Octopus storytime!

To continue with our Make Waves theme for Summer Reading, we had an awesome octopus storytime today.

We began by reading Herman The Helper by Robert Kraus, pictures by Jose Aruego and Ariane Dewey.

This was a great book to start with. I am a HUGE fan of the Kraus/Aruego books and this one did not disappoint. It’s all about Herman who helps out everyone he knows. He is a small green octopus who does not take up a lot of space on the page so we had a lot of fun finding him on every page.

Next we read An Octopus Followed Me Home by Dan Yaccarino.

Dan Yarrcarino is another of my favorite authors to read in storytime. This is a great story about a girl who brings home an octopus who is reminded by her father of all of the other animals who have also followed her home. This book has fun illustrations and is quite silly.

Finally, I closed with I’m the Biggest Thing in the Ocean by Kevin Sherry.

Ok, so I know that this is a book about a squid and not an octopus this is something we discussed prior me reading the story, but I couldn’t resist using it. This is also one of my favorite books (looks like this was a week of faves!) and I love reading it to the kids. I have used it many times before and its previously been mentioned on this blog.

For our craft this week we made octopuses. I wasn’t too pleased with the one I made, I thought it looked like a jelly fish. However, the ones the kids made were really great!

Check out this guy’s mouth! Very scary!

I especially like this octopus’ eyes. Very awesome!

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Beach Party!

Summer is officially here and for those of us in libraryland that means one thing: Summer Reading! We kicked off our summer reading club last week and yesterday we had our 1,000th person sign up! Last year we had 1,200 participants so we are anxious to see if this year’s number surpass that.
So what does all of this mean? The library has been super busy! Yesterday we had two storytimes, my 3-5 year olds followed by the 2 year olds. Between the two storytimes, we had over 100 people (including parents) in attendance. What an awesome way to start out the storytime this summer! Our summer reading theme this year is Make Waves @ Your Library so you can expect lots of storytimes that fit that theme.
Now on to the books!

First we read At the Beach by Anne and Harlow Rockwell.

This was a great way to start out our first summertime storytime! It is a sweet story about all a day at the beach. The children really enjoyed it and it led to a discussion about days we all had spent at the beach.

Next we read To the Beach! by Linda Ashman

 The story is about a family who is off to the beach but continually forgets necessary items. I loved reading this book! It has great rhyming text that make it lots of fun to read aloud. It was exciting and very funny for the kids too. definitely recommended for a storytime.

Finally, we closed with Beach Day by Patricia Lakin, illustrated by Scott Nash.

To be honest, I didn’t quite know how this one was going to go. I thought it might work but I also thought that it might not. Lucky for me it definitely worked. The kids thought it was fun and it ended up being a great way to finish.

For our craft this week, we made sun visors. The children were given visors to cut out as well as markers and stickers to decorate with. When they were finished, I  gave the parents elastic to tie on. They all turned out very cute! My favorite crafts are the ones that they can wear out, so this one definitely fit the bill!

Storytime Break!

I am so sorry for the lack of posts the past few weeks. The Summer Reading Club starts next week and I have been spending the past few weeks preparing some of the fantastic programs we are going to have at my library this summer. Storytime begins the week of June 15th and our SRC theme this year is Make Waves @ Your Library so get ready for lots of beach and ocean themed storytimes!