Flannel Friday Round-Up for January 18, 2013

Welcome, Flannel Friday friends!  This is the round-up for January 18, 2013. If you're new to Flannel Friday and/or want to learn more, check out the official website and Facebook page.

Here are this week's contributions:

• The Bear Went Over the Mountain (Jen in the Library)
• Bird Houses (Falling Flannelboards)
• Counting Sheep (Storytime Katie)
• Five Little Froggies (Voices Inside My Headphones)
• Five Little Snowmen (Miss Mary Liberry)
• Letters from Favorite Characters (Story Time Secrets)
• Martin's Hats (Thrive After Three)
• Melting Snowman (Storytime ABC's)
• Mr. Sun / Three Little Snowmen (Piper Loves the Library)
• The Napping House (Six Cranberries)
• Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear? Pizza Box Flannel Board (Libraryland)
• Sights to See in Washington D.C. (In the Children's Room)
• A Soup Opera by Jim Gill (So Tomorrow) 
• Where Oh Where Has My Underwear Gone?  (Read Rabbit Read) 
• Winnie-the-Pooh & Beehive Hand Puppets (What is Bridget Reading?) 
• Winter Fun with Friends (Notes from the Story Room)

See these and past Flannel Friday contributions on Pinterest. Keep in touch with fellow Flannel Friday participants using the #flannelfriday hashtag on Twitter.

Thanks for visiting the round-up. Next week, Sarah will host the special Valentine's Day edition of Flannel Friday. Have a great weekend!

We Love to Read! Drop-In Story Time, 1/15/13

 We Love to Read! Drop-In Story Time, 1/15/13

Click to download this week's handout.

Song: If You’d Like to Read a Book

Book: The Wonderful Book by Leonid Gore
There was a group of four year olds who loved this book. I was glad I chose a longer book, since they wound up joining story time, but it was too long for almost everyone else, adults included.

Flannel Board Rhyme: Down Around the Corner
I printed out covers of five well-known picture books (shown above) and did "Down around the corner at the children's bookstore" where boys and girls bought the books and took them away.

Book: I Like Books by Anthony Browne

Flannel Board Song (with ukulele): I’m Going Down to the Library
We had the whole family visit the library - Mom, Dad, baby, brother, sister, grandma, and grandpa.

Song: I’m a Little Teapot

Letter of the Day: U

• Song: Red Umbrella Keeps Me Dry
• Song: Here We Go Up, Up, Up
• Song: Under the Big Chestnut Tree (We sang only the English.)
• Song (with ukulele): Ukulele Song (I wrote this song ten minutes before story time. It wasn't as good as I imagined, but I might be able to work on it more and make it work.) 

Songs (with ukulele): ABCs / Twinkle Twinkle Little Star/ Baa Baa Black Sheep

Rhyme: This is Big, Big, Big

Rhyme: Blue is the Lake

Song: The Wheels on the Bus

Song: The More We Read Together

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.

Outreach Round-Up, 1/3/13 - 1/11/13

Catholic School 5th Grade, 1/3/13 
Short Story: "Your Question for Author Here" by Kate DiCamillo and Jon Scieszka, from Guys Read: Funny Business 
Notes: The teacher liked the story; the class did not. I think it was too long for them, and letters aren't the easiest thing to read aloud.

Catholic School 3rd Grade, 1/4/13
Book: Chloe and the Lion by Mac Barnett, illustrated by Adam Rex
Notes: Several kids called out, "I love this!" when we were about three or four pages into the story. Their interest fizzled by the end, which was too bad, but they loved the meta-fictional approach to the story.

Catholic School 5th Grade, 1/10/13 
Activity: Writing Stories
I gave each of three teams a story starter. (It was the first line of Nim's Island - "In a palm tree, on an island, in the middle of the wide blue sea, was a girl." For two of the teams, I changed the last word to "boy" and "monkey.") I then challenged them to take turns adding sentences to the story to see where their creativity would take them. Aside from an obvious need for more structure, they did a nice job. (Our story room's walls are eraseable, so that's where they wrote.) The results are below. (White marks appear where I Photoshopped out the kids' names.)

 

 

Catholic School Kindergarten, 1/11/13
Books: How to Drive Your Sister Crazy by Diane Z. Shore and George and Martha: Encore by James Marshall
Notes: This group didn't get the humor in the book that I chose, but one of them had checked out the big collection of George and Martha stories, and they all wanted to hear one of those. I chose one we hadn't read before, and the kids liked pointing out how it was the same or different from a previous title we had read together. They asked for more George and Martha for next time, a request I will do my best to honor!

Catholic School First Grade, 1/11/13 
Book: Lentil by Robert McCloskey
Notes: The kids were very excited about the harmonica in this book. They were restless at first, but fell really silent as the plot got going. I always liked this book when I was around their age, and was glad to see it still holds up. I also want to keep this one in mind if I do a preschool music theme. And it would be great if I could get a harmonica!

Welcome to Winter! Preschool Story Time, 1/11/13

Today was one of our better-attended preschool story time sessions - 8 kids in all! Some things, I came up with at the very last minute, but they all worked really well. 

Welcome to Winter! Preschool Story Time, 1/11/13
 Click to download this week's handout. 

Book: Over and Under the Snow by Kate Messner, illustrated by Christopher Silas Neal
I think this is a much better read-aloud than I was expecting, because most of  the kids seemed mesmerized. Only one little girl didn't like it and kept saying so to her mom.

Book and Activity: The Mitten by Jan Brett
For this story, I created a mitten on the floor with blue masking tape, as shown above. (The idea came from Pinterest.) Each of the kids had one of these cards and when their animal was called, they stepped into the mitten. At the end, when the bear sneezes, we all sneezed and jumped out of the mitten.

Song: If You Have a...
We were going to do an actual sequencing activity with the  sequencing cards but I quickly realized these kids would not be up to it. Instead, I sang to the tune of Mary Wore Her Red Dress: "If you have the badger... bring it up to me." That worked really well.

Rhyme: Hedgehog's Hungry
This was another spur of  the moment idea. I tried out my new puppet, and asked the kids what they would feed him. The most popular answer, overwhelmingly, was dirt. (Credit for this idea goes to Miss Tara, who suggested feeding the puppet.)

Song: Hat, Coat, Pants and Shoes 
Only one little girl found this funny, but it was worth it to hear her laugh. 

Book: Cold Snap by Eileen Spinelli, illustrated by Marjorie Priceman
This is a long one to be the last story of a session like this, but they liked it. And I love the artwork. 


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.