Happy Tuesday! Storytime Blog all about Feelings!

Happy Tuesday! It was a wonderful day for a storytime today! This storytime was all about talking about our feelings. We talked about how everyone has feelings and it's okay to feel all those things. It was easy to find good books about our feelings and the ones I did find were very much enjoyed by all my little peanuts.

Books:
Now I feel Silly and Other Moods that Make My Day: Jamie Lee Curtis/Laura Cornell
My Friend is Sad: Mo Willems
I'm Tired and other Body Feelings: Claire Hibbert/Simona Dimitri

What We Did:
Greeting Song:
1.) Greeting Song- The storytime train is coming (She'll be comin round the mountain)
Oh the storytime train is coming! How are you? (everyone yells CHOO CHOO!)
Yes, the storytime train is coming! How are you? (CHOO CHOO!)
Now the storytime train is coming! Oh the storytime train is coming! Yes the storytime train is coming! How are you? (CHOO CHOO!)

Let's say hello to _____. How are you? (CHOO CHOO!)
Repeat for all kids in attendance

2.) Get our bodies ready to read song: This is the way

This is the way I clap my hands, clap my hands, clap my hands.
This is the way I clap my hands when I'm at storytime.
Repeat with other motions, i.e. stomp feet, jump up and down, tap my head, wiggle my nose. Always end with 
This is the way I sit in my spot, sit in my spot, sit in my spot. This is the way I sit in my spot when I'm at storytime.

3.) I made two cubes out of cardboard and covered them with different colored construction paper. I wrote an emotion on each side of one cube, and an animal on each side of the other cube. Then the kids and I would pretend to be whatever animal was rolled.

4.) Ruby the Chicken- MY NEW PUPPET! Ruby played the emotional animal game with the kids. She's a great puppet because each of her wings accommodates a hand. You can do so much with two hands doing the puppetry. I love her and the kids did too! They were high-fiving her out the door!

5.) Awesome Rainbows- My son is in Kindergarten this year. I volunteer in his classroom on Monday mornings and this is where I saw the dance group Koo Koo Kangaroo doing this song as a dance video. I'm posting a link to this video on Youtube. I have to say, if you want to add some pizzazz to your storytime with some fun and physically tiring dance moves, Get into Koo Koo Kangaroo. There are lots of songs to choose from and their driving dance beats and silly song concepts will have your peanuts bouncing!

6.) Feelings Magnet board- This can be done as a flannel board, but I like Magnets better, so there. I made faces in MS Word to show one of six emotions, Sad, Happy, Mad, Confused, Surprised, and Scared. I also printed a a dialogue bubble to match the faces with one emotion inside each.

7.) Playtime- Today I had three different stations, I will label them A,B,C.

Station A- Texture painting. This was simple. I bought some fun paintbrushes and paint rollers and let the kids have at it. It's more meaningful to a preschool child to create something of their own, than a craft that you designed.

Station B- Mirrors and Dry erase Markers- To tie-in with our feelings theme I provided hand mirrors, white boards, dry erase markers, and cloth erasers. The kids made different faces into the mirrors and then drew themselves on the whiteboards. Most of it was scribbling and making silly faces in the mirrors, but that still worked their fine motor and grasp in a fun way.

Station C- Funny Faces magnet books- I've had these books for while sitting in the toy area and thought that today would be a great time to incorporate them into a storytime. 

Well, that's All we did today. Busy busy busy! Just like preschoolers ought to be. Visit me again next week for more storytime fun!

-Pixelbeard

I have returned! Storytime is back in session and boy are we having fun!

Good afternoon! We're nearing the end of September and my Storytimes have started to buzz, crackle, and spark with energy! My attendance has increased steadily since the first week after Labor Day. I'm feeling very encouraged, because the changes that I've made to storytime have been very well received and I can see a huge difference in my confidence as a storyteller. But anyway, none of you want to hear about that, you want to know what I've been doing during storytime, well fine. I guess I can stop talking about myself for a few sentences and let you know some of my tricks.

So far, I've done storytimes on imaginary play, magic, and the weather. Today was a more traditional autumn storytime all about apples.

Books:
Apples, Apples, Everywhere- Robin Michal Koontz
The Biggest Apple Ever- Steven Kroll
An Apple selection from Fancy Nancy's Fabulous Fall Storytime Collection-

What We did:
1.) I sliced red, green, and yellow apples for the kids to sample. Then we used flannel apples to make a graph of our favorite kind. We talked about which choice had the most and the least. There I go again...teaching with food!

2.) Greeting Song- The storytime train is coming (She'll be comin round the mountain)
Oh the storytime train is coming! How are you? (everyone yells CHOO CHOO!)
Yes, the storytime train is coming! How are you? (CHOO CHOO!)
Now the storytime train is coming! Oh the storytime train is coming! Yes the storytime train is coming! How are you? (CHOO CHOO!)

Let's say hello to _____. How are you? (CHOO CHOO!)
Repeat for all kids in attendance.

3.) Get our bodies ready to read song: This is the way
This is the way I clap my hands, clap my hands, clap my hands.
This is the way I clap my hands when I'm at storytime.
Repeat with other motions, i.e. stomp feet, jump up and down, tap my head, wiggle my nose. Always end with 
This is the way I sit in my spot, sit in my spot, sit in my spot. This is the way I sit in my spot when I'm at storytime.

4.) A-P-P-L-E (BINGO)
We sing the song to the tune bingo. Instead of clapping when you omit a letter, say CRUNCH!
I had a visual aid for this song as well. I put the letters A-P-P-L-E on separate pieces of paper. On the reverse side is a picture of an apple I found. Each subsequent letter, the apple appears to have another bit taken out of it. Behind the E, the apple is just a core. As we sing, we turn the pictures over from letters to apples. The kids are always eager to see what the next apple will look like. I ham it up and act like I'm totally upset that someone is eating my apple. I had lots of belly laughs this morning.

6.) Goodbye rap:

Wave high, Wave low.
I think it's time we've got to go!
Wave your elbows, wave your toes
Wave your tongue, and wave your nose.
Wave your knees, wave your lips,
Blow a kiss with your fingertips.
Wave your ears, wave your hair,
Wave your belly, and your derriere.
Wave your chin, wave your eye,
Wave your hand and say goodbye.

5.) Activity Stations: The BIGGEST change that I've made to storytime this year is that I don't end on one craft. I attended a workshop that suggested having different activity stations to reach the interests of all kids in attendance and allowing you to work on a multitude of preschool skills. So, today we had three separate stations.
1.) Play-Doh play
2.) Apple suncatcher craft
3.) Apple tossing game

The Play-Doh play is pretty self explanatory. put out some pla-doh and have some toys for them to roll, smush, cut, and build with the pla-doh. It's really good for working on their fine motor skills and building the muscles in their hand/fingers.

The suncatcher craft required children to glue colored tissue paper to the back of a wax paper lined apple shape.

The apple tossing game is great for gross motor development and coordination. You take some beanbags, call them apples, and toss them in a basket. I put a line of tape across the floor and the kids tossed it into a picnic basket. They had lots of fun, as you would expect.

Well, that's pretty much it! Thanks for checking me out and I hope you come back to read next week!

Until then!