I Love Bugs! Toddler Lap Time, 8/2/13

 I Love Bugs! Toddler Lap Time, 8/2/13

This story time has become a source of annoyance more than anything else. Friday afternoon used to be a popular time slot with parents, but it isn't this year, and almost every week, only one or two children have shown up. Thankfully, this story time is winding down and will not be offered after August 23, but in the meantime, I don't really look forward to it or enjoy it that much. In any case, there were three kids at this session, and we read and sang about bugs.


Book: Beetle Bop by Denise Fleming
This book is long and not much happens, and it does not engage toddlers the way I thought it would. Denise Fleming is so hit or miss for me!

Rhyme: Creep Your Beetles (based on Dance Your Fingers)
This was a last-minute addition that popped into my head as I was preparing. It wasn't that much of a hit with the kids, but the grown-ups did it with me twice through.

Rhyme with Puppet: Ladybug, Ladybug

Song with Puppet: Buzzing Buzzing Bumblebee

Book: Bugs! Bugs! Bugs! by Bob Barner
This is one of my favorite books, and the kids seemed into it, even though they were mostly climbing the steps and ignoring me.

Rhyme: Two Little Fireflies
I really like  this rhyme. I want to remember it for my larger groups.
 
Song: Itsy Bitsy Spider

Book: I Like Bugs by Margaret Wise Brown
This was one book too many, but I was at a loss as to what to do with the kids at this point. Somehow they are all less distracted when there are more kids.

Songs with Butterflies: 

• Fly Like a Butterfly
• Flutter Flutter Butterfly 
• There’s a Butterfly On My Head

Song: ABCs

Song: Twinkle Twinkle Little Star

Song: Row Row Row Your Boat

Rhyme: This is Big Big Big

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.

I Love Bugs! Baby Lap Time, 8/1/13

I Love Bugs! Baby Lap Time, 8/1/13

My co-worker who normally does this story time was under the weather today, so she asked me to cover for her. I was more than happy to do so - it was great to be back at baby lap time!

Book: I Love Bugs by Philemon Sturges, illustrated by Shari Halpern
I especially liked the way I read today. I was in perfect "baby voice." Perhaps having a break from this story time has done me good!

Rhyme with Puppets: I’m a Little Bumblebee
Babies love puppets. Their little eyes were just mesmerized.

Song: Itsy Bitsy Spider

Song with Puppet: Mr. Sun

Bouncing Song: All the Little Babies

Book: Arabella Miller’s Tiny Caterpillar by Clare Jarrett
I really enjoyed how much the adults enjoyed this book. I thought it might be too lengthy but the sing-song rhyming seemed to appeal to everyone. A nanny even checked it out at the end of  the session.

Songs with Butterfly Puppet: Fly Like a Butterfly / Flutter Flutter Butterfly
I asked the grown-ups to help the babies make butterfly wings, and one little girl did it all on her own and kept it up for the entire first song! Amazing!

Rhyme with Stick Puppets: Two Little Houseflies / Fireflies / Dragonflies
I changed the words to Two Little Blackbirds and did rhymes about three different pairs of "flies."

Song: Tony Chestnut

Song: ABCs


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.

Read-Along Story Time for Beginning Readers, 5/9/13

 Read-Along Story Time for Beginning Readers, 5/9/13

Attendees
This story time attracted two beginning readers, a toddler, a nanny and a mom. The boy beginning reader is almost five and attends school. The girl beginning reader has just turned four, and has never been to school.

Name That Bug 
I put some photos of different interesting insects in a Google Drive presentation, then showed it to the kids on the iPad. Unlike some of the other "Name That" activities we have done, this one wasn't that great for encouraging discussion, especially because there were only two kids in attendance and both were very shy. I don't think I would use this particular set of images again, unless the kids were 6 or 7 and had some real-life experiences with bugs to apply to them.

Read-Aloud 
We read Hey, Little Ant, which is a book I have always liked and never realized my library owned until this week. It was a bit much, philosophically, for the two four year olds who attended this story  time, but they still seemed to enjoy it. Their favorite part was when the ant takes on the large size of the kid. One of the kids, a boy who comes regularly to this  story time, informed me that the ten commandments would keep him from  squishing the ant. That was cute.

Making a List 
We tried to make a list of what we'd bring on a picnic, but only the boy participated. The girl was really too busy to be ready for this kind of story time, and she didn't really participate. 

Bag of Verbs
For this week's bug theme, I rewrote  the verbs on the back of some foam bugs. This activity has never not gone well, but the boy was shy because none of his usual buddies were at story time, and the girl's little sister was in her lap, making it difficult to participate.  So we only did about six movements, and most of  them only I actually did.

Read-Along 
I shared a poem from the April 2013 issue of Ladybug magazine called "Family of Ladybugs", which is by Connie Bowsman. Since neither child could read, I had them repeat each line after me, and that worked very well. I'd do that again, even with my regular group of kids.

Drawing Activity
This week, I used an activity created by Little Miss Kindergarten, which is available from Teachers Pay Teachers. It is an empty bug jar. I asked the kids to draw some bugs and then count them. The little girl had to leave before her picture was finished, but the boy drew a beautiful firefly and I helped him label it with his name, the number 1, and the word firefly.

