Builders and Diggers Drop-In Story Time, 4/30/13

Builders and Diggers Drop-In Story Time, 4/30/13

We're having rainy weather this week, so a lot of our regular story time attendees didn't make it in this morning. The group was probably about half of our normal size. 

Book: Building a House by Byron Barton
The kids liked this book much more than any group ever has, and I think I did a good job with the pacing. It can be tricky to read books where the sentences are broken up by page turns, but I took it nice and slow and gave the kids time to absorb all the visual details and vocabulary.

Song: Building a House
I have had better luck with this song in the past, but the threes in the group were into it. Sawing, hammering, and painting were easier for them to imitate than digging and pouring.

Flannel Board Rhyme: Down Around the Corner at the Hardware Store
They're finally beginning to like this rhyme. It probably didn't hurt that my "customers" were builders.

Book: Demolition by Sally Sutton
I thought this would go over very well, but I was wrong. The adults lost interest quickly and talked through the entire thing, and the kids were distracted. 


Letter of the Day: U

• Flannel Board Song: Red Umbrella Keeps Me Dry 
  I normally place one umbrella at a time on the flannel board when we sing this one, but I put them all up and took them down as we sang about them, and that worked a lot better. Adults - and the kids - like to know when something is going to end, and this gave them a visual way to count down.
• Song: Here We Go Up Up Up
  I threw this in because I was unsure about the next rhyme. Then I decided to just bite the bullet and do both.
• Rhyme: Up the Hill
  The kids were into this, but the adults were lost. I think it needed more introduction, and maybe a visual component. I'll try it again for sure.
• Flannel Board Rhyme: Five Little Unicorns
• Since I write a rhyme especially for this story time so I could use unicorns, I'm probably going to try sharing this for this week's Flannel Friday. The words are linked here as well.

Songs with ukulele: ABCs / Twinkle Twinkle Little Star / Baa Baa Black Sheep

Song with ukulele: Itsy Bitsy Spider

Song with Puppet: Mr. Sun 

Rhyme: This is Big Big Big

Song: Head and Shoulders 

Song: If You're Happy and You Know It


I use the same hello and goodbye songs at almost every session. Click here for the tunes and words. For descriptions of each of my story times, click here.