Chicken Storytime

Opening: Shake My Sillies Out – Raffi

Book: Stuck in the Mud – Jane Clarke

 

Flannelboard: Hens of a different color (see at end)

(Paused before naming each color, so the kids could shout it out.)

Book: The Chicken of the Family – Mary Amato

 

Song: Clucky Clucky Chicken – sesame street

 (Did a little dance around the room…this wasn’t my favorite but it worked fine.)

Book: Chicken Little – jf Emberley

 

Flannelboard: The Most Wonderful Egg in the World (from the book by Helme Heine)

Three chicken friends go ask the king which is most wonderful.

They lay eggs in a contest, and each becomes a princess for their skills.

Book: Chickens to the Rescue – jp Himmelman

 

Song: I know a chicken – from the CD Whadda’ Think of That by Laure Berkner

(used shakey eggs, and did as the song told! If you don’t have shakey eggs, you could put beans or rice in plastic easter eggs.)

The Parts:

Hens of a different color

This little hen is BLACK ( hold up black hens)
She stands in the barnyard by a big hay stack.

This little hen is RED (hold up red hens)
She is very tired and won’t get out of bed.

This little hen is BROWN (hold up brown hens)
She likes spinning round and round.

This little hen is YELLOW (hold up yellow hens)
She’s shakes like a bowl of jell-o.

This little hen is WHITE (hold up white hen)
She dance’s and plays, oh what a sight.

This little hen is PURPLE (hold up the purple hens)
She spends her day running around in circles.

This little hen is GREEN (hold up green hen)
She is the silliest hen I’ve ever seen.

This little hen is BLUE (hold up blue hen)
She lays eggs for me and you.

This little hen is PINK (hold up the pink hen)
She goes down to the pond to get a drink.

Drawing Storytime

Opening: Shake my Sillies Out – Raffi

Book: Art & Max – David Wiesner

 

Shadow Play – Harolds Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson

 (Borrowed from a fellow librarian. Told the story using a projector and transparencies with the illustrations, and a little puppet Harold.)

Book: Lions Lunch – Fiona Tierney

 

Song: Shape Man from the CD Get ready, get set, sing by Sarah Barchas

 (On a whiteboard I drew each shape that the song mentions first, and had the kids name them. These became the bodies as I filled out each man as the song dictates. You don’t have to pretend to be out of breath by the time it’s over! [which the kids enjoyed].)

Book: I Ain’t Gonna’ Paint no More – Karen Beaumont

 

Poem: Invisible Boy by Shel Silverstein (see at end)

 (showed the kids the ‘picture’ [a white board] and pointed out each thing it described.  Then I guided them through a drawing of a house with a pet in the air with our fingers.)

Book: That’s How I See Things – Sirish Rao

 

(a sort of strange book, which I love, and it was well received. I little wordy toward the end, so I abbreviated.)

Activity: Coloring on Butcher Paper

(Linked this with the last book, having the kids create strange animals of their own.)

Look and See Storytime

Opening: Shake My Sillies Out – Raffi

Book: Panda Bear, Panda Bear, What Do You See? – Bill Martin Jr.

 

Song/Sign: Let’s Take a Little Walk from Pick Me Up! Fun songs for learning sign.

(I introduced the concept of sign language, and we practiced the signs we’d use in the song [walk, see, tree, butterfly, bird, squirrel, apple]. It’s a simple song, essentially a single verse repeated where the things you see in the tree change.)

Book: Hattie and the Fox – Mem Fox

 

(I intended to use Where’s Tumpty by Polly Dunbar, but my co-worker used it the week before for an Elephant theme…so I found this last minute and I love it! It fit the theme so well and is just a charming story.)

Activity: Matching Game

(I had different colored shapes cut out, each child got one. I would say whether they should match the color or the shape that I held up, and if what they had matched, they would raise theirs as well. Simple, but the kids seemed to like it and it’s edumacational!)

Book: Duck! Rabbit! – Amy Krause Rosenthal

(I’m still not sure how I feel about this as a storytime book, I’ve used it a couple of times and the kids are engaged…I just don’t connect with it I guess.)

Flannelboard: Why the Frog Has Big Eyes – Betsy Franco

(Check out the whole thing here!)

(Done as a quasi-puppet show, with two dimensional characters who could move their eyes and blink. I’m really pleased with how they turned out.)

Book: I Spy With My Little Eye – jp Gibbs

 

(Simple book with huge pics. I’m a fan.)

Song: Bear Went Over the Mountain (see at end)

(Did a variation where the bear finds something on the other side of the mountain, and then they go over the mountain, a chain that could go endlessly! I used the pairings from my ‘Hunting We Will Go’ set.)

The Parts

The Bear Went Over the Mountain

The Bear went over the mountain,

the bear went over the mountain,

the bear when over the mountain to see what he could see.

He saw a goat in a boat there, he saw a goat in a boat there,

he saw a goat in a boat there, and that is what he saw.

The goat went over the mountain, the goat went over the mountain,

the goat went over the mountain to see what he could see.

(Continue with as many creatures as you’d like. I finished with the bear in a chair.)

Why the Frog Has Big Eyes

adapted from the book by Betsy Franco (I’ve included a very rough telling)

(I created these with with regular printer paper…should have used cardstock but ah well! The things we learn. Behind the cut out eyes is glued an envelope which holds the slips of paper with the pupils and eyelids…see a breakdown of the bird at the bottom. It’s fun to move the pupils around during the story.)

The frog didn’t always have big eyes, once they were very small. Frog was also very good at staring. He challenged his friends to a staring contest.

Horse blinked first, and rabbit blinked first, and bird blinked first…but when fish was the competitor…frogs eyes got bigger and bigger as he tried to win. Then frog blinked…and learned that fish never do. (You can see frogs eye layers in the bottom right corner, they just slid behind each other in the envelope)

Frogs eyes have been big ever since, and he never bragged again.

(Bird caught mid-blink…how embarrassing!)

(You can see the envelope through the empty eye sockets, I cut off the flaps because they got in the way. The eyelids were easier to manipulate when I attached them to the paper with the pupils. You push down on the crease and it blinks! I also covered the pupils with tape to give them some shine.)

Amanda at Trails & Tales hosted this weeks Flannel Friday