Wild for Animals! Preschool Story Time, 7/11/13

 Wild for Animals! Preschool Story Time, 7/11/13

I really wanted to ensure a big audience for this week, so I promoted it on our neighborhood list-serv and told several families I saw throughout the week that it would be perfect for their kids. That was all it took - there were 25 kids, and at least a dozen parents in the room by the end, and it was a great story time! 

Book: Where's My Mom? by Julia Donaldson
This book was a new one for me, recommended by our library associate. The kids loved it, though I think I found it funnier than anyone else.

Book: From Head to Toe by Eric Carle 
I have never done this with a preschool audience, but I thought it was a nice alternative to some of the action songs that  this age group tends to dislike. There were some little guys in attendance, and we kind of lost them at this point, but the target age group had a great time. 

Flannel Board Story: Fifteen Animals by Sandra Boynton
(I used the text found in Philadelphia Chickens because my library doesn't seem to have the book.)
This went over well, but I didn't expect it to, so I overcompensated and babbled too much afterwards and kind of lost everybody. I'll know better when I use this again tomorrow.

Book: What Do You Do with a Kangaroo? by Mercer Mayer
This was the dud of the day. The parents seemed annoyed by the constant  advice to throw the rude animals out of the house, and the kids just didn't get it. 

Song: Visor, Tee Shirt, Shorts, and Shoes
These kids were a little young to think this was funny.

Book: Actual Size by Steve Jenkins
This was maybe one book too many, but some of the kids were into it. Most others were distracted by a mom who couldn't just leave her toddler be and kept having to talk loudly at him to redirect him from the space behind me where he was climbing on the steps, despite it clearly being blocked off by tables. 

Craft: Sticker Collages
I have a huge pad of stickers from Michael's, and I pulled out the jungle stickers and provided green construction paper and crayons. The kids made all kinds of great jungle pictures, and the younger siblings loved putting stickers all over their pages.

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.