Planting a Rainbow (Preschool and Two's)

Preschool Storytime:

*I don't know why, but everything went wonderfully today! All the books went good, except the first one didn't go over as well as I had hoped, but that happens. The kids were really interactive with me, and went crazy over all the puppets and flannels. Sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn't!

Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRhGOdqWIIo

*Unfortunately I forgot to bring my portable speaker with me to play this, but I did use this with the two's, and they really seemed to enjoy this song!

Opening: Big Books

Fingerplay/Flannel: Seed Guessing

Book:  Too Tall Houses (Cover boxes and stack up to represent houses for rabbit and owl.)

*I was so excited to use this book, and to stack up boxes to represent the houses for rabbit and owl. Maybe it didn't wow the kids because my boxes didn't look like houses? For whatever reason the kids were not near as enthusiastic as I was with the book. I do have to say that they listened very well during the book, which is always a plus.

Fingerplay: Little Flower, Little Flower

Little flower, little flower twist around.

Little flower, little flower touch the ground.

Little flower, little flower spread your petals wide.

Little flower, little flower now you hide.

Little flower, little flower stretch towards the sun.

Little flower, little flower in the wind have fun!

Little flower, little flower time for one jump up and down.

Little flower, little flower sit back down!

Fingerplay/Flannel: Vegetable Guessing Game

Credit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bJh4IDtnEA

*I'ts been a long time since I've used the tablet and played a guessing game with the preschoolers. This is a great one to use, and the preschoolers knew every vegetable! There are more available in this series, so I plan on using them in future storytimes.

Book: Guess What? Flowers

*I know that the preschoolers love guessing games, but I never expected them to go so crazy over this book! A very pleasant reaction, indeed!

Fingerplay: Little Worm Hiding Game  

Little worm playing hide and seek.

Are you under the __ fruit?

Let's take a peek!

Credit: So Tomorrow

Fingerplay/Flannel: “Over in the Garden” (Use garden vegetable prop box.)

      Over in the garden where the vegetables grow,

      There sat a {color vegetable} in a nice straight row,

      Along came a {puppet} who hadn’t had lunch.

      He ate that {color vegetable} with a crunch, crunch, crunch!

*I apologize, I can't locate where I found this wonderful fingerplay. If it's your creation, please let me know!

Book: Do You Know Which Ones Will Grow?

*I love this book, but I was a little hesitant to use it. I was afraid that the preschoolers wouldn't enjoy it, but they really did! I think they loved telling me "No!", that doesn't grow, or "Yes!", that does grow.

Fingerplay/Flannel: Carrot Dancing

*To end storytime, we fed carrots to our rabbit,

Credit: One Little Librarian

Our craft today was a garden with peas in it!  The thing I loved the most was the dirt was a pocket, and the preschoolers could choose to not glue down the peas, and instead tuck them inside the dirt.  When I showed this to the preschoolers, they were in awe!  It was so adorable.  The preschoolers glued the dots onto the peas, the worms and the sign.

*To end storytime, we fed carrots to our rabbit,

Extra Books:  

Time for Two’s Storytime:

*Oh my, if you looked at my plan above, it was such a great storytime! Well, today was the polar opposite. The storytime itself wasn't bad, exactly! LOL....the kids were just so restless, and that set the tone for the day. Overall, the kids enjoyed all the book, they were just so energetic it was very hard to capture their attention. Yes, they are two's, but normally I see that as a challenge and embrace it. But today, for some reason, it was very hard to get anything to stick with them. But we still had a great time!

Opening: Big Books

Fingerplay: If You Want to Hear a Story

Book: Who’s in the Garden?

Fingerplay: Little Flower, Little Flower

Little flower, little flower twist around.

Little flower, little flower touch the ground.

Little flower, little flower spread your petals wide.

Little flower, little flower now you hide.

Little flower, little flower stretch towards the sun.

Little flower, little flower in the wind have fun!

Little flower, little flower time for one jump up and down.

Little flower, little flower sit back down!

Fingerplay: Little Worm Hiding Game

Little worm playing hide and seek.

Are you under the __ fruit?

Let's take a peek!

Credit: So Tomorrow

Book: Guess What? Flowers

Fingerplay/Flannel: “Over in the Garden” (Use garden vegetable prop box.)

      Over in the garden where the vegetables grow,

      There sat a {color vegetable} in a nice straight row,

      Along came a {puppet} who hadn’t had lunch.

      He ate that {color vegetable} with a crunch, crunch, crunch!

*I apologize, I can't locate where I found this wonderful fingerplay. If it's your creation, please let me know!

Credit: One Little Librarian

Action: Carrot Dancing

Our craft today was a garden with peas in it!  The thing I loved the most was the dirt was a pocket, and the preschoolers could choose to not glue down the peas, and instead tuck them inside the dirt.  

