Happy Tuesday! We're a great big storytime family!

Happy Tuesday! Everyone has a family and everyone's family is a little bit different. No matter who you are or where you come from. You have a mom and a dad. They also have a mom and a dad. So to celebrate those in our family we love so much, we had a family storytime today!

Books:
The Mommy Book: Todd Parr
When Dads Don't Grow Up: Marjorie Blain Parker/R.W. Alley
Thundercake: Patricia Polacco
What We Did:


1.) Greeting song: The Storytime Train is coming!
(to the tune of "She'll be comin round the mountain)
Well the storytime train is coming. How are you? (all: Choo Choo!)
Oh the storytime train is coming. How are you? (all: Choo Choo!)
Oh the storytime train is coming, yes the storytime train is coming, well the storytime train is coming. How are you? (all: Choo Choo!)
Let's say hello to _____________. How are you? (Choo! Choo!)
Repeat this for each child in attendance.

2.) Get our bodies ready to read! This is the way...
This is the way we clap our hands, clap our hands, clap our hands.
This is the way we clap our hands, when we're at storytime!
Repeat this tune with different actions (Stomp feet, jump up and down, tap your head, whisper voice, and always end with sit in my spot)

3.) The Goldfish Song: Laurie Berkner
Click the link to see the song and hear the dance.

4.) Mommy's scarves and Daddy's ties
Click the link to see the template I used to print the scarves and ties. The only difference is that I used a younger mommy and daddy instead of Grandma and Grandpa. I also changed the song, singing:
Mommy wants her blue scarf, blue scarf, blue scarf.
Mommy wants her blue scarf. Do you see it?
Then I would pick a child who could raise their hand to come up and put mommy's scarf on her or Daddy's tie on him.

5.) Goodbye song: We Wave Goodbye Like this
(The Farmer in the Dell)
Oh we wave goodbye like this! We wave goodbye like this! We clap our hands for all our friends, we wave goodbye like this!
(Choose a few silly ways to wave and do the song three or four times)

6.) Playtime: I had three stations set up for today. I turned my normal process art in a more crafty direction with some elmer's glue suncatchers.

a.) Suncatcher: You need glue, a plastic lid such as one you'd find on sour cream or cream cheese, food coloring, and toothpicks.
First, pour some glue into one of the lids, but don't overfill it.  Next, place about 3-4 drops of food coloring around the glue. Don't add too much or your colors will run together into a brown mess. Finally, take a toothpick and scribble it around in the glue. The colors will morph and blend, and become something very beautiful. When the glue dries you can use a hole puncher and some string and hang them in a window.

b.) Pla-Doh- Nothing much to say here except that I have yet to meet the kiddo who doesn't like Pla-Doh. It's so good for their little muscles and building fine motor skills. It give them the chance to be creative and build those pre-writing skills as well.

c.) Blocks- To encourage my storytime kiddos to play together more and work on a  project together, I poured out a big tub of foam/wooden blocks.

Thanks for reading. I hope to see you again really soon!