Two Little Chameleons!

 

I'm in love with these two adorable chameleons!  I am using my old guessing game Chameleon set from here this week and I needed to add my favorite new finger puppets.  

I'm also using my old set of 5 lizards too!  

Here's the rhyme, I don't remember where I found it tho.  

Five Little Lizards

One little lizard all alone, lying on a smooth, flat stone.

Two little lizards side by side, they play peekaboo, then they hide.

Three little lizards beneath a tree, they run away when they see me!

Four little lizards having fun chasing one another in the sun.

Five little lizards lie so still, snoozing on my windowsill. 

Chameleons and lizards are so much Fun with Friends at Storytime!

Ready for Writing!

Time for a new-for-me theme for storytime! I made a set of Five Little Pencils. Here's a link for the rhyme that I made up to go along with my pencils - Five Little Pencils.  I used a Google image as my pattern and added some fabric paint and glitter glue and googly eyes. The 'paper' is white felt with blue acrylic paint lines. I used masking tape to keep my lines straight and as narrow as possible. This set makes me smile!  We're having so much Fun with Friends at Storytime!

Mmmm... Gingerbread!

There are many good smells this time of year, but one of my absolute favorites is gingerbread! Gingerbread houses are adorable and fun to make and gingerbread men (and women) are cute and Yummy! This is a fun, festive and not totally Christmasy theme to use right after Thanksgiving.  Jan Brett's cute book, Gingerbread Baby is fun to use with this theme. I tell parts of it because it is a bit long but the ending is fabulous!! This theme can include any Christmas cookie related books too.  Here's several gingerbread and a cookie rhyme for this theme. These 2 Gingerbread Man rhymes are fingerplay/action rhymes. I do put up my sweet gingerbread man at the end of one and leave him up for the second rhyme. I point to my eyes, nose, head and toes; pretend to run and then 'ta da' point to the board again when you say the last line.
Gingerbread Man
Stir a bowl of gingerbread (stir as in a bowl)
Smooth and spicy brown.
Roll it with a rolling pin (pretend to roll back and forth with a rolling pin)
Up and up and down.
With a cookie cutter (hold up pretend - or real if you've got one- cookie cutter)
Make some little men.
put them in the oven (pretend to open oven and slide pan in)
Until half past ten. (tap top of wrist as if tapping a watch)

Guess Who?
I have big raisin eyes
And a red hot candy nose.
I have yummy white frosting
From my head down to my toes!
I can run, run, run
Just as fast as I can.
Can you guess who?
I'm the Gingerbread Man!

Five Little Gingerbread Men
5 little gingerbread men on the tray.
one jumped up and ran away.
Catch me, catch me, catch me if you can!
I'm pretty fast, I'm the gingerbread man!
4, 3, 2, 1,
No little gingerbread men on the tray
I will have to bake some more another day!!

Here's another 5 Gingerbread Men
5 little gingerbread men in a row
(hold up 5 fingers and wave back and forth)
Not gonna eat one, No, No, no.
(shake finger and head 'no')
But they look so sweet from head to toe
(look at felt figures and rub tummy)
Crunch, munch.... uh oh!!
(slap thighs on crunch, clap hands on munch, then put hands over mouth on 'uh oh')
* count down 4, 3, 2, 1, til *
No little gingerbread men in a row
Wasn't gonna eat one, no, no, no (shake head no, hold hands out )
But they looked so sweet that it's sad to tell
(hand binoculars to eyes, then index fingers run down cheeks to represent tears on 'sad')
Crunch...munch...Oh Well!
(slap thighs once, clap once, then throw hands up and shrug shoulders on 'Oh Well!')
I usually pretend to eat each felt gingerbread man and wipe the 'crumbs' from my mouth. This is always a BIG HIT! I can't remember where I got any of these because I've used them sooooo long! Ha!
Here's one more. This is a classic and I'm sure many of you have it too:

Five Christmas Cookies
5 Christmas cookies with frosting galore.  *mother* ate the white one and then there were 4.
4 Christmas cookies, 2 and 2 you see. *father* ate the green one and then there were 3.
3 Christmas cookies, but before I knew; *sister* ate the yellow one and then there were 2.
2 Christmas cookies, oh what fun! *brother* ate the brown one and then there was 1.
1 Christmas cookie, watch *me run. *I ate the red one and then there were none!
(*you can use children's names *)
I used an Ellison diecut for the little gingerbread men and 5 cookies with some white slick fabric paint on the little men and glitter 'sugar' on the 5 cookies. The big gingerbread boy was a gift from a friend many years ago so he's pretty special to me!  This would lend itself to a 'Frost the cookie' extension! How fun would that be?!  Christmas Cookies are Fun with Friends at Storytime!

More Monster Mash!

Monsters are so much fun!  I have a couple more monster flannelboard sets to share this week. But first I thought I'd mention some of the books I use with this theme. I have used There's a Nightmare In My Closet by Mercer Mayer and the classic, Where The Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak. There's a new picture book that's really cute, Monsters Love Colors by Mike Austin, that I want to use the next time I present this theme. But, my new favorite monster book is Some Monsters Are Different by David Milgrim. It is ADORABLE!  Hooray! I've got so many great books to choose from now!  Anyway, I made 2 sets of 5 little monsters inspired by Flannel Friday posts *here and here. I tweaked the colors from *Anna's Five Little Monsters Sitting on the Floor, to use the colors I had. I found this terrific link at Preschool Education.com with several adorable rhymes to use them with too!

