Storytime: Rabbits

Age: 2-5 years
Time: 30 minutes plus craft

1) These Are My Glasses - Laurie Berkner
My current opening song that we sing acappella every week. I start by asking them to show me their glasses and their book so that they remember the signs. We sing it through twice, then I'll ask them to quietly put their "books" in their lap.

These are my glasses (make the letter o with each hand)
And this is my book (hands together)
I put on my glasses (put "glasses" over eyes)
And open up the book (open book hands)
Now I read read read (hold book up in front of face like reading)
And I look look look (put glasses over eyes and look around room)
I put down my glasses and… (lower glasses)
WHOOP! Close up the book. (clap as if closing a book quickly)



2) Seven Little Bunnies – Julie Stiegemeyer

I love using counting books -- asking the kids what number comes next.


3) Fingerplay – Five Little Monkeys
I have a fun little glove (ok, it's not little, it's actually big and furry) that has monkey heads velcroed to the fingertips. This rhyme is so repetitive and classic, I probably should use it more often...


4) Duck! Rabbit! – Amy Krause Rosenthal (Monday), Little Rabbit Foo Foo - Michael Rosen (Tuesday)

I used Duck! Rabbit! with my first group, but they did NOT seem to get into it at all. The parents loved it. But the kids just sat there like a deer in the headlights... Maybe it would have been better with a slightly older group (since I did have 2 and 3 year olds in these groups). So the next day I pulled out my Little Rabbit Foo Foo big book instead.

5) Song – I Know a Chicken - Laurie Berkner


6) Little White Rabbit – Kevin Henkes

I think the kids liked this one. They had fun noticing the things the rabbit did ("his ears are flapping!!"), and the soft (pencil?) colors are pretty.


7) Songs – Shake Your Sillies Out & Hot Potato - the Wiggles
A pair of simple songs to help get their wiggles out...


8) A Boy and His Bunny – Sean Bryan

This was a fun one to end with. Cute rhymes, simple pictures, funny, kept the kids attention well. And it led well into our craft, which let them take their own bunny home.


Paper plate bunny
When I got back from my vacation, I realized that while I'd planned ahead on what books to use for storytime, I hadn't planned our craft. Oops! So I quickly searched my storage closet supplies and came up with a quick paper plate bunny craft. It's just a small (dessert-sized?) paper plate, cotton balls, wiggly eyes, a pink circle nose (that I found in an envelope of paper scraps), and hand-cut ears (no template used! I was so short on time!). The trick is to first glue the ears to the inside of the plate, then spread glue over top of the whole plate, and then stick the cotton balls down. Then put some glue on the eyes and nose and stick them on.

Not my greatest craft ever, but the kids had fun walking around holding it on top of their head like the book we'd just read. :)

Storytime: Pirates

Before I started in this job, I had already planned a week-long vacation with my husband, and of course it fell right in the middle of our Summer Reading Program... BUT I had an amazing volunteer step up and lead both of my storytimes plus my elementary drop-in craft for that week! I planned it all out ahead of time for her.

Age: 2-5 years
Time: 30 minutes

1) Peg Leg Peke – Brie Spangler

2) Song – I Know a Chicken - Laurie Berkner


3) Sheep on a Ship – Nancy E. Shaw

4) Song – If you’re a pirate and you know it
Swab the desk, walk the plank, say ahoy!


5) Pirate Nap: A Book of Colors – Danna Smith

I already had most of the colors featured in this book as feltboard pieces from my shape monster, so I just cut a few more squares out of the colors we didn't have yet. Windy said the kids loved bringing up their pieces when their colors came up in the story!


6) Bubble Bath Pirates - Jarrett Krosoczka

Pirate hat 
I wanted a really easy craft for Windy to lead with the kids. I used the hat template found here, as well as the "silly skull" image they reference (shown below). I copied the hat (with the skull image glued in the center) onto white cardstock and cut them out, along with strips of cardstock. The kids colored the skull, then adults stapled cardstock strips to fit the hat around their kids' head. Super easy!

