Letter G Storytime! Gorillas! Big Green Monsters! Gumballs! Gardens! Bully Goats!

I wasn't feeling so well this morning after a bad flu had me sleeping for nearly 17 hours yesterday. I did my best to keep the energy up, but it sure was difficult! Anyway, today we continued our exploration of the alphabet with letter G! We started our story time with the Heidisongs ABC action song and dance. It's so great to see the kids really getting into learning this way. Now that we've done the song and dance a few times, they are really getting it and remembering all the steps! So Fun!

Well, I have to say that letter G was the most difficult for me so far in regards to finding good books to choose from. I thought I would be able to find a ton of Gorilla books, but honestly, there weren't that many that I thought were very good. I ended up Choosing Goodnight Gorilla by Peggy Rathman, and luckily our copy was returned about two days before I needed it. I reached out a little and found My Garden by Kevin Henkes, and Llama Llama and The Bully Goat by Anna Dewdney. I suppose It wouldn't be so difficult to find good books if I wasn't running with the whole Magic Hat theme (how do you pull a garden out of a hat?) So I changed things up a bit and I brought some felt vegetables from a Melissa and Doug sandwich kit from home and talked about how you grow vegetables in a garden. I also used the Go Away Big Green Monster! Flannelboard from Story time Katie. I pulled the individual pieces out of the hat as I read it.


After ABC action, I brought the Ukulele out and sang 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!
The kids sang along with me today! That doesn't usually happen with this group! I was totally excited!

We first read My Garden by Kevin Henkes. I wasn't sure what they thought of the book at first, but once the girl started to tell about the silly things that would happen in her garden, the kids started laughing and saying things like "That's so silly!" and "You can't do that!" Henkes's book is great as you would expect.

After that, we got the kids back up to dance with Heidisong's letter G song! It is loosely based on Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush!

It's big and round with a line inside, a line inside, a line inside. (circle arms around and move them back and forth when you sing a line inside
It's big and round with a line inside, and that's a great big G!

A circle, stick, and a smile below, a smile below, a smile below (trace the letter in the air)
A circle, stick, and a smile below, and that's the little g!

g-g-g-g-g-g-g-g-G!
g-g-G! g-g-G
g-g-g-g-g-g-g-g-G!
And that's the sound of G!

I then, read Llama Llama and the Bully Goat. This went over pretty well, the kids all listened well and seemed to enjoy the story. Dewdney's prose is very sing-song and has a great rhyme scheme. She never seems to stretch or overreach for her rhymes and this story about a not-so-nice preschool friend is one that most kids can relate to.

Next, I pulled the pieces of the Big, Green Monster out of the Magic hat and performed the book as a flannel board story and the kids all gleefully joined me in telling the monster to go away!

Finally, I read Goodnight Gorilla. The kids really liked telling me about what the gorilla was going to do and really enjoyed how silly and naughty the gorilla was in the story.


For our last activity, we sang Sticky, Sticky Bubblegum!  Fun for everyone! The kids laughed and clapped along.
We then sang our goodbye song 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 usually sing the song 3 or 4 times and switch up the waving as we go.

Our craft was to turn the letter G into a gumball machine with construction paper, colored dot stickers, glue, and...well, the letter G!

 Even sick, this was still a very fun and creative story time! Thanks for checking this out! See ya next time!

Pixelbeard (Mr. Mike)