Beach Time!

I'm so tired of winter!! This will be my virtual beach vacation, LOL! Here's a link for some great beach books @ No Time for Flashcards.  There are some good posts on the Flannel Friday Pinterest boards too! I have a counting-to-10 seashell rhyme to add to your beach theme. I used an Ellison diecut for the shells and then added the glitter glue/fabric paint outlines. (By the way, the word green is supposed to rhyme with 10.) 

Picking up Seashells

by Kathryn Roach

I went to the beach with my bucket in my hand.

As I walked along I looked down at the sand.

I saw some pretty seashells; yellow, orange and green,

I counted as I picked them up

1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10!

I also have a link for a riddle game that I made up. It's called What I Saw at the Beach Riddle Game.  I used Google images that I cut out and mounted on blue construction paper and then laminated. I sized the images to be about 4 or 5 inches and put a dot of velcro on the back of the laminated images so they'd go on the flannelboard. This leads to a LOT of discussion! Playing and Talking are 2 of our ECRR components. Well, at least this beach trip didn't involve sandy laundry or pesky sharks! The beach is a lot of Fun with Friends at Storytime. The rest of the Flannel Friday roundup is @ Storytime Katie. Have questions about Flannel Friday? Check out the Flannel Friday official blog. Be sure to join us on the Flannel Friday Facebook page too!

Birthday Candles!

Everyone loves birthday cake and candles! This is a fun and easy theme for storytime. I have links for 2 different counting candle rhymes: Five Candles and Ten Birthday Candles.  I have a cake shape made from pellon with white ric-rac trim and a red 'platter' to use with both rhymes. I made 2 different sets of birthday candles.  One set is based on the number shaped candles that you can buy for birthday cakes. The other set is a basic candle shape with added glitter!  There are some really great birthday ideas on the Flannel Friday Pinterest board.  Birthdays are so much Fun with Friends at Storytime!

The rest of the Flannel Friday roundup is @Storytiming. Have questions about Flannel Friday? Check out the Flannel Friday official blog. Be sure to join us on the Flannel Friday Facebook page too!  

Balloons say Happy Birthday!

Birthdays are so much fun for preschoolers. This is a great theme that offers lots of opportunities for fun flannel sets. I've got a not-a-flannel set of balloons to share.  I made my set from laminated paper with pipe cleaner 'strings' and a small piece of velcro on the back. I like the shiny look from the lamination, plus the last balloon can be programmed with the colorful words that say, "Happy Birthday". You could also play, "Which One is Missing?" with this set.  This could be a cute file folder set. Here's the link for the rhyme - Birthday Balloons.

We offered a home extension for this storytime. It's a crown that I saw on Pinterest that we adapted for our theme. We prepped the paper plate crowns and gave the kiddos some holograph stickers and paper birthday candles to decorate their birthday hats! This is super easy prep for a lot of kiddo fun!! 

This is one of my favorite author/illustrators. Our library copy of this book is too small for using in Storytime, so I scanned and enlarged it and mounted the pages on black construction paper and laminated them. I typed out the script and mounted each page's text on the back of the laminated sheet. The last 2 pages I mounted on a larger sheet of construction paper for the impact of the Happy Birthday! This is a big hit with the kiddos! 
Happy Birthday is a LOT of Fun with Friends at Storytime!!   

The rest of the Flannel Friday Roundup is @ Literary Commentary.  Have questions about Flannel Friday? Check out the Flannel Friday official blog. Be sure to check out the Flannel Friday Facebook page too! 

Shape Up!

I like Ellen Stoll Walsh's books! Check out this post at Read, Rhyme and Sing for some other Walsh inspired sets. I especially like Mouse Shapes. Our copy of the book is not as big as I like so I enhanced it a little.  I made some felt pieces to use as I read the book to my kiddos at storytime. I enlarged the pictures about 129% and used them as my patterns. I did use my sizzix diecut for the circles because they are just so hard to cut out. The pieces are glued to the white felt 'pages' on both sides. My coworker suggested that it would be easier to handle these pieces that way as I held the book too! I'm looking forward to the discussion we'll have as we see what these little mice can make out of shapes! Here's another way to make this set @ Read Rabbit Read. 

Mice and Shapes are a lot of Fun with Friends at Storytime!