The Very Talented Eric Carle Preschool Story Time, 2/22/13

 The Very Talented Eric Carle Preschool Story Time, 2/22/13

I had a busy afternoon yesterday, so I ran out of time and forgot to take a photo of my set-up for this story time. I also brought my very hungry caterpillar (shown above), which I bought at the Eric Carle Museum, to work with me, and then forgot to actually bring him to story time.So that was kind of a disappointment. However, despite my forgetfulness, this was one of the best preschool story times ever. The audience for this story time has evolved a lot since September. It used to be a lot of four year olds, but now we're getting a wider age range. Because we used beads this week, I really discouraged folks from bringing in babies who might try to swallow them, so some of the toddlers and babies didn't join us, but we did have a couple of two year olds. The average age was probably three and a half.


Book: The Very Busy Spider by Eric Carle
The kids all knew this book, so it was easy to get them to call out the names of the animals and make their sounds. One older sibling, who is a first grader, seemed really annoyed with being asked what a cow says, but a kindergarten big sister got really into it, so that was nice.

Flannel Board: Four Colorful Spiders
This is a flannel board rhyme I wrote to use at the spider-themed story time I did on Halloween. I was looking forward to using it again because it's simple and kids are intrigued by bugs. In the past, my preschoolers have not liked flannel boards, but I'm going to start trying to incorporate them more, because this was a huge hit. Even after story time was over, kids were still interested in using the pieces to retell the story.

Book: The Grouchy Ladybug by Eric Carle
This book is long and repetitive, but the kids loved guessing what might be bigger than each creature the ladybug refuses to fight. I kind of liked doing my longer book in the middle of the story time. By then, everyone was settled into story time and fully focused, and all the stragglers were finished wandering in.

Song with ukulele: Bugs Around the Town (Tune: The Wheels on the Bus)
I found this song here, then added my own verses, shown below. I asked the kids to do the motions while I played the ukulele. Some of them did. Some of them just listened instead. This group was especially intrigued by the ukulele, and a few of  the kids came up to me afterward for a turn to strum the strings. One little boy also suggested that if a string ever gets broken, I can use yarn to fix it! Too cute.

The ladybug with spots goes wiggle, wiggle wiggle
The firefly at night goes blink blink blink
The bees in the flowers go buzz buzz buzz....
The ants in the grass go march march march...
The spiders on their webs crawl up and down...
The grasshopper’s legs go jump, jump, jump...
The caterpillar in the field goes creep creep creep....
Book: The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle
I had big plans for this story earlier in the week, but ran out of time to implement them. I wanted to create a clothesline of the different foods and hang them across the room, but I didn't think it would be as fun to throw it together at the last minute, so I skipped it and decided on a simple craft instead.

Craft: Beaded Pipe Cleaner Caterpillars 
I saw this idea on Pinterest when I was searching for activities related to The Very Hungry Caterpillar. I had some dark green pipe cleaner and some pony beads, and the kids got very excited about making patterns. Most kids did make caterpillars, but one little boy made a snake, and a couple of girls made bracelets. Only one mom became overly concerned with doing things the "right" way and I responded to her question by saying, "I make it up as I go along." Once I said that, she was content to do the same thing. I really hate the way some of our customers treat our craft supplies, but this group has done a wonderful job of cleaning up and following  the rules the last few times we have done crafts that I might start incorporating more of these simple activities.

For more ideas to use with a caterpillar theme, check out of my Caterpillars and Butterflies board on Pinterest. I also have a board for Bugs and Spiders.   

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.

After School Read-Aloud and Craft (Bugs Theme), 4/26/12

There has been no attendance at all at this program the past few weeks, probably because of Spring Break. Most of the regulars were back today, so I had about 9 kids. This time, I read the books first, then invited the kids to do the craft and talked with them while they worked. I have to work on how best to set up the room to facilitate that kind of interaction more often.

The Read-Alouds: Bug Books

Book 1: The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle (1969)

Book 2: Ride, Fly Guy, Ride! by Tedd Arnold (2012)

Book 3: Miss Spider's Tea Party by David Kirk (2007)

The Craft: Band-aid Butterflies 

(This idea was inspired by Storytime Katie's Sick & Get Well Soon story time.)

I. Supplies 

• Colorful Band-aids
• Tissues
• Blue construction paper 
• Markers 

II. Prep

There was no real preparation for me to do, other than creating an example and providing the materials.

III. Process 
I didn't realize until I started writing this post that I actually did this craft backwards from the way I've seen it on Katie's blog and on Pinterest. I used tissue for the butterfly's body and a band-aid for the wings. The kids really enjoyed it. One boy who was around 4 or 5 told me he made a butterfly family "and a brother and a sister!" Another little girl, who usually needs a lot of help, did this one almost entirely on her own, and announced halfway through, "This butterfly is the baby." All of  them used slightly different approaches to the antenna and some even colored on the tissues to give the bodies some color. It was a great success, and I will definitely file it away to try again.

The Display: More Buggy Books

• The Very Busy Spider by Eric Carle (1950)
• The Grouchy Ladybug by Eric Carle (1970)
• Miss Spider's New Car by David Kirk (1997)
• Grasshopper on the Road by Arnold Lobel (1978)
• Bug Safari by Bob Barner (2004)
• Miss Spider's Sunny Patch Kids by David Kirk (2004)
• Insectlopedia by Douglas Florian (1998)