Flannel Friday (Halloween Edition): Mr. Scarecrow's Jack o'Lantern

It's so hard to believe that Halloween is just around the corner. Thankfully, inspiration for this flannel board struck in mid-September, so I'm actually ready to share it with you today even though none of my other Halloween stuff is planned yet. Like last week's story, I wrote it myself, and also made the pieces myself (except the scarecrow) using paper, crayons, contact paper, and Velcro. (Please feel free to use the story, but if you post the words anywhere, I would just ask that you credit me and link back here.)
 

Mr. Scarecrow's Jack o'Lantern

by Miss Katie 

Mr. Scarecrow has a pumpkin. He wants to turn it into a jack o'lantern. 

He carves one eye. 

Is it a jack o'lantern yet?

Nooooo!

He carves another eye.

Is it a jack o'lantern yet?

Nooooo!

He carves a nose.

Is it a jack o'lantern yet?

Nooooo!

He carves a mouth.

It is a jack o'lantern yet?

Yes! 

Here is Mr. Scarecrow's jack o'lantern...

All lit up! 

How I wrote it: I knew I wanted to write a story with a main character that would also be somehow interactive for my huge baby/toddler drop-in group. I also wanted to make my own pieces, so I knew it had to be pretty basic. Halloween seemed like an obvious topic, and once I thought of pumpkins, the process of carving a jack o'lantern seemed like a pretty logical choice. (I also think it's usually okay to talk about pumpkins at story time, even if there are some people in attendance who don't celebrate Halloween.) It didn't take long to write the original draft, though each time I practice it in my head or share it with someone, it changes slightly. I haven't shared it at a story  time yet, but I'll be up to the letter J on October 23, so I'll have a better idea then of how it goes over.

How I made it: I opted to make six individual versions of the same pumpkin, to avoid having to stick a bunch of Velcro all over the front of the plain one in order to attach the eyes, nose, and mouth. The first thing I did was trace a Cool Whip container to get six pumpkins of the exact same size and shape, then I colored the first one with an orange crayon. After that, I started adding one piece of the face at a time to each of the next four pumpkins, tracing from one pumpkin to the next so the faces would all line up the same. Then I colored everything accordingly, and attached stems (also traced from a single template that I drew) to each pumpkin. Finally, I covered the pieces with contact paper and outlined the facial features once more with a Sharpie. The scarecrow was a piece I already had from last Fall. He came from this website.

Flannel Friday's Halloween Round-Up host is Mary at Miss Mary Liberry. Also check out the FF Facebook page, Pinterest boards, and official website.

Outreach Round-up, 9/19/12 - 9/28/12

I haven't done one of our regular drop-in story times in over a week, which is why there haven't been many blog posts, but that doesn't mean I haven't been busy. I just sat down to count them up and realized I have read to seven different classes or groups in the last eight weekdays! I've been to the local rec. center and two elementary schools, and I've had three Catholic school classes and one after care group come to me. Every single one of the groups has been lovely, but since I repeated a lot of the same material, it would have been too redundant - not to mention time-consuming -  to post about each of the eight sessions individually. Therefore, I present my first Outreach Round-Up. Depending on how busy my outreach schedule becomes, this might be a regular feature from here on out.

Rec. Center Cooperative Play Program: Wednesday, 9/19

• Books:  Ten Little Caterpillars, The Busy Little Squirrel, My Farm Friends, The Bus for Us
• Songs: One, Two, Three Caterpillars, Gray Squirrel, Baa Baa Black Sheep, The Wheels on the Bus, These Are My Glasses
• Notes: It's fun to sing Gray Squirrel three times, once with gray, once with brown, and once with black, for the three colors of squirrels we have here.  

Catholic School Pre-K: Thursday, 9/20

• Books: Teeny Weeny Bop, Click Clack Moo, Bark, George
• Flannel Board: Silly Sally
• Songs: If You'd Like to Read a Book, These Are My Glasses
• Notes: Teeny Weeny Bop has a flat ending, and Silly Sally didn't really get a reaction.

Public School Pre-K: Monday, 9/24

• Books: A Visitor for Bear, Otto the Book Bear, May I Bring a Friend? 
• Songs: If You'd Like to Read a Book, These Are My Glasses
• Action Rhymes: Book Bear, Book Bear
• Notes: During the last verse of If You'd Like to Read a Book,  I changed "shout hooray" to "whisper hooray" in the final line to get the kids quiet for the story. I started lowering my voice slowly as we approached those words so they'd have to quiet down to hear me, and they seemed to enjoy the surprise change from loud to soft.

Public School Kindergarten After Care: Thursday, 9/27 

• Books: Ling and Ting Not Exactly the Same, George and Martha, My Friend is Sad 
• Songs: If You'd Like to Read a Book, The Banana Dance, Shake My Sillies Out, These Are My Glasses
• Rhymes: This is Big, Big, Big, Book Buddies, Book Buddies (based on Book Bear, Book Bear) 
• Notes: Ling and Ting makes a wonderful read-aloud, and it opens up great discussions, especially when the girls make dumplings and eat with chopsticks. A huge hit with boys and girls. This is Big, Big, Big is perfect for calming a large, wild group, no matter how old they are.

