Gingerbread Storytime

Christmas is quickly approaching and this week we read A Cookie for Santa by Stephanie Shaw which is about a gingerbread man.  To go along with our gingerbread book, we made no cook cinnamon ornaments.  The dough was really easy to make and smelled amazing.

I got the recipe here and it was really easy to make.  We altered the recipe a little bit to get a more gingerbread smell and it worked perfectly.
You'll need:

• 1 cup of flour
• 1/2 cup of salt
• 1/2 cup of cinnamon 
• 3/4 cup of very warm water 

(Note:  we 1/4 cup of cinnamon and 1/4 cup of clove to make the dough smell like gingerbread)

Throw all the ingredients in a bowl and start smooshing it around.  Before you know it, you have the most amazing smelling dough.
Roll the dough out and and cut with cookie cutters.  I gave the kids jewels to push into the dough to add a little sparkle.  Use a straw to make a hole at the top of the ornament for a ribbon.  It takes about 24 hours for the dough to fully harden.  I also did this craft with some older kids and we painted our ornaments with acrylic paint.  You can paint your ornaments before they're dry, which is nice because waiting is hard!

Snowman Storytime

This week we talked about snowmen.  We don't actually have any snow right now but I can't miss an opportunity to do a snowman themed storytime!  There are so many great books and cute crafts about snowmen.  We read, Snowmen All Year by Caralyn Buehner and Sneezy the Snowman by Maureen Wright.

                                                                                     
                                                     









We did a really fun snowman craft that I've dubbed "The Melting Snowman."  They turned out so cute and the kids really got a kick out of making their snowman "melt."

Our snowmen consisted of three circles (small, medium, and large) that are connected with brads.  When you fold the snowman in on himself, he looks like he's melted.  So cute!

                       

Snow Storytime

Today's storytime was themed around snow.  December is such a fun month for storytime because there are lots of great winter books and craft ideas.  Today we read, Clifford's First Snow Day by Norman Bridwell and Snow by Roy Mckie.

For today's craft made snow globe pictures.  I brought in a snow globe for the kids to see because I wasn't sure all of them would know what a snow globe is.

I cut out circles for the globe part and freehand drew a base for the globe.  Then I cut out little pine trees to go inside the snow globe pictures.

Once everyone had assembled their snow globes, I gave them some puffy paint to make the "snow."
I like to use the puffy paint whenever possible because it's really fun.  It is just a mixture of equal parts white glue and shaving cream.  If you want to color it, you can add food coloring or paint.  I left today's puffy paint white so it would resemble snow and added a little glitter.
Here are the finished results.

Here is the one I made

Here are a few made by the kids

Here is a view of the puffy paint from the side so you can see how puffy it dries.

Thanksgiving Storytime

Thanksgiving is this Thursday, so naturally, this week's storytime revolved around that theme.  Today we read, Bear Says Thanks by Karma Wilson and `Twas the Night Before Thanksgiving by Dav Pilkey.

We made paper plate turkeys for today's craft.  I gave each child a paper plate cut in half and construction paper beak, waddle, and legs.  To give the turkeys their feathers, I had trays of cut up tissue paper pieces in assorted colors which I instructed the kids to glue onto the paper plate.

 I think it works best for the kids to glue the "feathers" on first and then assemble the rest of the turkey's body.

The finished result!

Bear/Hibernation Storytime

After a two week hiatus from Storytime, we're back!  Today we talked about bears and hibernation.  We read Bear Snores On by Karma Wilson and Sleep, Big Bear, Sleep by Maureen Wright.

For today's craft we made yarn bears.  I told the kids that our bears would need thick fur to keep them warm while they hibernated in the winter.

I printed off blank bear templates for each child and gave them bowls full of cut up brown and black yarn which they glued on to the bear.  

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween!  It's my favorite storytime of the year!  This year we read, Halloween Night by Marjorie Dennis Murray and One Witch by Laura Leuck.

For today's craft we made mummies.

We started with a plain black paper outline of a body and then we glued on strips of white crepe paper.

Then we added some googly eyes and, ta-da, we have a mummy!  

Pumpkin Storytime

This week at storytime, we talked about pumpkins.  The pumpkin themed storytimes are some of my favorites and the kids always seem to like them.  This year we read It's Pumpkin Time by Zoe Hall and Big Pumpkin by Erica Silverman.

Before I set the kids loose on their craft for the day, I invited them to feel the insides of a pumpkin I'd brought in.  I showed them all the guts inside and let them stick their hand in to feel it.  The ooey gooey pumpkin guts went well with today's craft.
For our craft today we painted pumpkin pictures, but not just any ordinary painting.  I whipped up a batch of puffy paint.  The puffy paint is wonderful and it looks like frosting, but best of all it dries just as puffy as when you first put it on.  I've seen several recipes for puffy paint on the internet but the one I've found works best is 1 cup of white glue, 1 cup of shaving cream, and food coloring.  Basically you just need equal parts glue and shaving cream but one cup of each makes a surprising amount.  I colored our paint orange and it looked awesome on our pumpkin pictures.

