Warm Up With a Book

Our winter reading program theme this year is "Warm Up With a Book", so I decided to make a toasty little fireplace for some of my bookish friends (Harry Potter, Huck Finn, Amelia Bedelia, Peter Rabbit, Corduroy, Curious George, and Strega Nona) to promote the program!  So cozy!

Silly Hat Storytime

We recently started a new Saturday morning family storytime.  This is great for two reasons: one, parents who work throughout the week can attend (during the week we mostly get nannies and daycare centers) AND I get to pick a theme!!!  With an all ages audience, we have some more leeway when it comes to themes, which is why I usually don't do a theme for a specific age range; it ends up being too limiting to appropriate book choices.  Anyways, for my first Family Fun Time Storytime, I did SILLY HATS!

Silly Hat Storytime 

• Song: Hello, How Are You?
• Our typical "Hello" song for storytimes. 
• Book: Whose Hat? by Margaret Miller (1988)
• The kids loved this, as they got to identify who each hat belongs to (i.e. a witch, policeman, nurse, etc.)
• Puppet: Fat Cat in Hats

• I used hats from our dress-up set to put on my fat cat puppet Maurice and asked the kids to identify them. This was a nice continuation of Whose Hat? and the kids always love seeing Maurice.
• Book: Caps for Sale by Esphyr Slobodkina (1947)
• This was probably the crowd's favorite book of the storytime, and no wonder, it's a classic!  My favorite part was when an infant was shaking her fists right along with the monkeys.
• Song: and Flannel: No More Monkeys Jumping on the Bed
• Always a favorite!
• Book: I Want My Hat Back by Jon Klassen (2011)
• I wouldn't read this for storytime again.  Since the story is basically told through dialogue, I think it's a little hard to follow just by listening.  I get the humor in it, but I don't think the kids do.  In fact, it's a little terrifying for wee ones, as the rabbit gets eaten by the bear in the end.
• Song: On My Nose I Have a Hat
• Kids love participating with this song by offering answers to the question, "Where else can my silly hat go?"
• Book: The Hat by Jan Brett (1997)
• I've said it before: Jan Brett is among the best of the best!  It's still winter so this was a nice choice, and the children listened intently.
• Flannel: Little Rat and Hat

• A variation of "Little Mouse in his House":  I put up five different colored hats and ask the kids to help me find my missing rat.  Someone guesses green, and I say, "Little rat, little rat, are you in the GREEN HAT?"  It is always extremely exciting for them when we finally find the rat.  I like this flannel because it's easily changed for a theme and it is always a favorite.
• We Wave Goodbye Like This 
• Our typical "Goodbye" song for storytimes.
• Our Hands Say Thank You
• The final finishing touch: "Our hands say 'Thank You' with a clap clap clap!  Our feet say  'Thank You' with a tap tap tap!  Clap clap clap!  Tap tap tap! And we rollllllllll our hands to say, 'Goodbye!'"
• Craft: Jan Brett's characters and hats, a matching game craft!  Jan Brett's crafts are so simple and easy to prepare, and kids love them.  This was perfect for multiple ages.

Winter Display

Rather than doing a typical holiday display for the month of December, I decided to share my love of children's winter themed books with a snowy display.  One of my all time favorite characters is Peter from Ezra Jack Keat's Snowy Day so I made Peter first.  I adore his cute little red snowsuit.  This display also gave me the opportunity to share my love of terrible puns by creating the headline, "SNOW Better Time to Read!"  I know that Corduroy is not a snowy character, but I wanted classics so I put him in a pair of ice skates (removable, of course, so I can use him in future displays!)  Finally, I finished up with the Snowman from Raymond Briggs' classic.  I vividly remember watching the film adaptation of Briggs' wordless picture book The Snowman as a child, and it is still (obviously) one of my favorites.

Five Little Snowmen

My new winter storytime flannel board staple:

"Five Little Snowmen"!
(chant to the tune of "Five Little Monkeys")...

     Five little snowmen riding on the sled!
     One fell off and bumped his head!
     Frosty called the doctor and the doctor said,
     "NO MORE SNOWMEN riding on the sled!"

(Continue verses with 4, 3, 2, 1, etc.)

Happy Howlidays!

This post really isn't library related. But at least I can say I have an occupation where I could wear something like this to work and it would be completely socially acceptable, and anyways this little gem is quite crafty.  My cousin and I made new holiday sweaters.  I just got a new black labradoodle puppy named Oliver and so my sweater obviously pays homage to him.  The writing was done with sparkly glitter glue, and we used hot glue, craft fur, and of course googly eyes for the rest.  If you have a cat as a pet, your sweater should say MEOWY Christmas!

The Mitten

Jan Brett is one of my favorite authors.  I used her version of the folktale The Mitten to adapt a flannel board story.  I made a large white mitten out of felt and drew and colored the animals onto white foam paper, with sticky velcro on the back.  As each animal "enters" the mitten, you can see how crowded the mitten ends up getting!  I like snowy winter stories for this time of the year because it reminds us of the coziness of the season.  And as I have stated before, I love a story that lends itself to visual adaptation.  It really helps to have visual props especially when storytelling to a large audience, like I do in my storytimes, where I have up to 75 little viewers!

November Crafts

I am a little late on this post but I was too busy stuffing myself with turkey this weekend to get to my blogging.  Since November is over, however, I thought now's the time to showcase my November crafts before it's too late!

One of the crafts I did was simple bears.  I wanted to do something that brought attention to the changing of the seasons, and used the "Teddy Bear" craft to talk to kids about how bears hibernate for the winter.  I also put out lots of bear books on display for checkout.  Who doesn't love a classic teddy bear book?

I gave the little ones a wide selection of multicolored "puff-balls" (I actually have no idea what those little buggers are called) so that they could be creative and make their teddy bears any size, shape, and color they wanted.  I ended up seeing many different types of bears!  It was a simple craft, only requiring glue, puff balls, and googly eyes.  (Number one rule of crafting: googly eyes make everything better).

For a Thanksgiving craft, I had the tiny tots make paper bag turkey centerpieces.  I really wanted to do something different than the old traced hand routine.  This was by far the best turnout I have ever gotten for a craft event, and kids and parents alike got really involved and had a lot of fun.

 I pre-made the turkey "bodies" by crumpling a paper bag, inserting that into another paper bag, and then twisting the top around to form a head; finally gluing that piece down.  I also pre-cut turkey feet, waddles, and beaks out of colorful foam paper.

Along with these materials, some feathers, and of course googly eyes, it was up to the little ones to decorate their turkeys as they saw fit.  And we ended up with some very gorgeous turkey centerpieces; even one with false eyelashes!  I hope the children proudly displayed them during their Thanksgiving dinners!