Hooray for Letter R! Story time Wednesday!

Happy Wednesday! It's a beautiful morning for a story time. All the kiddos come in, dressed for outdoor play in shorts, sandals, T-shirts, cute dresses and hats. I took last Wednesday off for my birthday, and boy did I miss those kids! I could tell the missed me as well as they were laughing and more full of energy than I have seen them in awhile. Sometimes, you just need a little break to sit back and remember how much you love what you do.

For letter R, I found three fantastic books. Two that I was already sold on and one that took me by surprise. I read My Rhinoceros by John Agee, Little White Rabbit by Kevin Henkes, and Little Red Hot by Eric A. Kimmel. I was really happy with all three stories today. The kids responded well to all of them and there were many giggles. In Little White Rabbit, the rabbit imagines himself in all sorts of different ways, being green, very tall, unable to move, flying. I encouraged the kids to do the same thing. They were very eager to tell me about how tall they could be or what kind of green creature they would most like to be. My Rhinoceros is a very silly book. The kids really enjoyed the part when the main character thinks about the Rhino attacking the balloon vendor to pop his balloons and poking a hole in the little girls kite. I made sure to really act that part out and do silly voices. To my surprise, none of the little ones had heard of Little Red Riding Hood before. At least not that they said anyway. For Little Red Hot, a story about a little Texas gal who LOVES hot peppers! I put on my thickest Texas Drawl and dove into this re-telling of Little Red Riding Hood. I don't know how much the kids liked it, but they sat and listened very well.

So, what else did we do?

ABC Action from Heidisongs
Greeting song: We're all here! (Skip to my Lou)
Here, here, we're all here!
Here, here, we're all here!
Here, here, we're all here!
We're here at story time!

Hello, ______. How are you?
Hello, ______. How are you?
Hello, ______. How are you?
I'm glad you're here today!

Letter R/r song from Heidisongs

Which one doesn't belong game
I printed some captial R's and some lower case r's.
I printed some other letters and put them up on the magnet board with the letter R/r's.
The kids just had to pick which letter didn't belong.

Letter R Rainbow craft
You need:
Fruit loops
The letter R template
Cotton balls
Glue.

Print out the letter R template here. Glue fruit loops to the rainbow part of the R and then stretch and glue cotton balls to the part of the R that looks like a cloud. Easy!