Here is a plastic bag full of paint I had left over.  

This is one of the finished pumpkin paintings.  This one is dry and it is still as puffy as when it was wet.

This week we were also lucky to have the preschool kids come over for a special storytime.  I read the same books to them but I came up with a different craft for this group.  I brought another pumpkin in for them to explore.  I invited them to put a hand inside the pumpkin and feel the guts and we talked about what the pumpkin innards looked like and felt like.  We discussed the seeds in the pumpkin and how the guts were stringy.  This was a great way to introduce today's preschool craft.  

  

 I gave each child a paper pumpkin with the words "What is inside?" written on it.  I set out dried pumpkin seeds and orange and yellow yarn that they glued on the inside, just like the inside of our real pumpkin.

Here's a quick note on drying pumpkin seeds.  It was kind of hard to find a recipe for drying pumpkin seeds and not roasting them to eat.  So I figured I'd share what I did to just dry them out and not toast them.  I set my oven for 250 degrees and spread the seeds out on a tin foil lined cookie sheet.  I cooked my seeds for about an hour and a half, stirring them every half hour.

Skeleton Storytime

This week we read about skeletons.  I like to dedicate most of my October storytimes to all things Halloween.  There are so many great Halloween books and crafts and I like to get in the spirit.  Today's skeleton theme was really fun and it was a great opportunity to talk about what a skeleton actually is.  We all felt our rib bones and I pointed the ribs out in the picture of the skeleton in the book.
Today's books were, Skeleton for Dinner by Margery Cuyler and Skeleton Hiccups also by Margery Cuyler.

Today's craft involved making a skeleton out of Q-Tips.  I printed off a skeleton head for each child and then showed them how I'd glued on the Q-Tips to make the rest of the skeleton's body.

Here's the one I did to show them.

 And here are a few that the kids made. 

I think they turned out pretty great! 

Fall Leaves

Today's storytime was all about fall and the beautiful leaves we see changing color all around town.  I drove around looking for the best leaves to harvest for today's storytime craft.

We read Fancy Nancy and the Fall Foliage by Jane O'Connor and Leaves by David Ezra Stein

Today's craft was all about the leaves.  I rolled out some contact paper on the tables and taped the edges down.  On a separate table, I spread out all the leaves I'd collected.  I showed the kids the clear, sticky contact paper and explained that we were going to make beautiful fall leaves sun-catchers by pressing the leaves onto the sticky contact paper and hanging it in the window.  

I hung the sheets in the library windows and when the sun shines through the leaves, it creates a very pretty glow.  I like inviting the children to help us decorate the library.  They love coming in and seeing their own work hung on the walls, or in this case, the windows. 

Underpants Themed Storytime

Today we read books about underwear.  Why not, right?!  The kids love this silly theme and there are a lot of children's books on the subject.

We read:

Aliens Love Underpants by Claire Freedman and Ben Cort

Veggies with Wedgies by Todd H. Doodler

 

Veggies with Wedgies is particularly adorable.  I'm not sure that the littler kids understood what a wedgie is and I didn't really know how to explain it to them.  I think I'll leave that up to their parents.

I found an awesome craft to go along with Aliens Love Underpants at
http://burnhambunchstorytime.blogspot.com/2013/02/burnham-bunch-bit-of-silly-underpants.html

Here are some pictures of how our underpants loving aliens turned out.

This was such a fun storytime and a really cute craft.  There were a lot of giggles among kids and parents alike.

Celebrating the Sugarbeet Festival at Storytime

I live in a little town in Montana called Chinook.  It is a tiny, but lovely town that I am proud to call home.  Every September in Chinook, the Sugarbeet Festival is held.  Chinook was a very important sugarbeet producer in the 1930's and 40's and although we do not commercially grow sugarbeets here anymore, we still celebrate that part of our history.  Out mascot is the Sugarbeeter and we have a Sugarbeet Festival.  It's very cool.
So, every year since I started doing storytime, I have entered our storytime group into the sugarbeet decorating contest at the Sugarbeet Festival.  Local farmers grow sugarbeets and then have them out around town so that people can take them home and decorate them.  I usually gather up five or six sugarbeets and bring them to storytime for the kids to decorate.  We won first place last year and I intend to win it again this year!
This year's Sugarbeet Festival theme (there's always a theme that involves some kind of Chinook business or industry) is the honeybee industry.  So, naturally, I had the kids paint the sugarbeets to look like bees.  But first, I read them some bee books.
This week we read The Very Greedy Bee by Steve Smallman and The Honeybee and the Robber by Eric Carle.

Here are some photos of the finished project that we entered into the Sugarbeet Decorating Contest.
I had the kids paint the sugarbeets black and yellow and after they dried, I added eyeballs and wings. I gave the bees pipe cleaner arms so they could hold the little books I'd made for them (bee books, of course).