, but placing all of this in chairs made it much easier for the 2's to reach.  Only the 2's played this game. Cleaning up was super easy too!

3.) Spelling with Flower Petals
I found the idea for this sensory bin here, and decided to make my own. What I did was print out a flower set I made, along with flower petals to match. I wanted to turn this game into a sensory bin, so I hid the flower petals inside Easter grass. I'm trying to include some kind of letter recognition with each set of games we do monthly, and the kids did really well with this one. We spelled out the words B-O-O-K-S and R-E-A-D. Obviously you can tell I was in a hurry, because I laid the petals down incorrectly for this picture! If you can't laugh at yourself, then you're in trouble! Just the preschoolers played this game.

4.) Leaf Counting Sensory Bin
This game was so easy to do, but so much fun! All you do is make a couple of flower tops, and number them 1 to 5. Then you place a pipe cleaner for the stem and cut out leaves. I wanted to turn this into a sensory bin, so I hid the leaves inside our butterfly petals. The kids dug out the leaves and placed them on the flowers. This is a great way for them to learn their numbers and to practice counting at the same time. I found this game here.

5.) Shadow Matching
The kids love matching shadows to the correct item, and this is a great spring-themed game. You can find this here.

6.) Number Puzzles
We have a long, skinny table that I use for our games. On one end of it I had the shadow matching game taped down. On the other end I taped down this number puzzle game. You can find this puzzle here.

7.) Flower Box Knockdown
This game is super easy to make, all you need is empty boxes and construction paper! I took empty boxes and wrapped them in white paper. Then I made my flower, but divided it up into three parts. I made sure to put an ant at the bottom of the flower, to show the kids where the bottom went. Of course, the kids enjoyed knocking down the boxes the most. The purpose of the game is to teach the kids the different parts of a flower. You can tell my flower has been knocked down quite a bit, but that's the reason I made it!