Story time Wednesday! Letter I! Iguanas, ice cream, and insects!

 Hello and happy Wednesday! It was story time here at the Library and we continued learning our ABC's with the letter I. We had two new families at our story time to join our fantastic cast of regulars and the new kiddos didn't waste a minute getting comfortable in the groove. Letter I was, again, somewhat difficult to choose topics for. Not so much for what books to read, but for what to pull out of the magic hat! I wish the magic hat really was magical so it could solve this problem for me. Anyway, I took a page from Storytime Katie and picked out Manana Iguana by Anne Whitford Paul, I'll Be There, by Ann Stott and Matt Phelan, and Ugh! A Bug! an easy reader by Ned Crowley. None of these books got an overwhelming response, but the kids all sat and listened politely while I read them and we talked a lot about some of the things we could learn from each book.

So, as per usual we started out rockin' to the Heidisongs ABC Action. It's great to be rested and over all my illnesses and have all my energy back. It's always much more fun for me and the kiddos when I dance as hard as they do. I had a lot of kids to greet today, many brought very young lapsit age siblings so my greeting song took a little bit of extra time.
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!

Repeat for each child. (Yes, it takes a few minutes sometimes)

The first book was Manana Iguana. The kids liked the voices I used for each animal in the story, and I enjoyed teaching them the Spanish words inside. This book has a great lesson on friendship and being a good helper, and it's basically a re-telling of The Little Read Hen. Anyway, I would use it again if need be.

I then created an ice cream flannel board based on one that I found on DMCraftdesigns on Etsy. (I USED ACTUAL FLANNEL!?!?) The goal is to count the chocolate chips in the ice cream and match them to the cone with the same number. This was great practice for counting and number recognition. I had some older kids who knew all their numbers 1-8 so they were able to help the little ones recognize the numbers written on the ice cream cones. When we put the ice cream scoop on the cone, we made sure to count all the chocolate chips first, so everyone got some rote counting practice and the really little ones got to hear some good counting. I had volunteers put the ice cream on the cone and it was fun to watch even the more reluctant kiddos volunteer to come up in front of the group and participate.

We read I'll be there next. We had a great talk about all the things that Moms and Dads do for us, and all the things that we can do for ourselves when we get bigger. The story is very sweet and gets me in the soft spot in my heart. My wife teases me for being a big softie all the time.  But since I had kids, anything emotional in books, tv, or movies having to do with kids, and I just go to pieces. The little ones were pretty antsy after this book, so we turned Ms. Heidi back on the T.V. for the Letter I song/dance


Letter I (This Old Man)
/i/ /i/ I. /i/ /i/ I.
I is just a big straight line. (hold arms straight over your head)
With an extra line on the top and down below. ( Draw lines in the air0
Now it's time to go, go, go! (Put out the hitchhiker thumb)
Repeat
/i/ /i/ i. /i/ /i/ i.
Little i's a short, straight line (Make a line going down to the floor with both hands)
With a tiny dot above it in the sky. (Make small circle in the air above the line you drew)
Now it's time to fly, fly, fly! (Put arms out like an airplane)
Repeat

Finally, I pulled lots of plastic insects out of the magic hat. I really hammed it up and pretended to be grossed out by all the different kinds of bugs inside. Then we read, Ugh! A Bug! I don't do too much non-fiction because I don't like having to edit out a lot of text and let's be honest, there isn't a lot of non-fiction written and aimed directly at the toddler/preschool crowd. This one worked great. As an easy reader, it doesn't have too many words on the page, the photographs were fantastic and I love explaining to kids a different genre of book. It's never too early to teach this stuff!

Craft: Letter I insects

Materials: Construction paper I's. Glue sticks, six legs, eyeball stickers, and pipe cleaners cut up for antennae.

1.) Fold the letter I like an accordian.
2.) Glue three legs to each side.
3.) Put eyeball stickers at the front of your insect.
4.) Push the cut pipe cleaners through the construction paper where you want your antennae to be.