Fall leaves is one of my favorite themes and I really missed this flannel board. So, I had to make my own!

I love flannel boards that can involve all of the children. With this one, I will hand out the leaves to the children and ask them to help me create our tree. But before we do that, we sing a leaves song such as Leaves on the Tree to the tune of The Wheels on the Bus.

The Leaves of the Trees
(to the tune of “The Wheels on the Bus”)
The leaves of the trees turn orange and red
orange and red, orange and red
The leaves of the trees turn orange and red
All through the town.

The leaves of the trees come tumbling down
tumbling down, tumbling down
The leaves of the trees come tumbling down
All through the town.

The leaves on the ground go swish, swish, swish
Swish, swish, swish, swish, swish, swish,
The leaves on the ground go swish, swish, swish
All through the town.

There you have it! Be sure to check out Cate at Storytiming for the full round up! Have a great Thanksgiving.

Here are the books we read:

If You’re a Monster and You Know It by Rebecca Emberley and Ed Emberley

I like to sing If You’re Happy and You Know it as an opener each week.  I was going to sing this song with a monster twist anyway so when I discovered the book, I felt like I hit the jackpot! It has really great illustrations and is so silly, it was the perfect opener for storytime.

Leonardo the Terrible Monster by Mo Willems.

This is my all time favorite monster book. I love reading it aloud and I love sharing it with new kids. I am pretty sure everyone is familiar with this book because it’s been featured before

Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendek

This is one of those books that I assumed everyone has heard but there were a lot of children in my storytime who had not heard it before. What a pleasure it was to share it with them! This might be my favorite picture book of all time (cliché I know) and so I always try to find a way to use it in story time.

There Was an Old Monster by Rebecca Emberley, Ed Emberley and Adrian Emberley.

Full disclosure: this book was sitting next to If  You’re A Monster and You Know it and I had to include it. Usually I shy away from multiple books by one author (no good reason, just do) but this book is so great, it had to be included! Set to the tune of I Know an Old Lady who swallowed a fly, this book was more like a song and the kids really got into it.

Mostly Monsterly by Tami Sauer, illustrated by Scott Magoon

This is a very sweet story about Bernadette who is mostly monsterly but she sometimes likes to do very unmonsterly things (like pick flowers and bake cupcakes!) Of course, the other monsters at monster school think she is strange but in the end, she wins them over.

The Extras:

Yes, this week was a bit book heavy but since they were so interactive, I was all right with that. There are tons of great monster songs out there. this week, we sang Monster, Monster to the tune of Teddy bear, Teddy Bear. The inspiration for this came from Sur la Lune’s monster storytime.

We also did the 10 Little Monsters Flannel Board. Feel free to go take a look!

The Craft:

We made monster masks this week with paper plates! I did monster masks before and these were a bit different. The kids were able to make whatever kind of monster they wanted and of course it’s always cute to see them march around with their masks on.

This week for my dinosaur theme, I made a flannel board for 5 Enormous Dinosaurs.

Five Enormous Dinosaurs
Five enormous dinosaurs, letting out a roar,
One went away and then there were four.
Four enormous dinosaurs, munching on a tree,
One went away and then there were three.
Three enormous dinosaurs didn’t know what to do,
One went away and then there were two.
Two enormous dinosaurs having lots of fun,
One went away and then there was one.
One enormous dinosaur afraid to be a hero,
He went away and then there were zero.

It was pretty easy to make, I just found a picture of a Stegosaurus (my most favorite dinosaur) and used it as my stencil. I think if I were to do it again, I would make five different dinosaurs. By the time I decided that, I was already committed to these five little guys. They’re pretty cute, after all.

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!

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!

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.

The books I read this week were:

Little Gorilla by Ruth Bornstein

This is a great story about a gorilla who is little and everyone loves. One day he gets big and guess what? Everyone still loves him! Everyone has been there and this seemed like a fitting message for my little storytime pals.

Farmer Duck by Martin Waddell

I love this book! Poor duck is forced to do all of the work because of a lazy old farmer! Luckily, his friends come to the rescue and chase that mean old farmer off. This is one of my favorite books for storytime. One of the great things about having a new job is introducing some of my all time favorites to the children I work with now. It’s awesome!

Duck on a Bike by David Shannon

As will all books by David Simon, this book is a joy to read aloud. It’s fun and silly and has lots of characters. I love that the duck is a bit

How it went:

It went great! I think this week just proved that sometimes you just have to go with what works best in storytime, even if that means straying away from the theme. I am constantly reminding myself of this. Ultimately what is most important is the children enjoy themselves and take something positive away from their storytime experience.

The Craft:

Still no craft this week, but I promise next week you won’t be disappointed!

The books:

Fat Cat: a Danish Folk Tale by Margaret Read MacDonald

I started with this one each time because it is the longest. I have quickly learned with my storytime groups that their attention really starts to go after book two so I have to start with the one that requires the most from them as an audience. This is a great book that I first learned about in library school from my awesome Materials for Children professor. It’s very silly and has lots of repetition.

