Wild for Animals! Drop-In Story Time, 7/9/13

Wild for Animals! Drop-In Story Time, 7/9/13 

Book: Bark George by Jules Feiffer
Usually, this book holds everyone's attention so well, none of the adults would even dream of talking over me as I read it. Not so this morning. I could barely hear myself, and if not for the few adults in the front who were laughing, I might have assumed no one was listening.

Song with Puppets: When Cows Get Up in the Morning
This song always works well. Though the tune is not familiar, the adults pick up on it fairly quickly and the kids love making the animal sounds.

Book: Dear Zoo by Rod Campbell
This is another book I specifically chose because it never fails, and it pretty much failed. The kids were happily calling out the names of the animals but I could barely hear them over their chatty adults.

Flannel Board Song with Ukulele: We’re On Our Way to See the Zoo (thanks, Mel!)
I decided at the last minute to play this on the ukulele (the tune is Grandpa's Farm) and I'm glad I did, because this was the only part of the story time that held everyone's attention.  We sang about a polar bear who growled, a lion who roared, a zebra who brayed, a snake who hissed, and a leopard who snarled. All the animal sounds came from Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear?

Book: Puffin Peter by Petr Horacek
I should not have done a third book. The flannel board  was such a  success, and I thought I could go for it, but I knew halfway through the story it was a mistake. I considered scrapping it, but a handful of older preschoolers were really into it, so I made it to the end for their sakes.

Magic Envelope: Pig
The magic envelope portion of story time was rushed today, and I wish I had been able to slow down some more and linger over my discussion of each piece. As it was, I felt like I had to talk quickly to get everything in before they got noisy again. We used a pink crayon, snout, curly tail, mud, and an "oink oink" speech bubble to create a pig. 

Flannel Board Song: P-I-G-G-Y
We did this the exact same way we did B-I-N-G-O last month. 

Ukulele Medley: ABCs / Twinkle Twinkle Little Star / Baa Baa Black Sheep
Somehow, story time was running long by this point, and we only had time left for the usual goodbye routine. It went by so fast! 


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.