Extra Book:

I Spy in the Garden (Office Copy)

Dog's Colorful Day (Two's)

Time for Two’s Storytime:

Opening: Big Books

Fingerplay: If You Want To Hear a Story

Book/Flannel: Dog’s Colorful Day

*The two's loved telling me what color dots I was placing on my dog! Normally I use my big puppet and place the dots directly onto him, but this time I just used my flannelboard.

Fingerplay: Dog Hiding Game

*Today we looked for the dog's bone behind the doghouses. The two's love hunting for items!

Five Juicy Bones

5 juicy bones lying on the floor,

the puppy ate 1 and then there were 4.

4 juicy bones under a big tree,

the puppy ate 1 and then there were 3.

3 juicy bones so fun to chew,

the puppy ate another 1 and then there were 2.

2 juicy bones in the bright warm sun,

the puppy ate another and then there was 1.

1 juicy bone, oh so yummy,

the puppy ate the last one and had a happy tummy.

*Instead of feeding the bones to just the dog puppet, I used all animals. The best part? When a two year old informed me that only dogs eat dog bones!

Credit: Fun With Friends at Storytime

Book: Woof! Woof! Can You Say It Too?

*The two's love lift-the-flap books, and this one is great!

Fingerplay/Flannel: Five little puppies jumping on the bed

*We ran out of time to jump up and down like puppies today, but this is a great version to do!

Credit: Storytime ABC's

Our craft today was a spotted dog!  

Extra Books:

Go, Shapes, Go! (Preschool and Two's)

Today we had games!  To view all that we did, please click here.

Preschool Storytime:

Opening: Big Books

Fingerplay: Shape Guessing Game

*The kids loved guessing what was hiding behind each of my shapes.

Book: Shapes, Reshape!

*The kids loved guessing the animals in this book.

Fingerplay/Flannel: Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed

Fingerplay/Flannel: Kangaroo, kangaroo, behind which shape are you?

Book: Apples and Robins

*I am in love with this book! You see one item on the page, and when you turn it over it magically becomes an apple or a bird! The kids enjoyed it, but didn’t like as much as I hoped.

Fingerplay: Bird House Matching Game

*The kids went crazy!

Credit: Sunflower Storytime

Fingerplay/Flannel: Baa Baa Black Sheep

*The kids loved bringing items to the flannelboard and did really well waiting on me to call out shape they were holding.

Credit: Read Rabbit Read

Book: Achoo! By Morgand

*The kids went crazy over items being thrown out on them!

Extra Books:

*Our craft today was shapes on the farm!  The kids glued down the pig, wheels, triangles around the sun, and tractor.  They turned out adorable!
Credit:

Time for Two’s Storytime:

Opening: Big Books

Fingerplay: If You Want to Hear a Story

Book: Shapes, Reshape! (with puppets)

*The two's did so great with this book!  They all guess what the shapes might be and went crazy when the puppets popped up behind me.

Fingerplay: Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed

Book: Triangles by Yonezu

*Normally I don't do three books with the two's, but I risked it today and I'm so glad I did. This board book is super short and simple, but the two's went wild over it! I'm so happy that they loved it like they did.

Fingerplay/Flannel: “Baby Kangaroo, Baby Kangaroo”

Book: Achoo! By Morgand
*As usual, the two's went bonkers during this book. Why? Because I threw out all the paper shapes onto them!

Extra Read-Alouds:

*Our craft today was shapes on the farm!  The kids glued down the pig, wheels, triangles around the sun, and tractor.  They turned out adorable!
Credit:

SRP 2018

It's that time of year again...SRP!!!  I will try and update this post as I get time, no promises though!  Usually we go all out and decorate every possible inch of my department.  But we had a complete renovation last year, so we can't decorate our area like we used to.  But we are in a new, fabulous space, so I won't complain!  But we will have small things decorated for our theme this summer, to help jazz up our desk.  Plus I'm hoping to decorate our auditorium, where we have all our programs, and our display case in the front lobby.  When I get those items done, I will post pics, if I don't forget.

I have to share the wonderful thing my boss did! We have stuffed animals sitting in our window, elephant, piggie and pigeon.  But they needed some items to go with our SRP theme this year, so my boss came to the rescue!  Check it out below!  Are they not the best???  I honestly think I like pigeon's microphone the best!  But I can't decide.  I really love the logo on the front of elephant's drum that says "Mo Willems Band".  All so precious, and all the credit goes to my rockin' boss!

Below are some decorations that are up in our auditorium.  We've recently renovated our youth services area, so we can't go all out with decorations like we used to, but that's okay!

  

April Games and Sensory Bins

For April, I tried to make the games match up with the storytimes we did this month.  So most of my games centered around shapes, bugs and springtime.