Where is Tippy Toes? By Betsy Lewin

I first talked about this book in a storytime contender post Storytime Contender post and haven’t had a chance to It’s really sweet and cute and I was so happy to share it with my group. I like to have the children guess what kind of animal Tippy Toes is based on the cover. This week there were lots of tiger guesses.

Piggies in the Pumpkin Patch by Mary Peterson.

This is a great book about some very silly piggies. When I was planning this storytime, I tried to think of orange things and of course pumpkins came to mind! It was a bit early for a pumpkin storytime or anything having to do with Halloween so I went with this book. It is about autumn but not in an overwhelming sort of way and those piggies are just so dang cute! It’s quick and fun and perfect for my little ones who aren’t able to sit still for too long.

How it went:

I am still adjusting the size of my groups. Overall, the kids were really receptive to the books, which made me very glad. Because my storytimes are now 45-50 minutes I do A LOT of fingerplays and play A LOT of music. However, the books are still the stars and the children really like them this week, especially Tippy Toes, which they asked me to read again.

The craft:

For this storytime, I was not yet doing crafts. I was still sort of catching up and trying to figure out some logistics. Not to worry, crafts will return soon! Once again, thanks to everyone who gave me craft ideas/advice. I love how much we are all willing to share with each other, it’s really cool!

The books we read this week were:

The Little Red Hen (Makes a Pizza) by Philemon Sturges, illustrated by Amy Wood.

I really love this book. Even though it’s a bit on the longish side, it’s so hilarious and silly it keeps the kids’ attention all the way through. I love reading it aloud and doing different voices for each animal.

The Little Mouse, the Red Ripe Strawberry and the Big Hungry Bear by Don and Audrey Wood.

This is a personal storytime classic from my days as a storytime intern. I like this book a lot because it sets the children up to be scared of the BIG HUNGRY BEAR but it ends up being a sweet nice story. Be prepared for lots of “The bear never came!” Even though no one seems to really mind that.

Fire Truck by Peter Sis.

This is a very simple book about a boy who loves fire trucks so much he turns into one! It short and sweet and just the right amount of fun.

Ten Red Apples by Pat Hutchins

This is a new book to me, I discovered it when scanning the shelves before storytime. It’s great! I really think it begs to be made into a flannel board so you may be seeing that pop up on the blog soon.

The Extras:

 I will be doing a longer post about songs/fingerplays/flannel boards etc. soon. So look out for that. I am trying to teach my group a lot of songs so we have a lot of repetition going on that doesn’t really have anything to do with the theme. I am totally OK with that.

How it Went:

Overall, this was a success. The groups will need a bit of work in transitioning from the pervious style to my style. I see very larger groups (over 4o kids!!) so a lot of storytime is crowd control. There are lots of movements and songs. As far as the books go, they really enjoyed them. Little Red Hen (Makes a Pizza) was very popular and they asked me to read it again and again and again. I held up the books and asked them to guess what the theme was this week. After a few random guesses, one of them got it! I think I will continue to do this each week just to see if they can tell.

Craft

For the time being, I am not doing crafts. I really hope to change this soon but if you want an idea for a craft (it can really be anything red for this one) you can take a look at Storytime Katie’s Red Storytime.

So, things have changed for me storytime-wise. I am now doing four storytimes a week, three of them are local preschools/daycares that come to the library and the other is an evening storytime for folks in the neighborhood. I am still going to plan one storytime per week and just run it three four separate times. So, when I discuss it in the blog, I will tell you about the books and any extras that are necessary to discuss then I will tell you what the kids thought.

The other HUGE difference is the preschools and daycares come for an HOUR so my storytimes are much, much longer. These groups are walking dozens of small children long distances so we are making it worth their while and having a long program for them. I know everyone has an opinion about appropriate length for storytime. I, myself think about 25-30 minutes is the sweet spot, but this is something out of my control. As a result these programs are very fingerplay, flannel board and movement heavy. I still read 3-4 books but that happens towards the beginning since the groups are generally less antsy at the beginning and can sit still then. After that we are getting up and moving a lot more.

Working at a new library always brings new colleagues to learn from and this place is no exception. The person I work with most closely is a wealth of knowledge when it comes to fingerplays, so that’s been a huge help.

Finally, the last thing that has changed is I am not doing any crafts – for the time being. My preschool/daycare groups are all much too large and we don’t really have the space supplies. There also aren’t quite enough adults around to help. Each group has at least 45 children so it’s a little intimidating. I do want to get a craft started with my nighttime group, because that is generally much smaller. Eventually, I do want to start doing some crafts with the larger groups because frankly speaking I think it would be helpful for them and also a great use of that hour. Hopefully I can get this started soon!

It’s all a work in progress. Does anyone have any advice? I have been re-reading Storytime Katie’s blog entries because I know she is doing similar things. You will even notice she has inspired my first few weeks of planning on my own at this job.