Public School Pre-K: Friday, 9/28 

• Books: A Visitor For Bear, Taking a Bath With the Dog, I Am Not Going to Get Up Today 
• Songs: If You'd Like to Read a Book, Shake My Sillies Out, These Are My Glasses
• Notes: The kids loved the Seuss book, and they giggled like mad over the mouse in A Visitor for Bear.

Catholic School First Grade: Friday, 9/28 

• Book: Ling and Ting Not Exactly the Same
• Notes: The kids didn't know this one, and they all immediately wanted to check it out. Thank God I had multiple copies!

Catholic School Third Grade: Friday, 9/28

• Book: Apples to Oregon
• Notes: 100% perfect for this age group. The kids were engaged from beginning to end, and they laughed in all the right places. 

Flannel Friday: Mommy is Asleep

I have been thinking lately about finding more effective ways of using the flannel board. I have grown weary of many of my "five little whatevers" rhymes and songs, and I really wanted to start using the flannel board to tell actual stories, rather than just to fill the time between stories. I started looking for picture books that would make good flannels, and then realized many of the ones I was most excited about would be too much for my very young under-two audiences. So when I was at work last Saturday, I sat down and wrote a few very basic stories of my own, for which I knew I could also make my own flannel board pieces. This post is the second one I made, but I saved the first one for next week since it's for Halloween.

This one is called Mommy is Asleep. (I don't mind if you use this story or create your own version, but if you post my words anywhere, please credit me. Thanks!)

Mommy is asleep.

"Wake up!" says Charlie. 

Mommy is still asleep. 

"Wake up!" says Ella. 

Mommy is still asleep. 

"Wake up!" says Daddy. 

Mommy is still asleep. 

"Woof! Woof! Woof!" says Spot. 

Mommy is awake! 

How I Wrote It: 

I want to thank Cate from Storytiming for her very useful post from last November, entitled Flannelizable, Defined (Finally!). It was the first thing I read when I decided to create my own flannel stories, and I found her advice really helpful. I loved her discussion of using protagonists, concepts, and repetition, and actually managed to work these into each of the stories I came up with.

In terms of the actual content of this particular story, I decided to go with a bedtime theme since I had Pajama Story Time this week, and the concept of Mommy sleeping just sort of popped into my head. I started out thinking Daddy would be the one to wake Mommy up, but it's more fun when it's the dog. My audiences always love a little unexpected twist like that at the end, and asking the kids to bark with me will make it that much more interactive and exciting.


How I Made It:

For sleeping Mommy, awake Mommy and Daddy, I used this paper doll template. For the kids, I used a smaller template (which, I later realized, has six fingers on each hand.)

I used paper doll clothes from this website. For the kids, I shrunk the clothes about 67% using the "format picture" function in Microsoft Word (I had to do some math to do this, and when all was said and done, I made them just a little bit too small. It might be easier to just find a second set of paper dolls with the clothes already properly sized.) 

I colored everything with crayons, except the hair, which I drew freehand on construction paper and then cut out. (I just guessed at how big it would need to be, then cut it down when it came time to glue it to the paper dolls.)

I kept the faces simple - two dots for eyes, no nose, smiling mouth. For the sleeping version of Mommy, I made sure her eyes were closed and her mouth was a little bit different.

I glued everything together, then covered it contact paper to make it more durable.

Add velcro - and voila! Instant flannel board!

It took me over an hour to make the entire family, but I was sitting at the desk answering lots of questions, so the amount of work was probably a lot less than that. I think using paper dolls is a great alternative for people who might not have the budget to buy a lot of felt - or people like me who just find it difficult to cut pieces out of felt.

This week's host is Storytime Katie. More about Flannel Friday can be found on the official website.

Drop-In Story Time, 9/18/12

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. 

Donald Crews is one of the few authors or illustrators who holds the attention of the nannies at my story times. I decided to read three of his books in one session, and it worked out very well.

Book: Sail Away by Donald Crews (1995)To make this book interactive, I asked grown ups to say the "putt putt putt" sounds with me.

Song: Row, Row, Row Your Boat

Book: Freight Train by Donald Crews (1978)
When we got the page that says, "Freight train," I asked everyone to make their best train sound. 

Fingerplay: Here is the Engine 

Book: Flying by Donald Crews (1986)
For this book, every time the plane flew over something, we all said, "Whoosh!"


Action Rhyme: The Airplane

Letter of the Day: Letter F

• Song (with puppet): I’m a Little Green Frog 
• Song: Hurry, Hurry Drive the Firetruck 
• Song: (with ukulele and flannel board): Old MacDonald Had a Farm 
• Song (with flannel board): Ten Little Friends (just like Ten Little Indians, but it ends "ten little friends boys and girls.")
  Note: For this last song, I used the faces shown in my Flannel Friday post for The Doorbell Rang.

Song: ABCs/Twinkle Twinkle / Baa Baa Black Sheep

Rhyme: This is Big, Big, Big

Song: Bumpin’ Up and Down in My Little Red Wagon

Song: Gray Squirrel
 
Song: Sing a Happy Song 

Song: Chickadee