Flannel Friday: 10 Little Monsters

I have decided (ok was encouraged by Storytime Katie) to jump aboard the Flannel Friday train. I really do enjoy making flannel boards and have been a lurker on the Flannel Friday Pinterest for a while but have been intimated by all of the AWESOME ideas people have. I have been thinking about it for a while and I am finally ready to make my debut.

This weeks storytime featured MONSTERS. This is my most favorite theme so I made my own little monsters to share with the kids. I made ten little guys that look like this:

I have a hard time picking my favorite. I think it may be the purple guy with grey squiggles. I also really like the Cyclops!

My inspiration came from Brobee from Yo Gabba Gabba:

I am sure you are all familiar with this awesome show, I love it. I have a niece and nephew and I have been known to purchase them Yo Gabba Gabba DVDS just so I can watch them!

I used these guys to sing 10 Little Monsters, a variation of 10 Little Indians:

One little, two little,
Three little monsters
Four little, five little,
Six little monsters
Seven little, eight little,
Nine little monsters
Ten little monsters can’t scare me!

Ten little, nine little,
Eight little monsters
Seven little, six little,
Five little monsters,
Four little, three little,
Two little monsters,
One little monster,
NO little monsters can scare me!

A note on the song: Generally I don’t like to sing the original version but the tune SO great with other things like bubbles and monsters etc!

It’s nice to have 10 little guys because now I can use some of them for other flannel boards that require less monsters. There you have it, my first ever contribution to Flannel Friday!

A Blue Story Time!

 This is the last of the colors story times. I started with Red, after that came Orange, who can forget Yellow, and last but not least good old Green! Special thanks to my pal, Storytime Katie for inspiring me to do this.

The Books:

Little Blue Truck Leads the Way by Amy Schertle

I had intended to read Little Blue Truck but when I went to the shelf to pull it, I discovered this book instead. It’s very cute and features the sweet little truck from the first book. This time the Little Blue Truck is visiting the city and meets all sorts of city vehicles.

It Looked Like Spilt Milk by Charles G. Shaw

I really like this book and think it would be great to make it into a flannel board. It has been featured before in its own storytime and there was a great craft that went a long with it. It was the perfect addition for this storytime!

The Deep Blue Sea: A Book of Colors by Audrey Wood

This is a great book about colors with loads of repetition so the kids were able to read along with me. Again, I just discovered this book on the shelf and was pleased with how well it worked in storytime.

How It Went:

This week went really well. I tried to check if the children understood what was happening with these themes and it seems like they had no idea. That’s fine. I use themes more as a guide for myself anyway.

The Craft:

For our craft this week, we glued fish on to our own deep blue seas.

Overall, it went fairly well. The kids really enjoyed coloring their fish and we are still working on glue stick skills. I am sure in no time everyone will be on the same level!

A Green Story Time!

Hello there folks! After yellow comes GREEN! You will remember, I have been doing this whole colors theme for storytime. First came Red then
Orange, and then Yellow and we are on Green. I looked forward to this week because I really like green and there are TONS of books that work with this theme.

The books we shared this week:

Snip Snap! What’s That? by Mara Bergman

This is a great storytime book! It has a lot of momentum and tons of repetition so the children really get into it.

Where is the Green Sheep? by Mem Fox

Ok, I totes stole this one from Storytime Katie’s Green Story time. It’s a storytime classic and so much fun. I had honestly forgotten about it and was really glad when her storytime reminded me of it!

Counting Crocodiles by Judy Sierra

I discovered this title while shelf reading. I have a love/hate relationship with shelf reading. I LOVE that I always discover a pile of new books etc…

The Croaky Pokey by Ethan Long

I love using Ethan Long’s books in storytime. This book is a hilarious take on the hokey pokey and had all of us up and moving around

Go Away Big Green Monster by Ed Emberley

I recently made this into a flannel board! Hooray!  Here is a link to the template I used: Kizclub.com’s Big Green Monster Template. I will be honest, I found it because of Storytime Katie’s blog. Credit where it’s due, folks! Anyway, this flannel board is super popular with the kids and they asked for it again and again!

How it went:

It went really well. Green is an awesome color and there are tons of great books that fit this theme. The kids were super receptive and especially loved The Croaky Pokey and Go Away Big Green Monster.

Crafts are back!

I am really still trying to catch my stride with this. With such large numbers of children and just a few adults, it’s been a challenge to find anything that works really well that isn’t just coloring pages. There is a huge difference between what a 3-year-old with an adult and a 3-year-old by themselves can handle. This week’s craft was inspired by The Croaky Pokey. We made frogs!

I gave each child a frog outline and they glued the green squares inside. It worked really well. For a lot of the children, this was one of the first times they have ever used a glue stick. We did have some messy fingers but it was a lot of fun! I think I would use this again and give the kids more color choices. Usually I am all about letting them express themseves but since our theme was green we just used the green squares.