Seattle Public Library

This summer my husband and I took a little vacation to the Pacific Northwest (without our 3- and 1-year old kids, yay!!). After visiting the Pacific Ocean at Westport, Washington, and Mount Rainier National Park, we spent a day in Seattle. I'd heard great things about the public library there, so after a ton of walking around the Seattle Center and Pikes Place Market, we hiked up the hill to see the library. It was so worth it!

The kid's area was huge and full of beautiful displays, themed with everything from classic stories to their summer reading program.

Ohhh how I drooled over this story hour room!

Play and computer stations. I'm surprised there weren't any kids there at the time, but I guess it was in the middle of the afternoon (aka naptime).

We also trekked upstairs, where three (or was it four?) floors were arranged in a winding spiral full of non-fiction books.

I took the escalator up to the 10th floor. 

Looking down at the street from the 10th floor.

Looking way down to the first floor atrium!

After all the walking we'd done that day it was nice to just sit in a comfy chair, 10 stories up, and relax.

A beautiful library, and a beautiful city! (This photo taken from Kerry Park on the north side of town. Yes that is Mount Rainier.)

Elementary Drop-in Craft: Mummy Masks

I can take no credit for this idea, I found it on Pinterest. Click here for the original post from Betsy at Tippy Toe Crafts. 

My mask that I quickly put together
the night before the program

Since mummies are buried "beneath the surface" and are "dug" out of their pyramids and tombs, I thought this idea fit great with our summer reading topic.

The tough part was making it happen for 100+ kids. I purchased white masks from Oriental Trading, and a 50-pack of white posterboard and 6 cans of gold spray paint (it was cheaper than getting 5 cans) from another supply store. I traced and cut out a headdress piece from a half-sheet of posterboard, then used it to trace onto all the other posterboard halves. If I'd planned ahead a little more (and had a few more volunteers) I would have pre-cut the headpieces. Instead the kids cut their own on the day of the craft.

I spray painted all of the masks myself (ok, with help from my husband). I strung them up in my garage to dry. It was kind of creepy, all of these gold heads staring at me...  (I was sure I'd taken pictures but I can't find them... if I do I'll add them!)

I left the headpieces white, and provided random supplies to decorate -- it was a great way to use up miscellaneous craft items! We had tons of scrap paper, markers, feathers, pipe cleaners. Scotch tape, scissors, and glue were on the tables.

And the kids went at it -- decorating and making the masks uniquely their own!

 

If you decide to include feathers like I did... be prepared for a mess!!! My teen volunteers helped me pick up the big pieces, then we still had all this left to vacuum up:

It sure was fun though. :) And the rest of the library staff upstairs loved how the kids came up and showed off their creations to them!

Storytime: Dinosaurs

Age: 2-5 years
Time: 30 minutes plus craft time

1) These Are My Glasses - Laurie Berkner
My current opening song that we sing acappella every week. I start by asking them to show me their glasses and their book so that they remember the signs. We sing it through twice, then I'll ask them to quietly put their "books" in their lap.

These are my glasses (make the letter o with each hand)
And this is my book (hands together)
I put on my glasses (put "glasses" over eyes)
And open up the book (open book hands)
Now I read read read (hold book up in front of face like reading)
And I look look look (put glasses over eyes and look around room)
I put down my glasses and… (lower glasses)
WHOOP! Close up the book. (clap as if closing a book quickly)


2) Dinosaurs, Dinosaurs – Byron Barton

A good, short, bright book to introduce lots of kinds of dinosaurs to the kids.


3) Song – We are the Dinosaurs - Laurie Berkner
My kids LOVE this song. They ask for it every week. Of course we had to sing it this week. :)


4) All Aboard the Dinotrain – Deb Lund

Some fun rhymes and great artwork. I did paperclip a couple pages together since it got a little long and the kids didn't care so much about the intricacies of the train so much as the dinosaurs themselves.


5) Shape Monster feltboard

This is a great activity to let ALL the kids be involved in the rhyme. It can easily work for small groups (we've done it with only 3-5 kids, each with a different shape), or for a bigger group like we had today (25, using multiples of each shape). My monster is just a piece of brown felt cut to the basic shape above, with a pair of googly eyes.


