Letter E Storytime!

I had one of the larger turnouts for story time at the library today! It appears that the word is getting out and that is very exciting! Along with my tried and true regular story time kiddos, I've been getting more and more casual story time parents attend more regularly. That does wonders for my confidence and honestly, the more kids I get, the better my story times get, so it's a win-win. Today we were all about letter E. After getting coats off and comfortable, we began as we always do with a rousing rendition of the Heidisongs ABC action. I'm impressed and proud that after only a couple of weeks, the kids are really starting to catch on to the letter specific motions and dance moves. They really kept up today and held interest the whole time. Even those who are still somewhat new to our story times were watching and learning intently. After an energizing song and dance, I greeted all students with my regular 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

Here at story time.

Hello ________. How are you? x3

I'm glad you're here today

(repeat for each child)

This song can take some time to get through, but it's worth it because of the smile on the kid's face when you sing their name, and look right at them. To them, it feels like you're singing only to them. It's quite special.

I then told the kids that I wasn't sure what letter to read about today and asked what I should do to find out. Much to my delight, a number of them shouted: MAGIC HAT!

So I did pull out the 'ol magic hat, and chanted:\

Magic hat, we're here to play

Show me what letter we'll learn today!

 We looked at, traced, and talked about the two sounds an E/e makes. We learned that an E was a special letter because it can say two things. It can say /e/ like elephant, or it can say it's name like /ee/ in eat. I also mentioned that one of our story time friends started with a letter E, as in Emma.

I reached into the magic hat and pulled out my Eleanor Elephant hand puppet. We talked a little about elephants and I read What to do if an elephant steps on your foot by Michelle Robinson.

The moms and grandmas in our audience found this book quite funny, but the kids didn't seem to get into it very much. I think it's for a little bit older kids. Next time, I'll try to get them more involved in the story action by having them act it out more. 

Next we did a quick flannel board rhyme : Five elephants in the bathtub

One elephant in the bathtub going for a swim

knock, knock (clap twice)

splish, splash (slap knees twice)

Come on in! (motion with both hands)

repeat up to five elephants

Five elephants in the bathtub going for a swim

Knock, knock (clap hands twice)

Splish, Splash (slap knees twice)

They all fell in! (Knock all the pieces off)

One thing I want to say about flannel board stories. They are fun, but the flannel part is a real pain if you have to create it yourself. I feel that some snazzy printed pictures and clip art can be just as effective. To do a story like this, simply stick to the following

1.) Print off pictures the size you want.

2.) Laminate or cover them in contact paper

3.) Put adhesive magnet strips on the back

4.) Do your magnet board story on a magnetic whiteboard instead of a flannel board.

First, many pieces of clip art and printable pictures are just as cute as the flannel board things that I've seen. True, they aren't as custom friendly, but I've found that most 2-4 year old kids don't even notice. I've done both flannel and magnet board stories and the reaction to them has been just about the same, depending on the story.

Secondly, it is wonderfully less time consuming to cut and laminate paper than it is to custom cut and design flannel pieces. I've pulled my hair out trying to cut flannel and I'm just about done.

Thirdly, the magnets stick to the board better than the flannel pieces stick to the flannel board. If you need to knock the pieces off, this can be trouble, but overall I think I would rather have pieces that are guaranteed to stick than are easy to knock off when the situation calls for it.

*Steps off soapbox*

After, I pulled a white egg out of the magic hat and we read First the Egg by Laura Vaccaro Seeger. The kids LOVED predicting this book and calling out what would come next, such as tadpole to frog, seed to flower, caterpillar to butterfly. They were very enthralled by how one picture became a part of the next picture when the page was turned. This was a big hit.

Instead of introducing our game, I instead went to the empty magic hat. This time, the magic hat talked to me (very silly. Lots of laughs) and told me that he was hungry. I asked what the kids did when they were hungry and they all shouted; EAT! I talked about how the word eat starts with letter E. Then the magic hat told me that he wanted eggs for breakfast. Luckily I had no real eggs, but I did have egg shakers from my music program and I had plastic spoons from the break room.

Game-Feed the magic hat

1.) Form a line with help from mom/grandma.

2.) Give each child a spoon and egg shaker.

3.) Tell them that their job is to balance the egg in their spoon, walk up to the magic hat, and feed it the egg.

4.) Sit back and have fun!

I haven't done a lot of these games, but I'm going to try and incorporate more of them. This was a lot of fun, although when I had the kids stand up, that usually signals craft time so they all ran to the craft room. With the help of awesome moms/grandmas we got the kids ready to play.

After the magic hat was fed, we read How do Dinosaurs Eat Their Food? By Jane Yolen/Mark Teague. This series is famous for good reason. The kids really loved the drawings of dinosaurs flinging spaghetti, sticking beans up their nose, and squishing oranges between their toes. 

Upon concluding our final story, we did the Heidisongs letter E dance two times. Once to watch and learn, the second to practice and learn

The tricky little letter E, letter E, letter E (make sign language letter e)

Goes /e/ /e/ /e/ and /ee/ /ee/ /ee/

Dance by the light of the moon.

Make a big stick down and three lines across, three lines across, three lines across (trace line top to bottom, then stick both arms and a leg out to the side)

Make a big stick down and three lines across, that's how you make a big E.

Make a small line across, circle up and around, up and around, up and around. (Trace little e in the air with your finger)

Make a small line across, circle up and around. That's how you make a small e.

Repeat first verse

Goodbye- We wave goodbye like this (The farmer in the dell)

We wave goodbye like this

We wave goodbye like this

We clap our hands for all our friends

We wave goodbye like this

I repeat this a few times doing different silly waves with one and two arms.

Craft- Elephants with noisemaker trunks.

Materials- Construction paper E, cut out elephant finger puppets, noise makers.

This was a great idea I grabbed from tippytoe crafts. You can get the puppet template their and they will show you how to put it together. It is very simple and the kids went nuts for the noisemakers. They were acting and sounding like elephants after story time in the library. It was fantastic! I would make it again in a hurry.

I'll see you next week for Letter F!

Anything I borrowed from your website or another blog, they get the credit. I don't own anything.

-Mr. Mike