Dog Themed Storytime

We had a special guest today in storytime.  A local woman asked me if she could bring her five month old yellow lab puppy, Ruby, in for storytime and I thought it sounded like a fun idea.  It seemed like a great opportunity to teach the kids about meeting a new dog for the first time.  I printed off some coloring pages with info about how to approach a new dog and how to ask the owner's permission to pet the dog.  First I read Cowpoke Clyde and Dirty Dawg by Lori Mortensen and then we practiced our new dog meeting skills with Ruby.  Once everyone had met Ruby, we had a lovely time petting and playing with her.

Everyone was excited at storytime today, but none more than Ruby the dog!

Here are the kids giving some love to Ruby.  She a very willing participant!

This was our last storytime for the season as we're gearing up for Summer Reading.  I'm glad we were able to end the year on such a fun note.  We'll be back in the Fall.

Plants/Spring Storytime

It's been very Springy here the past few weeks and I wanted to celebrate Spring as well as Earth Day during Storytime.  We read Finding Spring by Carin Berger and If You Plant a Seed by Kadir Nelson.

To go along with our Spring/Plant themed storytime, I had the kids plant Sunflower seeds in little pots that they could decorate.  We spray painted some small terra-cotta pots with white spray paint and then I gave the kids Sharpies (after a careful lecture about how Sharpies are permanent) and let them draw designs on the pots.  Then they spooned dirt into their pots and planted a sunflower seed.

Here is my Sunflower after a few weeks!  I can't believe how fast it's growing.

Cloud Storytime

This week we read about clouds.  It seemed like a lovely, springy subject.  We read Blue on Blue by Dianne White and Little Cloud by Eric Carle.

Today's cloud craft involved gluing cotton balls onto blue paper to make funny little cloud friends.  Here is the one I made.  I wish I'd gotten pictures of the ones the kids made because they were much more impressive.  I provided them with cotton balls and showed them how to pull the cotton balls apart to make them look more cloud-like.  I also gave them silly things like eyes, hair, colored gems and yarn to jazz up their clouds.  They turned out really cool.  

Easter Storytime

Today's storytime was Easter themed.  We read Milo the Really Big Bunny by Stephen Kresnky and The Easter Bunny's Assistant by Jan Thomas.  The Easter Bunny's Assistant is really funny and cute and always gets a lot of laughs from the kids.  I highly recommend it.

For our Easter craft, we did string painting on some Easter egg cutouts.  String painting is really fun and messy and the pictures always turn out so cool.  All you need to do is cut some yarn, dip it in some paint and drag it across your paper.  You can get really creative with this and make some super cool pictures.  Here's how ours turned out.

Hoppy Easter! 

Lion Storytime

This week's storytime theme was all about lions.  We read Wildred the Lion by Syd Hoff and Silly Suzy Goose by Petr Horacek.

Our lion craft for today involved painting a mane on a picture of a lion's head using forks.

Here is our mane-less lion head

Here he is with a mane

We used plastic forks instead of regular paint brushes to get the kind of furry effect needed to make a lion's mane.  All you do is dip the fork in the paint and drag it across the page.  They turned out pretty cool and were a fun alternative to a regular paintbrush.

St. Patrick's Day Storytime

Happy St. Patrick's Day!  Our storytime fell on the actual holiday this year, which is always fun. Today we read, Hooray for St. Patrick's Day! by Joan Holub and The Night Before St. Patrick's Day by Natasha Wing.

                             

Since both of our books featured a lovely little red bearded leprechaun, I found a fun leprechaun craft for the group to do.  I mixed up a batch of orange puffy paint and we painted beards on to leprechaun printouts.

As you can see, some leprechauns had more "beard' than others!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Friendship Storytime

I had a completely different plan for today's storytime but we've been having such beautiful weather, I changed the original plan so that we could go outside.  I gathered together some books we'd just gotten in and I found three that all had a friendship theme.  We read Little Elliot, Big City by Mike Curato, Dangerous! by Tim Warnes, and Harry and the Monster by Sue Mongredien.

 After we read, we went outside with buckets of sidewalk chalk and decorated the sidewalks and enjoyed some much needed sunshine.

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!

We celebrated Dr. Seuss's birthday at storytime today.  We read Dr. Seuss's ABC and There's a Wocket in My Pocket.

I've found that most Dr. Seuss books are way too long for storytime and these two books are some of his shorter ones and they work really well for a younger crowd.  Some others that are great for storytime are Hop on Pop, Mr. Brown Can Moo!  Can You?, The Foot Book, Green Eggs and Ham, Fox in Socks, Great Day for Up, My Many Colored Days, and Marvin K. Mooney Will you Please Go Now!.  I'm sure there are more, but these are ones I've read personally and have had success with.

