This was my first week of planning my own storytime at the new job! I have been doing storytime for the last few weeks, but they were pre-planned from before I got here. I think we all know there is a huge difference between doing a storytime you planned yourself versus doing a storytime someone else planned. As I am sure you can imagine, I was super excited to share storytime this week since it was my own creation!
I took a page out of Storytime Katie’s book and decided to do some color themes. We are starting out with RED!
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.
Awesome Story Time 
The pizza book is great! I’d never seen it before. I kind of want a felt for that one, too, with all the supplies and ingredients…
I love The Little Red Hen Makes a Pizza. I’ve done this without the book and used props like plastic food. We have alot of that kind of stuff around so it works well. I also like to ask the kids what they would make a pizza out of. What goes in the dough? The sauce? What toppings do you like? It makes it a more interactive but might make you hungry.