6) Dinosaur Roar – Paul Stickland

I paperclipped a few of these pages too, mostly because I had the kids stand up and act it out and I couldn't think of actions for some of the words. :)


7) Song – Shake Your Sillies Out - the Wiggles
My kids seemed to be extra wiggly tonight!


8) How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight? – Jane Yolen

I love the dinosaur books by Yolen -- they're so silly, have great rhymes, and the kids love them too. This one was especially fun for my Monday evening crew, as they would all soon head home and get ready for bed themselves...


Fingerprint stegosaurus
This craft was taken from the CLSP manual. I copied the picture onto cardstock, set out some crayons for them to color the stegosaurus first, then came around with little individual cups of green fingerpaint. And wet wipes...

Storytime: Dogs

Age: 2-5 years
Time: 30 minutes

1) These Are My Glasses - Laurie Berkner
My current opening song that we sing acappella every week. I start by asking them to show me their glasses and their book so that they remember the signs. We sing it through twice, then I'll ask them to quietly put their "books" in their lap.

These are my glasses (make the letter o with each hand)
And this is my book (hands together)
I put on my glasses (put "glasses" over eyes)
And open up the book (open book hands)
Now I read read read (hold book up in front of face like reading)
And I look look look (put glasses over eyes and look around room)
I put down my glasses and… (lower glasses)
WHOOP! Close up the book. (clap as if closing a book quickly)


2) Pick a Pup  - Marsha Wilson Chall

I paper clipped a couple of these pages together, there were a few too many dogs to keep the kids' interest.


3) Song - I Know a Chicken - Laurie Berkner

A favorite song for my kids. To tie in to the previous story, I emphasized how I needed them to "pick" which color egg shaker they wanted to use.

4) RRRalph - Lois Ehlert

I love the unique pictures in Ehlert's books, and this one is no exception! Though I think the adults got more of a kick out of the talking dog than the kids did... ;-)


5) Song - BINGO 
We just sang this classic song acappella, and I had the brainstorm of making felt board letters for it. Well, I actually took the letters from my bulletin board stash and glued felt to the backs. After each verse I took a letter off the board. Easy peasy, and the kids really did it well!


6) Bark, George - Jules Feiffer

The kids sure had a laugh with this one.


7) Song - Shake Your Sillies Out - the Wiggles
They needed to get up and move...


8) Some Dogs Do - Jez Alborough

Surprisingly, the kids did well sitting through this one even though it was a little long for an ending book. But I thought it had a great message to end our day.


Paper bag dog
Our craft for today was a simple paper bag dog, kind of like the one found here. I didn't have a separate piece for the head, and just used black hole-punched dots for eyes and an oval for the nose. Instead of the feet and tail shown in that link, I traced the leg onto pink paper for a tongue. :)

Elementary Drop-in Craft: Garden Gnome & Flowerpot

To go with the Dig into Reading Summer Reading Program theme, one of our drop-in crafts for elementary-age kids was a garden gnome and flowerpot. We had around 100 kids come through between 9-11am and 2-4pm.

The flowerpots had been purchased by the previous youth librarian -- I'm guessing last fall when gardening stuff was being clearanced out. They're biodegradable pots, so once the kids' sunflower was starting to grow, the entire pot could be planted in the ground.

The garden gnome was something I found on Pinterest. I found a bunch of wooden clothespins in my storage closet, from a SRP craft a year or two ago. We followed the original post pretty close, except we used scrap paper and glue for the hats instead of sewing little caps of felt. Oh and we didn't do the beeswax finish. It would have been a little much for 100 gnomes!

I made one a few weeks ahead of time, hoping the 
sunflower seed would sprout and the kids could see 
it. My poor little plant looked SO much better 
the day before the craft! :( 

Supplies set out on the countertop, clearly labeled!

I bought way too much dirt for this project. 

Instructions and paintbrushes out on the tables.

Since this was the first event of the SRP for the 1st-6th grade kids, and it was when they could pick up their first reading log, the day was busy and packed.

The only clothespins left at the end of the day...
whew! We cut that one close! 

Overall I think the kids had fun, made a cute craft (if their plants didn't survive, I haven't heard about it yet :) , and I survived my first big SRP event!