A Yellow Storytime! (And some ducks too!)

To continue on with the color theme, we next tackled Yellow. The theme started out as Yellow but then sort of morphed into Ducks. I will be honest, in my mind ducks are yellow. I realize this is not true and neither of the ducks on these covers are in fact yellow, but I went with them anyway. As you will recall, I was inspired by the lovely Storytime Katie to do a colors so check out her posts for some great ideas!

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!

An Orange Storytime!

Ok, so it took me a little bit to get this blog up. As it turns out, blogging is something I enjoy doing but I am not really the best at getting it done. I really want to thank everyone that has commented with great ideas about storytimes. It’s been really helpful in how I plan for my groups so thanks a bunch! Anyway, continuing on with the colors theme next I tackled Orange! As you may recall, I got this idea from Storytime Katie and you should check out her blog to get some great ideas! If you want a refresher, the red storytime that I did is here.

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!