Friday, June 29, 2012

Flannel Friday: Baby's New Shoes





For last Thursday's shoe themed story time I adapted Dashka Slater's picture book about a little baby who gets into a lot of mischief in her brand new white shoes. Think of it as Dog's Colorful Day for people.


We start with two white shoes with soles of blue



But red chalk...

green grass stains...

sticky, icky squished up plums...


yellow crosswalk paint and brown mud...

quickly make the shoes just the way Baby likes them!

 There's a great refrain in this book: Baby says uh-oh, Mama says oh no, but those shoes just go-go-go, that the kids loved repeating and I loved that most of this flannel set could be made with those scraps that I just can't throw away.

Thursday, June 28, 2012

Theme Thursday: I Got My New Shoes On

There was a lot of programming going on last week, so when it came time to plan a Theme Thursday I was at a loss. I settled on "Hands and Feet" but as I was going through books and songs quickly came to the conclusion that there was plenty of material for a story time all about shoes and a surprising number of books about white shoes that turn different colors.

Song: Good Morning Dear Earth

Flannel: Little Mouse

Flannel: Alphabet Soup- SHOE

Book: Pete the Cat: I Love My White Shoes by Eric Litwin


Action Rhyme: Criss Cross, Line, Line

Song: Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star

Rhyme: Old Shoes, New Shoes
Old shoes, new shoes,
Black and brown and red shoes,
1,2,3,4,
They're tapping softly on the floor

Book: Big Fat Hen by Keith Baker


Song: Grand Old Duke of York

Song: I've Got Two Shoes
 (to the tune of Skip to my Lou)

I've got two shoes, how 'bout you?
I've got two shoes, how 'bout you?
I've got two shoes, how 'bout you?
Tap your shoes like I do

touch, walk, run, jump


Action Rhyme: Big, Big, Big

Poem: I Had a Little Turtle


Book/Flannel: Baby Shoes by Dashka Slater



Song: Turn Around from Getting to Know Myself



Make and Take Craft: Dream Shoes


When in doubt, hand out glitter glue and stickers.

Supplies:
-shoe outline
-crayons
-glitter glue
-stickers

Process: After story time I handed out pieces of construction paper with a basic shoe outline drawn on it. I laid out the glitter glue, stickers and crayons and let the kids design their dream shoes. I had been working on the scrapbooks from our Teddy Bear Sleepover right up until story time started, so this wasn't my best or most exciting craft but it worked in a pinch.


Time: Prep took 5 minutes, including the time it took hitting the printer to try and make it work on construction paper. The craft took about 20 minutes.

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Teddy Bear Sleepover

We hosted our first ever stuffed animal sleepover last Wednesday night. I wrote up a fun post for our library's homepage, but here are some of the nitty gritty details that we used to make it run smoothly.



Children were welcome to bring in stuffed animals all day on Wednesday. When they came in to give me the animal, they also decorated a name tag, like the ones seen above so that we could identify each animal and make sure it got back to the correct owner the next day.

After pajama story time, I enlisted those kids to help me decorate a blanket for all the animals to sleep under. I used a large piece of felt and gave the kids stickers, so that I can remove them later and reuse the felt if need be. After the blanket was decorated, we covered the animals up in a back room, sang them a song and quietly tiptoed out. Using a back room and completely covering the animals helped reduce the number of kids who freaked out over going home without their stuffed animal. Out of sight, out of mind. Kind of. We ended up having to give one cute little dog named Bingo back, after his person suffered a brief melt down, but other than that we were good to go.

Three stuffed animals ended up spending the night with us, I added a few from the library's collection to make the numbers look more robust and I'm sure that if we do it again, we'll get a lot more families to participate.


When the computers shut off and the children's room cleared out, I grabbed our furry friends and took pictures of them in different poses all over the second floor.


They read a picture book together



And played flannel board games




There was a rousing game of hide and go seek



Plus some fun computer games
(Emily the Elephant found a friend on the computer screen!)





And they all drew the exact same monkey (go figure)

The next morning I came in a little bit early to make picture books for each stuffed animal/child pair.
The books were full of pictures and captions describing the animals' fun filled night in the library.







And they each ended with this statement:



I gave each child back their stuffed animal and their very own photo album the next morning after story time. Since we only had 3 stuffed animals spend the night, making the individual photo albums was pretty easy. I think if the number went to 10 or above, we'd have to reevaluate the staff time needed to make the albums.

Having the kids make individual blankets that they could then take home as the physical memento of the sleepover in conjunction with a slide show would work, as would recruiting volunteers to make the albums before the kids picked up their animals.

All in all I was very pleased with this program. The cuteness level was off the charts and some of the parents at story time the next day told me that they were jealous of the photo albums. We'll definitely be having a teddy bear sleepover again at the library.


Friday, June 22, 2012

Flannel Friday: Skippyjon Jones Shapes Up

I've been really into shapes lately, I'm working on a matching game which I'm sure you'll see later. But in the meantime here's a pretty awesome board book that's just too small to use for a group setting. Too small until you flannelize it, that is!



"This is Skippyjon Jones, and he's about to work out. Let me see your muscles... Nice muscles... Okay, let's help Skippyjon Jones get muscles just like yours. And this is how he's going to do it...



He'll run in..... What's that? A CIRCLE!




He'll salsa on a.... SQUARE!




Teeter on a..... TRIANGLE




And orbit an... What is that? That's right, it's an OVAL




He's going to reach for the... STARS




And rock on a.... Moon? Yes, that's one shape for the moon, does anyone know what that shape is called? YES! It's a CRESCENT




Skippyjon Jones will tug at your... HEART




And pump some... RECTANGLES




He's going to balance that? DIAMOND on his nose




And s-t-o-p at the OCTAGON. Let's count the sides of an octagon...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8! 8 sides to an OCTAGON




Lastly, he's going to follow that... ARROW 




Straight to the mirror so he can admire his new muscles. Let me see your muscles again...




And let's take a look at all of Skippyjon Jones' shapes one more time.

What's that one? How about that one? Oh, I like this one, what else is this shape?"