Five Little Monsters Sitting on the Floor.

One Little Monster Had a Fright

I can't remember where I got the One Little Monster Had a Fright rhyme/song... sorry! It's sung to the tune of One Elephant Went Out to Play. If you need the tune listen to this youtube link. My monsters are handpuppets. I used one 9x12 sheet of felt folded and trimmed to make the front and back. I first embellished the front, let it dry and then glued the front to the back. Here's the rhyme/song:

My Favorite monster ;)

One Little Monster                                                
One little monster had a fright
on a dark and stormy night.
He thought it was so much fun that
he called for another monster to come!
2, 3, 4...
Five little monsters had a fright
on a dark and stormy night.
They had fun but were ready to sleep
So they went to bed without a peep!    SNORE!!



And, last but not least is my version of this adorable Polka Dot Monster from Dorothy at The Wielded Pen-Children's Corner and Sarah, in the comments, that made up the rhyme.  I tweaked mine a little and glued on the facial features so that the kiddos only add the dots.

Monsters are Fun with Friends at Storytime!

Eeek! A Spider!

We're beginning to plan for the fall and of course that means...Halloween! When I think of Halloween I think of creepy things and one of those creepy things is...duh, duh, duh...Spiders!  I have some not-so-creepy spiders that I like to use with the younger, easily creeped-out kiddos at storytime. I have a 5 whats-it rhyme that I adapted from Preschool Express. Jean Warren had written it as Three Little Spiders.  I used some flannel pieces from other sets along with my ADORABLE little spiders. I placed the *item and made one of the spiders fall with each verse. I added back the spiders for the last verse.   I also changed the last line to be a Happy Halloween rhyme.  You can see that some of my * items didn't match the rhyme...but I'm making some more pieces that will!...or, you can just name the *items that you have.  Either way...Fun is about to happen!!

Five Little Spiders

by Jean Warren (adapted by Kathryn Roach)

Five little spiders climbing up the wall.

Along came a *grey squirrel and made one spider fall. 

Four little spiders climbing up the wall.

Along came a * little mouse  and made one spider fall.

Three little spiders climbing up the wall.

Along came a * hoot owl  and made one spider fall.

Two little spiders climbing up the wall.

Along came a * black cat  and made one spider fall.

One little spider climbing up the wall.

Along came a * Jack-o-lantern  and made one spider fall.

Five little spiders landed on the ground.

They said, "Happy Halloween!" and then didn't make a sound. (shhhhh)

Sorry for the quality of the pics. The spider's legs are made of metallic pipe cleaners. I used google eyes and half of a large circle sequin for the mouth.  I sandwiched the legs between two ovals with a LOT of glue!  These guys make me Happy!

Watermelon!

It's picnic weather here and time to eat yummy summer picnic food! One of my favorite summer treats is watermelon! Check out this link for National Watermelon Day on August 3.   I made a rhyme to use a few years ago when I taught preschool and we tasted watermelon. I used the watermelon prop at the art table too. Summer food is fun ... and delicious!

Sharing Watermelon
by Kathryn Roach

I have a big red watermelon
A juicy summer treat.
I want to share it with my friends
They'd like a slice to eat!

I'll share one,...
Now another,...
One more slice makes three.
Here's one more for my friend,
And that leaves one for me!


I usually line up the felt watermelon slices and take them off as we 'subtract' until the last one, that I pretend to gobble up! 

Some good watermelon books are...Watermelon Day by Kathi Appelt; One Watermelon Seed by Celia Lottridge; The Watermelon Seed by Greg Pizzoli; and a nonfiction book, Watermelon for Everyone by Pat Griffeth. You could sing Raffi's book/song, Down By The Bay (Raffi Songs to Read). Then there's one of my favorites, Lunch by Denise Fleming. There are several wonderful Flannel Friday posts based on Fleming's book. Check out the food Flannel Friday pinterest board! Here are some great previous Flannel Friday posts about watermelons; Miss Mary Liberry has Watermelon contest.  Anne @ So Tomorrow has a link to a cute rhyme Yummy Watermelons.  Wow! Watermelons are so much Fun with Friends at Storytime!

An Inspired Idea...Construction Vehicles

I thought I'd share my set of construction vehicles that go with the book, Tip Tip Dig Dig by Emma Garcia. I was inspired Jane's amazing set at Piper Loves the Library here.  I made this set for my library, but I think I'll make a set for me too...just bigger!

I took a couple of liberties with the design...The cement mixer is 2 shades of purple and all of the tires are charcoal gray.  I used google eyes too. I took this pic while the glue was still wet so the crane looks a little goopy and for some reason the orange looks washed out in this pic. 

   

I also made this flannel dumptruck set based on the craft and rhyme here.  I used matching color, shiny sequins for the hubcaps!  Got a little bling in there! LOL! 

I am really looking forward to using both of these sets this summer. We'll have a lot of fun with friends when we Dig Into Reading this summer!