Story Window Storytime Blog: December 2006
Peek inside for storytime ideas! Wilmette Librarians share suggestions for age-appropriate books, rhymes, songs, and crafts.
December 19, 2006
Trucks and A Classic Bus Song
(For 1.5-2.5 Year Olds)
Some children are truck experts, telling you the name of each truck they see in a book. Fortunately for the rest, there are books like Construction Countdown by K.C. Olson. Combining counting and truck identification with colorful pictures, this is a popular truck book. With exuberant pictures and tabs to pull, The Wheels on the Bus by Paul Zelinsky is an example of how songs can be enhanced by creative books. The children love singing and acting out this lively, beloved song. Before I read the book, Mushroom in the Rain, by Mirra Ginsburg, I told the children that plants grow in the rain. They were fascinated to see the mushrooms growing bigger as it rained through this book. As the mushroom got bigger and bigger, more and more animals found shelter from the rain under the big mushroom.
Posted by Sue at 11:34 AM
Seasons Storytime
(For 2.5-3.5 Year Olds)
Erratic weather marked the end of our storytime season, with an abrupt transition from heavy snow to warmth and rain. Our stories and activities celebrated the change of weather and seasons.
Hello, Sun!, by Dayle Ann Dodds, illustrated by Sachiko Yoshikawa - A little girl wants to go out and play, but the changing weather keeps her running inside to change her clothes. Cute pictures and a bright, repeating rhyming text.
Seasons, by Heidi Goennel - Seasons are marked not just by the weather but by what we do to have fun. Children can help tell the story by "reading the pictures."
A Hat for Minerva Louise, by Janet Morgan Stoeke - A snow-loving but naive chicken searches for appropriate winter attire around the barnyard. Expect lots of laughs and audience interjections!
In addition to some of our favorite songs, we did the following action rhyme about melting snowman -- how appropriate!
5 little snowmen all in a row (hold up 5 fingers)
Each with a hat (put hands on head)
And a big red bow (make a bow-tying motion at your neck)
Up came the sun and it stayed all day (raise arms in a circle)
And one little snowman melted away (hold up index finger and "melt" it away)
(Etc.)
We also use a flannelboard for this rhyme. Each of our five snowmen has a different hat. After each verse, I ask the children which snowman I should melt, and then we count the snowmen that remain. I look forward to repeating this rhyme many times in 2007, assuming it ever snows again!
Posted by Lisa at 11:13 AM
December 13, 2006
It's Snowing!
(For 1.5-2.5 Year Olds)
It snowed this week, creating snowy streets and yards. Some of the kids talked about making snow people, sledding, and other fun snow things. We read the large book: Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear? by Bill Martin, imitating the various sounds the animals make. We produced the same kinds of animal sounds with the silly and fun rhyming book, I Know a Rhino by Charles Fuge. Easy Street by Rita Gray shows the process of building a new street. The illustrations are colorful and exciting, showing sand, gravel and the various trucks involved in these building adventures. Children who are truck fans will be especially interested. The beautiful flannel board "Five Little Snowmen" engaged the children and we all acted out this fun fingerplay as well.
Posted by Sue at 10:25 AM
December 7, 2006
Hide and Seek Storytime
(For 2.5-3.5 Year Olds)
Our theme this week was Hide and Seek. It's amazing how many picture books there are about looking for something that's lost; it was hard to choose! These were the books I decided on:
Where's Spot?, by Eric Hill. A lift-the-flap book. The big book version is especially nice for large groups.
Where's My Darling Daughter?, by Mij Kelly, illustrated by Katharine McEwen. A new picture book about a silly daddy who searches his farm high and low for his daughter, who is riding piggyback the whole time.
Little White Dog, by Laura Godwin, illustrated by Dan Yaccarino. The flat-color illustrations make this book. Little White Dog blends perfectly into the snow, Little Blue Bird into the sky, etc. Nonetheless, children can still make out the animals by using clues: eyes, feet, wings, and so on. A fun take on camouflage.
We sang "Where Is Thumbkin?", played with our magnet version of Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?, and did the following fingerplay which I learned from Kathleen:
Here is the beehive, but where are the bees? [make a fist, with your thumb tucked inside]
Hidden inside where no one can see.
Watch them now come out of the hive.
Five bees: one-two-three-four-five! [unfurl your fingers, one by one]
Fly away bees! BZZZZZ! [fly your fingers around]
Posted by Lisa at 4:02 PM
December 6, 2006
Work Machines Storytime
(For 2.5-3.5 Year Olds)
Little boys are known for their fascination with those grumbling, rumbling machines that dig up roads, crush concrete, and stretch way into the sky, but little girls like them, too! Last week's program on big work machines was especially fun for everyone.
I'm Dirty!, by Kate & Jim McMullan. A smart, funny book from the perspective of a very dirty backhoe loader, with bold, cartoonish illustrations and plenty of sound effects. It's basically perfect.
Dig!, by Andrea Zimmerman and David Clemesha; illustrated by Marc Rosenthal. Mr. Rally and his dog Lightning have five digging jobs today -- count them!
Hush, Little Digger, by Ellen Olson-Brown; illustrations by Lee White. A new take on the familiar song, full of every work machine imaginable and very clever rhymes to accommodate names such as "bulldozer" and "auger drill."
We also did our "Little Red House" flannelboard. "Once upon a time, there was a little red house. And inside the little red house was a little green house..." Kids name each successive color and are amazed as the houses get smaller and smaller, until the tiny smiling face inside the white house is revealed.
After I closed Hush, Little Digger, a little girl informed me that it was a very nice story. There's your proof that girls like work machines, too! :-)
Posted by Lisa at 12:55 PM
Woolly
(For 3.5-5 Year Olds)
For my Tuesday (smaller) group, I read No Roses for Harry by Zion and Cry Baby by Brown. Both stories show knitted items un-ravelling. I knit a small square that the kids helped to take apart so they could see how something like that happens. Both of these stories are great read-alouds. The Harry book is part of the classic series that begins with Harry the Dirty Dog. Getting a present you don't like and want to ditch somehow is something a lot of kids can relate to. We also talked about sheep and wool - I showed a few photos from some of our non-fiction books. The project was kind of experimental - the kids made yarn pictures with glue and scraps of yarn, filling in details with color pencils. They were told to glue the yarn to the paper in a way that made a picture or design. It turned out to be a little nebulous and messy - maybe better for older kids - so probably not a keeper for this age group. I varied the program for my larger group on Wednesday morning. Instead of No Roses for Harry, I read Three Bags Full, about a sheep who gives away all her wool. Also read Cry Baby. The project was to glue people shapes to a paper and then glue felt scraps over the person to make a warm blanket. A fingerplay I did with both groups was Two Little Blackbirds Sitting on a Hill, with the variations of sitting on a cloud (one named quiet, one named LOUD); and sitting on a pole, one named high one named low - with corresponding high squeaky voice and low bass voice, of course.
Posted by Lyn at 12:07 PM
December 4, 2006
After Thanksgiving
(For 1.5-2.5 Year Olds)
We talked about our nice holiday Thanksgiving dinners. Squirrels are fascinating to watch. Nuts to You by Lois Ehlert is a funny, and colorfully illustrated book about a rambunctious squirrel foraging for food. What would it be like to babysit a big animal like a baby elephant if you are a mouse? To find out, read the amusing Looking After Little Ellie by Dosh Archer. Size and shapes are fascinating to children. The dinosaurs of long ago were small like children, or larger than we are, as described in Dinosaur Roar! by Paul Strickland. Lastly, we counted fish within a flannel board story, "One Little, Two Little Fishies."
Posted by Sue at 7:20 PM
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