This year, I based our craft around There's a Wocket in my Pocket!.  I found Wocket templates here. Then I cut out generic pocket shapes and glued everything to a piece of construction paper.

Before storytime began, I set up four black lights on the tables and set out a bunch of different colored highlighters.  In case you weren't aware, highlighters glow beautifully under a black light.  It's really cool and I think investing in a few black lights is definitely worth the money.  There are a ton of cool glowing black light crafts out there.

When we were done reading I had the kids take a seat at the table and then I turned the black lights on and the overhead light off.  They're always really impressed with the effect the black lights have on everything around them, especially the highlighters.

They look sort of boring without the black light on them but it is still a really fun activity.

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!

Ninja Theme

This week we did a ninja themed storytime.  We read The Three Ninja Pigs and Ninja Red Riding Hood, both by Corey Rosen Schwartz.

Both stories are so cute and the artwork is amazing.  I think The Three Ninja Pigs is a better story though.  The "fractured fairy tale" aspect of these books might be lost on a younger crowd but my group of 2-5 year old kids seemed to really like both of them.

Our craft was a very cute ninja paper craft that I adapted from here.

Here is the one I made and the blank template I used. My ninja is a girl :)

Sick Themed Storytime

This week we read stories about being sick.  This is actually kind of a fun topic for a storytime and there are a surprising amount of great books to go along with the theme.  We read Llama Llama Home with Mama by Anna Dewdney and How Do Dinosaurs Get Well Soon? by Jane Yolen.  I wanted to read A Sick Day for Amos McGee by Philip C. Stead but we didn't have time.  I will certainly try to read that one next time I do a sick theme because it is such a great story.

I had a bit of a hard time coming up with a craft to fit with my sick theme and then it came to me!  I made awesome green slime to represent snot!  Yaaay!  It was really fun and the kids loved it.  The slime is easy to make and we already had all the ingredients.  I made two different recipes of slime because I couldn't remember which one I liked best. 

The first batch of slime I made requires:

• clear glue, glitter glue, or white glue
• liquid starch
• water
• food coloring
• 1/2 cup measuring cup
• bowl and a spoon

In the bowl mix 1/2 cup of water and 1/2 cup of glue.  Add your food coloring at this time and give it a mix.  I added 5 or 6 drops of food coloring to mine but I wish I'd added a little more to make it a more vibrant green.  Once you've mixed the colored glue and water mixture together a bit, you can slowly add 1/2 cup of liquid starch to the mix.  Stir it with a spoon until it starts to thicken and then dig in with your hands and continue mixing.  It will feel really wet but keep mixing because it will get thicker.  

The second batch of slime I made requires:

• clear glue, glitter glue, or white glue
• Borax
• warm water
• food coloring
• 1 cup and 1/2 cup measuring cups
• teaspoon measuring spoon
• bowl and spoon

In your bowl mix 1 cup of glue and 1 cup of water and the food coloring.  (A full 8 oz bottle of glue is equal to one cup)  Next, fill up a half cup measuring cup with warm water.  To this warm water, add one teaspoon of borax and stir to help dissolve the borax a bit.  The borax won't dissolve all the way and that's fine.  Now slowly pour the borax water into the glue and water mixture and stir.  As with the other recipe, mix with the spoon for a while and then dig in with your hands.  

I made my slime with white glue because that's what we had on hand.  I think clear school glue would have  made a much more snot-like slime but this was still very gross looking!  I've found that the slime made with the starch is much more slimy and is a lot stringier.  The borax slime is much stiffer and more rubbery.  They are both awesome to play with but I could see the borax slime being slightly less messy.  My advice is to try both and see which one you prefer.  Either way, you're in for a good time!

Slime made with liquid starch 

Slime made with Borax

Slime made with Borax

Valentine's Day Storytime

Love is in the air and we're celebrating Valentine's Day at storytime!  We read, The Yuckiest, Stinkiest, Best Valentine Ever by Brenda A. Ferber and Love Monster by Rachel Bright.  They are both super cute Valentine's Day reads and I'd highly recommend them for storytime.

For this year's Valentine's Day craft we made cosmic hearts.  They turned out so cool and they are incredibly simple.  The paint is just corn syrup with food coloring added to it.  It's so simple but the results look really impressive!  

I don't think the pictures do them justice!  You'll have to whip up a batch and see for yourself!