1. Rabbit Shape Matching
The preschoolers did great matching the carrots to the correct shape!  Such a fun way to help them learn their shapes.
Credit: Totschooling

2. Caterpillar Pom-Pom Drop
As usual, the kids love dropping anything through our tubes!




3. Bumblebee Letter Matching
For this, we spelled out the word S-P-R-I-N-G.  I think the kids got confused because I had both halves of the bee taped down.  They dug out the matching letter from our sensory bowl.  Next time I will only put down one side of the bee on the table so that they can match the other side to it.
Credit: Modern Preschool

4. Butterfly Sensory Bin
The kids go crazy digging through the butterfly petals!  Today we dug out butterflies, of course!

Buggy for Books (Preschool and Two's)

Preschool Storytime:

Opening: Big Books

Book: Walter’s Wonderful Web

*This book is so much fun to read! I had the kids blow like the wind and roll their hands while Walter was spinning the web. I think this helped make this book more interactive. The kids really enjoyed telling me all the shapes that Walter was making.

Fingerplay: Bug Guessing Game

For this, I made shadows of bugs to hold up, then flipped them over to show the picture of the bugs. I was very surprised that the kids could guess very quickly all of the bugs! I found this idea on youtube, and the video is wonderful! I plan to use some of the videos in the series later on.

Credit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HB0-lie2hrY

Fingerplay: Hiding Game

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

Book: Bye, Bye, Big Bad Bullybug!

*I adore reading this book! It's just like "Go away, big green monster!" with all the cutouts. As you read, the big bad bullybug appears! The best part? You smoosh him with your foot! After I turned the page and we all stomped our feet and smooshed the bullybug a little boy told me the most precious thing. He said "You're not supposed to stomp on bugs!" I just lost it right there in front of everyone! I told him, no we're not, but this was just a silly book. The best reaction I've ever received after reading this book, by far.

Fingerplay: Bug Action Cards

Book: Bugs From Head to Tail

*This is a great guessing book to use and the kids loved telling me all the bugs inside the book.

Fingerplay: Five Ladybugs (Use puppets)

Five Little Ladybugs

Five little ladybugs on our front door,  (Hold up five fingers)

One flew to Daddy, and that left four.

Four little ladybugs, oh so wee,  (Hold up four fingers)

One flew to Mommy,, and that left three.

Three little ladybugs saying "howdy-do,"  (Hold up three fingers)

One flew to Sister, and that left two.

Two little ladybugs snoozing in the sun,  (Hold up two fingers)

One flew to Brother, and that left one.

One little ladybug alone on the door,  (Hold up one finger)

It flew to Baby, then there were no more.

Credit: Library Village

Action: We’re Going on a Bug Hunt

*This is by far the best part of storytime! I have a butterfly net, and my volunteer is behind the puppet stage with my bugs I'm trying to catch. Of course, I can never catch them on the first or even second try. The kids went bonkers hollering and screaming at me to catch those bugs! I've got to come up with more items I can try to catch.

*Our craft today was a dragonfly. I had no idea the kids would get such a kick out of this craft, but they loved flying around with it! I think the biggest appeal was being able to hold the popsicle stick in their hands and gripping it. I've got to find more crafts like this, they really liked it!
Credit: Pick Ease

Extra Books:

Time for Two’s Storytime:

Opening: Big Books

Office Book: Butterfly, Butterfly

*The two's loved seeing the butterfly pop-up at the end!

Fingerplay: Bug Action Cards

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

*Another fun option for this is to hide a worm under fruit!  There is a great rhyme for dancing around on her blog too.
Credit: Storytime wtih Miss Tara and Friends

Book: Bye-Bye, Big Bad Bullybug!

Fingerplay: File Folder Ladybug
*I ran out of time for this great file folder story.
Credit: Fun with Friends at Storytime

Fingerplay: Five Ladybugs (Use puppets)

Five Little Ladybugs

Five little ladybugs on our front door,  (Hold up five fingers)

One flew to Daddy, and that left four.

Four little ladybugs, oh so wee,  (Hold up four fingers)

One flew to Mommy,, and that left three.

Three little ladybugs saying "howdy-do,"  (Hold up three fingers)

One flew to Sister, and that left two.

Two little ladybugs snoozing in the sun,  (Hold up two fingers)

One flew to Brother, and that left one.

One little ladybug alone on the door,  (Hold up one finger)

It flew to Baby, then there were no more.

Credit: Library Village

Action: We’re Going on a Bug Hunt

*This is by far the best part of storytime! I have a butterfly net, and my volunteer is behind the puppet stage with my bugs I'm trying to catch. Of course, I can never catch them on the first or even second try.

*Our craft today was a dragonfly. I had no idea the kids would get such a kick out of this craft, but they loved flying around with it! I think the biggest appeal was being able to hold the popsicle stick in their hands and gripping it. I've got to find more crafts like this, they really liked it!
Credit: Pick Ease

Extra Books: