Pink & Purple Preschool Story Time, 8/30/13

 

Pink & Purple Preschool Story Time, 8/30/13

I planned a version of this story time back in May and it was a week where no one showed up, so I held onto the books and brought it back out again on Friday. There were only five kids, as this was the first Friday of the school year and the Friday before Labor Day, but it was still a success.

Book: The Pink Refrigerator by Tim Egan
This is such an interesting book about how a magic refrigerator helps Dodsworth discover all the things there are to explore in life. It's a long one, and I wasn't sure how they'd do, but the kids were completely hooked. This would make a great read-aloud for class visits, too - up to second grade or so.

Book: Milo Armadillo by Jan Fearnley
This was a shorter, sweeter story, and the kids were obviously emotionally invested in it, as their little faces changed considerably as the story grew happy, then sad, then happy again. 

Activity: Acting Out Pink and Purple Things
My preschool audiences tend not to respond to music, so I like to have them act things out instead. I made little slips of paper with either a pink or purple squiggle on them, then pulled them out of a brown paper bag one at a time. I had the kids help me name the colors, then we acted out each motion together. I was surprised at how well it went over, as this was a quiet group. The actions I had in the bag are below:

• eat a purple grape popsicle
• climb a purple mountain
• act like a purple monster
• color with a purple crayon
• spread purple jam on bread
• stand like a pink flamingo
• chew pink bubble gum
• oink like a pink pig
• sip pink lemonade
• smell pink roses

Flannel Board Story: Purple Little Bird
I have never seen this book, but Katie's post at Recipes for Reading (linked above) gave me enough to go on to tell my own version of the story. The kids were pretty into it, and willing to name the animals and colors, even though they were otherwise shy.

Book: Lilly’s Purple Plastic Purse by Kevin Henkes
This is a long book to read last, and I sort of lost some of the kids, but Henkes is so much fun to read aloud.

Craft: Pink & Purple Coloring Activity
I put out various writing implements in pink and purple and some pink dot stickers and the kids all made different designs with them on plain white paper. One little boy refused to color, possibly because of the color choices, and got into a fight with his nanny, but the other three girls and one boy had a great time.

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.

In the Trees Drop-In Story Time, 8/30/13

 In the Trees Drop-In Story Time, 8/30/13

This story time was fun to set up. I drew four trees on the whiteboard then placed a clipart image on each one to indicate what type of tree it was. I introduced each tree with a song, then read a book to go along with each one.

Song with Ukulele: Here We Go 'Round the Apple Tree
We sang four verses of this song, which goes like this:

Here we go round  the apple tree, the apple tree, the apple tree
Here we go round the apple tree gathering the apples!

We gathered leaves from the maple tree and acorns from the big oak tree.

Book: The Apple Pie Tree by Zoe Hall
I was disappointed by how little they paid attention to books in general, in this session. This book had almost everyone's attention, but it kind of unraveled from there.

Rhyme: Way Up High in the Apple Tree
The kids got really into this, and some of them seemed to remember the words!

Book: The Red Lemon by Bob Staake
I chose this book because it rhymed, and made the conscious decision to cut out a lot of the text on the red page because I thought the group would be antsy. Unfortunately, even the shortened version didn't really seem to grab anyone this morning. 

Rhyme: Lemons in the Bowl
This was a new rhyme and I really liked how it went over. It might have gone on a little long for the babies, but the bigger kids were with me right to the end.

Book: Red Leaf Yellow Leaf  by Lois Ehlert
I am hereby retiring all Lois Ehlert books from story time. I don't like them, and the kids don't seem to "get" her illustrations.

Song: The Trees Are Growing Tall
The kids were great at showing me how tall their trees could grow, and touching their toes when it was time to sing about roots.

Book: The Busy Little Squirrel by Nancy Tafuri
I tried to get the grown-ups to join me on the refrain of this book, and to make all the animal sounds, but they pretty much just tuned me out.

Song: Brown Squirrel, Brown Squirrel
We pretended to be brown squirrels, then gray squirrels.

Song with Puppet: Mr. Sun 

Song with Ukulele: ABCs / Twinkle Twinkle Little Star / Baa Baa Black Sheep

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.

Babies Toddler Lap Time, 8/23/13

Babies Toddler Lap Time, 8/23/13

This was the last toddler story time of the summer, and my last toddler story time ever, and I was glad to see it end. This story time has never gone well, or been well-attended, and this was no exception. We did a babies theme, but the kids only wanted to run laps around  the  room and their parents just wanted to take photos of them running. The kids did like the shaker eggs, but everything else, they pretty much ignored.

Book: Baby Danced the Polka by Karen Beaumont

Flannel Board Rhyme: This Little Baby

Book: What Shall We Do with the Boo Hoo Baby? by Cressida Cowell

Song: Babies on the Bus (based on the book by Karen Katz)

Book: How Do You Make a Baby Smile? by Philemon Sturges

Songs with Shaker Eggs:

• Shake My Sillies Out
• Can You Shake Your Egg with Me?
• Where is Shaker?

Song: Mr. Sun

Song: Twinkle Twinkle Little Star


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.

Baa Buzz Moo Cluck Drop-In Story Time, 8/23/13

 Baa Buzz Moo Cluck Drop-In Story Time, 8/23/13

(There are no books in this picture because I forgot to photograph them before story time, and all of them were checked out instantly after story time was over!)

For my last few story times, I am stepping things up a little bit. It seems that adults are more engaged and less likely to visit with each other when the actual presentation of story time is more elaborate. So, though I have been using mainly tried and true books and songs, and very few props, I have been taking extra time to turn the white board into a mini-display for each session. This week, I decided to focus on animals, and after finding the Have You Any? song mentioned below, I built the entire story time around the four animals named in that song. I put a picture of each animal on the board, along with its verse from the song and used the images as a guideline for moving through story time, pausing now and then to ask the kids to name the next animal or tell me what sound it makes. To my great surprise, at the end of story time, several adults came up to take a picture of the whiteboard, as though it were a museum exhibit! I have at least one more story time planned for this coming Friday that follows this same format - we'll see how long the novelty lasts.

Song: When Sheep Get Up in the Morning 
Traditionally, I sing this with puppets, but we did it with the ukulele since that seems to get everybody excited about story time. This is actually not difficult to play on the ukulele, as I realized when I quickly learned the chords in five minutes, and I think I might prefer to do it this way from now on.

Book: No Sleep for the Sheep by Karen Beaumont
I had so much fun reading this rhythmic book aloud, but no one else was into it. My reading was fine, so I didn't think it was that. It might just be that  they weren't in the mood for animal sounds.

Song with Stick Puppets: Mary Had a Little Lamb
I used my different-colored lamb flannel board pieces  and held them up one at a time for the kids to call out their colors. Then we sang about Mary's lambs, who were white as snow, red as a rose, blue as the sky, and black as night.

Book: From Flower to Honey by Robin Nelson
I was surprised that the kids seemed into this, as it is non-fiction and the illustrations are photos. I read only the first bolded sentence on each page because the group was pretty young and fidgety, but they were with me the entire time.

Song with Puppet: Buzzing Buzzing Bumblebee

Book: Cows Going Past by Bruce Balan
This book seemed like a better story time book when I first discovered it. As I was reading it, I realized this might be more of an easy reader. The kids were not into it at all, which was a disappointment, but there might be ways to make it more interactive and therefore more interesting. I'll have to look at it more carefully - but it was checked out after story time, so it will be a while before I get to that!

Song: Have You Any? 
This is the song that inspired the story time, and I played this on the ukulele as well. The adults happily sang along using the lyrics on the whiteboard. 

Book: Hurry! Hurry! by Eve Bunting
We read this book as a call and response, and that worked very well. I'd do this again, especially as the last book in a  session. 

Song: Hands Up High 

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.