Moooooo!!! Cow Storytime

I grew up in Iowa and as a result, I am quite familiar with farm animals. Cows are probably one of the most recognizable farm animal to my storytime group (second to only pigs) so this was a great theme for storytime this week.

First we readThe Cow Who Clucked by Denise Fleming.

This is a nice story about a cow who loses his moo and must look all over the farm to locate it. It was a great opportunity for everyone to practice their animal noises.

Next we read Cows Going Past by Bruce Balan.

While on a car trip, a family sees all sorts of cows going past. This is a cute story with great illustrations. The highlight for me though was one of my regulars read the title aloud when I held up the book. It’s so exciting when a child starts to read and this little boy was so proud of himself. It was fantastic!

Finally, we closed with Cock-a Doodle Quack! Quack! by Ivor Baddiel, Sophie Jubb and Allie Busby.

In this story, a little rooster must learn how to crow in the morning to wake up all of the other animals on the farm. This book was similar to the first one I read in that it provided lots of opportunities for the kids to practice those animal noises.

For craft this week, we made cow masks. The children were given little pieces of pink paper to glue on for the ears and then went wild with the crayons. As usual, the example is much more boring than what the kids came up with.

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Earth Day

Earth Day was last week and to celebrate in the library we have held all sorts of programs for different ages on this theme. So, I had the good fortune to plan an Earth Day themed storytime.

At first I thought this would be an easy task since there are lots of Earth Day books. I was wrong. While most of these books are awesome resources, they just don’t work in storytime with the age group I had in attendance (3-5 year olds.) Many of them are too just too long and too wordy. Two great titles I think would work with an older group are Earth Day Hooray by Stuart Murphy and We Are Extremely Good Recyclers by Bridget Hurst.

After looking at lots of Earth Day specific books, I decided to take this storytime in a totally different direction. Instead, I chose books about plant life and the world. I started storytime by talking about Earth Day with the kids. I was very impressed about how much all of these kids knew!

First we read Inch by Inch by Leo Lionni.

I really like this book about a little inchworm who measures his way through the story and out of trouble. It’s a very simple story and the illustrations are lots of fun. One each page you have to look for the inchworm because he is always in a different place, that was a lot of fun.

Next I read Little Green by Keith Baker.

This book has great illustrations. It is about a boy who watches a hummingbird flit around the garden and he paints.

I only read two books today so we could spend mor time on our craft. I had a difficult time coming up with something for this program. I thought of lots of great ideas, but a lot of them either involved paint (something I decided to stay away from because of the drying time) or were a bit too complex for the group.

So, I actually ended up re-creating something I did a while ago in storytime. That time, I actually didn’t get any pictures- luckily this time was different. We made shakers with paper plates and beans. I gave the children markers and streamers to glue on to decorate and they had a great time.

This is a super easy craft. It’s not as green as I wanted, I did want to do something with recycled supplies but that just didn’t work out this time. But, everyone enjoyed themselves and I think that’s what is important!

Dinosaurs galore!

This week in storytime we revisited one of the awesomest themes ever- Dinosaurs! I love this theme, which is obvious because I have used it before. There are so many great dinosaur books out there that are perfect to share in storytime. Also, kids love dinosaurs and that always makes storytimes more enjoyable.

First we read my favorite dinosaur book, How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight? by Jane Yolen and Mark Teague.

Words cannot express how much I love to read this book aloud. It’s a great way to start out a storytime because it always gets the kids excited and ready for a fun time.

Next we read Dinosaur Starts School by Pamela Duncan Edwards, illustrated by Deborah Allwright.

This is a nice story about a boy whose dinosaur is nervous to go to school and he eases his worries and explains how much fun school is. I was happy to discover this book because not only is it a great dinosaur book, but it is also a great back to school book. I will have to remember it for the fall.

Finally, we finished with The Super Hungry Dinosaur by Martin Waddell and illustrated by Leonie Lord.

 This is a nice story about Hal who fends off a super hungry dinosaur and saves his family from being eaten. I just love the illustrations in this book. They are very cute and make the story fun and not at all scary.

The craft this week was a dinosaur hat.

This was a super easy and awesomely fun craft. What I like most about it is it can be transformed into so many other things AND it can be worn.

Hats!

This week for storytime, we did a hat theme. I originally chose this theme because I wanted to read the book, Caps for Sale by Esphyr Slobodkina.

I really like this book and thought it would be lots of fun to share with my storytime group. However, I didn’t get to this book this week. It’s on the longer side and I had some fun games/activities I wanted to include this week.

The first book I actually did read was Twelve Hats for Lena by Karen Katz.

This is a great book about a girl named Lena who has a special hat for each month. This was a great book to read in storytime because it not only dealt with hats but also discusses the months of the year. It was fun for the children to guess which holiday her hat represented and additionally, each child told the group their birthday month.

Next we read Aunt Lucy Went to Buy A Hat by Alice Low.

This is a very funny story about a woman who wants to buy a hat but ends up getting sidetracked by lots of other thing on her way to buy the hat. It’s a silly, rhyming story but I think that it was a bit complex for some of the younger kids.

For craft this week, we made hats with paper bowls.

This was a super easy craft that the kids really enjoyed. All I did was get some paper bowls and set out lots of good stuff for them to color with and stick onto their hats. Very easy and very fun!

Also, I pulled out a sombrero and we did a few different things with it. First we marched around it and with our bean bags and then we threw our bean bags into the hat. Also, I wore the sombrero for part of the storytime. I looked very cool, if I do say so myself!