Preschool Story Time, 12/7/16 (Letter S Theme)

Today's story time attracted lots of repeat attendees, and I think these are the families who will form our core group as the year goes on. Not including me and my two girls, we had two moms and two dads, accompanied by a total of 7 kids. The theme, which existed solely to help me organize, was the letter S. 

To begin with, my own one-year-old freaked out at the thought of being held by someone else, and spent the whole first song of story time shrieking and being carried around by the children's programming coordinator from the church. She was not the only crying child, but she was the loudest and most persistent. This made for a very humbling start to the session - but I think it also made the other parents feel more comfortable about their toddlers' behavior.

In any case, here is the plan I used:

Opening Song: Story Time is Starting

Book: Spectacular Spots by Susan Stockdale

This is the second week in a row that I opened with an informational book, and I didn't feel like it was well-received. I think I need to start looking for books that people already know and love and see if that stirs up a little more enthusiasm.

Flannel Board Song: Ladybug Has One Black Spot 

Instead of making a felt ladybug with detachable spots, I printed the same ladybug six times, each with a different number of spots, then covered it with contact paper and attached Velcro. It worked fine. I also changed the word "pretty" to "lovely" in the lyrics because I thought it sounded better.

Book: Snow by Manya Stojic

I think this book was the hit of the session. I'll have to remember to use Rain by the same author in the spring when I do a spring weather theme.

Rhyme: Five Little Snowmen Riding on a Sled

Song: Shake My Sillies Out 

I did this song differently than I ever have before, with these verses: 

• Shake my sillies out...
• Clap my sillies out...
• Stomp my sillies out... 

Song: Head and Shoulders, Baby 

This was a last-minute addition and it was not the best. I should have used Hands Up High but didn't think of until I got home.

Book: Mice Squeak, We Speak by Tomie dePaola

I asked everyone to make the animals' sounds as I read, and though they did, I felt a bit like they were humoring me. Again, stories with plot is what this group wants, so I'll be working on finding more of those.

Flannel Board Song: We All Go Traveling By 

Based on last week's success, I repeated this one, singing it this time. Probably the favorite activity of the session.

Song: Mr. Sun

Song: Itsy Bitsy Spider

Book: Time to Sleep by Denise Fleming 

This was too long for a fourth book. I wish I had used this author's Sleepy, Oh So Sleepy, instead.

Goodbye Song: Chickadee 

I am still thinking of replacement goodbye songs. This one is working less well each week.

Read-Along Story Time for Beginning Readers (Letter S), 7/17/13

 

Read-Along Story Time for Beginning Readers (Letter S), 7/17/13

Attendees

Some families have made this story time a regular part of their week, so we have a nice core group of kids, many of whom were back again for this session. We also had some newbies join us for the first time, including one baby and one toddler who were decidedly not old enough to participate. (These adults who insist that 18 month olds are beginning readers are not doing their children any favors, just saying.) All told, there were roughly a dozen kids of varying levels, and three whom I would consider readers.

iPad Presentation

As I did last week, I displayed a series of pictures of things beginning with S, which were accompanied by sentences to encourage the kids to read. The kids who could read did indeed tell me what the sentences said, while the little kids happily called out the name of the object in the picture. At the end of the presentation, as I have also done in past weeks, I displayed the images of those items we would be discussing further at story time. 

Again, I don't have the  right to distribute all of the images I used, but the text I wrote is as follows: 

I hear sounds with my ears.
This cat is sleeping.
I like to wear my yellow shirt.
This is a pair of blue socks.
In summer, I wear shorts.
I can count to six.
Are you afraid of spiders?
Snakes slither and hiss.
You can build a sandcastle.
See how high you can swing!
Slip down the slide!
What could you cut with scissors?

Read-Aloud / Read-Along
I don't ordinarily choose an easy reader as a read-aloud unless  the language is exceptional, but I decided to try We All Sleep from the We Both Read series, because I knew it would prompt the kids to read some of the words on the side of the page designated for the child reader. The text was a bit long, and only one child actually read any words aloud, but some of the little kids picked up the repetition and by the end, they were calling things out as well. The oldest kids in the group, who are rising first and second graders, didn't seem bored, even when the vocabulary might have been too easy for them, which was great to discover, as I have plans to do a session of this story time for rising first through third graders at our main library in a couple of weeks. I'm not sure I'd use this specific book again, but a call and response approach does work, and I'd to explore ways to use that model.

Poem
To highlight the word "sounds," I re-used Ears Hear, which was a favorite at my school-age class visits this Spring. This group was a little shy about making noise, but by the end when it was time to scream, they all had the hang of it.

Bag of Verbs
This continues to be the best activity I've ever used with any school-age group. It gets a little wild, but it's a nice way to involve everyone. Only one child routinely refuses to have a turn, and it's because she outright refuses to participate at all, much to the chagrin of the huge family entourage that comes with her to story time each week.

Silly Sentence Sort
I invented this game myself, hoping to create an activity that a mixed age group could easily do together. The concept is based on sorting the laundry. I created four sets of words, each printed on a different article of clothing. On shirts, there were subjects for sentences, such as "The fairy" or "The giant." On the shorts, there were verbs, all in the present tense, such as "steals" or "cooks." The left socks were all adjectives, and then the right socks were all nouns. Each child took a turn selecting one article from each category and clipping it (sometimes with help) to the clothesline.  Then I wrote their sentence for them and handed them the paper so they could later illustrate it. I'm going to try making a Flannel Friday post about this activity either this afternoon or next week, so if you like the idea, stay tuned!

Silly Sentence Illustrations
After every child had a turn creating a silly sentence, I passed around crayons and colored pencils and had the kids draw pictures to accompany their sentences. Only the oldest kids really got into it, but some of the preschoolers whose parents were right there also helped them do theirs. Though the game and illustrations took a long time, and the adults were restless, the kids never lost interest, and they were great about waiting for turns and following instructions.This would have been easier to do with ten kids all on the same level, but even with toddler siblings it was still a success.

ABCs: S is for Story Time Preschool Story Time, 5/17/13

 ABCs: S is for Story Time Preschool Story Time, 5/17/13

Book: Blueberries for Sal by Robert McCloskey
The group was small - a six year old, an almost five-year-old, a three-year-old, and a toddler. The oldest two kids liked this book, but the little ones were distracted.

Song: Shake My Sillies Out 
During this song, for no reason, all the kids took their shoes off. Then they put them back on. 

Book: Ol’ Mama Squirrel by David Ezra Stein
This was not the hit I expected it to be, so I cut out the next book and quickly skipped through to the end of the story time. 

Flannel Board: Sarah's Silly Socks
This flannel  board will be featured in an upcoming Flannel Friday post!

Book: Stripes of all Types by Susan Stockdale
The illustrations in this one were very engaging. This was a great last book in a story time filled with fidgety kids! 

Craft: Letter S Snakes

 

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.