Flowers

While I am away on vacation next week, our theme will be flowers! We have not done a storytime yet about flowers so I will share my plans!

Books:
The Tiny Seed - Eric Carle
What Does Bunny See? - Linda Sue Park
Counting in the Garden - Kim Parker
Bloom Boom - April Pulley Sayre
This is the Sunflower - Lola M. Schaefer


Repeat Activities:
1. Five Pretty Flowers (from previous Garden storytime)

New Activities:
1. Using a new flannel of Planting a Rainbow, we are singing the Gardener Plants the Seeds from a previous Garden storytime.
2. Flower Pot Matching Game
One of my previous Library Assistant's made this a couple years ago. At the time I did not use it but it could work at a preschool storytime. I am not sure where she found the idea but she planted "seeds" in each of the pots with their help. Then, they matched the correct flower to its pot. They also counted and worked on colors so, all-in-all, it is a fun game that works on several different skills!

Travel

Similar to vacations or transportation, but this week we talked about travel. I felt it was appropriate since I am about to go on vacation AND summer is when a lot of the kiddos will be going on trips!

Books:
My Car - Byron Barton
The Airport Book - Lisa Brown
Calling All Cars - Sue Fliess
I Love Vacations - Anna Walker
Penguin on Vacation - Salina Yoon


Repeat Activities:
1. Traffic Light
2. Pilot Behind the Airplane (from previous Vacation storytime)

New Activities:
1. Five Little Seashells*
Five little seashells, lying in the sun.
Along came ____, and took this one home.

*I used a line from a previous seashell flannel but simplified it. I'm not great at memorizing lots of lines of flannels so the more repetition and the simpler they are the better! I used puppets and had them pick up a seashell off of the flannel board.

Flannel Project: Dragons

My latest flannel project was to re-make a dragon flannel we already had. The original "flannel" was laminated but this time I made an actual flannel version.

The rhyme we use with this I found on the Falling Flannel Boards blog.

Five little dragons with great big scales,
One lost his balance and bumped his tail.
He cried, "Ouch!" and breathed some fire,
And then flew away, higher and higher.
Count down...4, 3, 2, 1

Parties

What a better way to kick off the first full week of our summer storytimes than with the theme of PARTIES!

Books:
Ten Rules of the Birthday Wish - Beth Ferry & Tom Lichtenheld
If You Give a Pig a Party - Laura Numeroff
Bears and a Birthday - Shirley Parenteau 
Don't Spill the Beans - Ian Schoenherr
A Birthday for Cow - Jan Thomas


Repeat Activities:
1. Five Cupcakes (from previous Celebrations storytime)
2. Hi, Pizza Man (from previous Food storytime)*
*I remade the flannel because the version I had belonged to a library assistant that retired. I laminated animals holding a pizza box. We had a PIZZA PARTY and different animals delivered our pizza so we practiced what we would say to them. 

Flannel Project: Five Green and Speckled Frogs AND Rocketship Run

I had the fortune of spending a week in April at the same library as Mr. Keith of Felt-tastic Flannelboard Funtime fame. We worked on a couple storyboard projects together. I cannot claim ANY of the credit for the ideas - they were all Mr. Keith. 

Mr. Keith makes storyboards, wrapping flannel backing around a poster board. Then he decorates them with felt to match the flannel story you are using. 

Since the Summer Reading Theme is all about the universe, we both were planning on using Laurie Berkner Band's "Rocketship Run" song. I had a laminated flannel I have used in the past for the song but, together, we made a storyboard complete with a sun, moon, stars, Earth, and a rocketship.

His second project of the week was to make Five Green and Speckled Frogs complete with their own bog. I helped make the frogs, the log, and some of the background bushes/cat tails. He used his artistic eye to make the finishing touches and put the whole thing together.

At the end of the week, returning to my home library, I felt like I had returned from summer camp with my crafts in-hand! 

Thanks, Mr. Keith! You are a flannel wizard!

Flannel Project: Traffic Light

I made a traffic light flannel a couple months ago to go along with one of my favorite transportation rhyme (with sign language!). 

You can see the signs in the Jbrary video. I do not use the same sign for "Go" that they use, though. Their video does not show the proper American Sign Language (ASL) sign for "Go" but you can see the proper word demonstrated here.

Stop Says the Red Light:

STOP says the red light,

GO says the green,

Now just WAIT says the yellow in between.

That's what they say and that's what they mean,

And we all must obey them, even the queen.