Penguin Fun!

Penguins lend themselves to preschool storytime so well because they are incredibly cute and funny!! I have several penguin flannel sets including my set to match the story, 'Pippa's Penguins' by Susan M. Dailey featured at Rain Makes Applesauce by Sharon, The Reading Chick and at the blog, A Bad Case of Books. I have used nonfiction books with big pictures and talked about penguins on selected pages. There are several penguin rhymes and stories at the Flannel Friday Polar Animal board.  Here's my set of felt penguins that I use with the rhyme Six Little Penguins by Nancy J. Smith, I found here and here.  I also have 5 penguin Beanie Babies that I use with another count to 5 penguin rhyme.

My penguins are made of felt and fabric paint and miniature pom poms.  I deconstructed a Google image for my pattern.  Check out this fabulous link I found for penguin rhymes HERE. Penguins are so much Fun with Friends at Storytime!!

Dressed for Winter!

Time for winter themes!  I have so many flannel sets for winter, snow, snowflakes, snowmen, penguins... but still I make new ones LOL!  I was inspired by this terrific post by  Lisa @ Thrive after Three of her flannel set for the book, The Jacket I Wear in the Snow by Shirley Nietzel; illus. by Nancy Winslow Parker.  Of course, my set doesn't exactly match hers or the illustrations in the book. I used, felt, fabric paint, some yarn and a pom pom. I'm really looking forward to using this set with my storytime children this January.  I plan on handing out the pieces and as we read the book they can bring up their piece and add it to the board.

I'm planning to read, Keats' The Snowy Day and  Under My Hood I Have a Hat by Karla Kuskin. Lisa also has this recent post with her flannel set for Under My Hood... Maybe I can make me a set before next year?!  

I also play my 'Which One is Missing?' game with this theme. I made 5 adorable felt toboggans to count, discuss colors and play with. I used the variegated color yarn from Walmart to make my pom poms. I used a Google image as a pattern.  I cut 5 extra brims; one of each color, and cut them apart and glued them back together for each toboggan.  I LOVE these little hats!!  I made up a rhyme to use with these before we play the game; here's the link to 'Five Toboggans'.   Winter time is Fun with Friends at Storytime.

Three Little Pigs

Oh My Goodness, Ms Jenna has inspired me to return to the classics.  Ms Jenna's Three Little Pigs flannel set posted HERE  is absolutely adorable!! I used her initial ideas and tweaked a little and tested the story on my 4 year old grandson! Success! He loved it and used the pieces to retell it to me.  I chinny chin chinned and huffed and puffed and he wanted to hear it again! My ending has the wolf climbing on the roof to go down the chimney and the pigs putting a bubbling pot on the fire for the wolf to fall into. He howls, "Owwwwwwwwwwww" and runs out of the door and far away and the three pigs (all in the brick house by now) live happily ever after!  J. loved the howling and the happy ending. So did I! Thanks for sharing Ms. Jenna!!

The Three Little Pigs are so much Fun with Friends at Storytime!

I Wish You a Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas! I have several books and not-flannel props and a new flannelboard rhyme/game to share. One of my favorite toddler tested books is Nancy Tafuri's book, Counting to Christmas. It has large clear pictures and minimal text and a wonderful ending! I like to sing/read Here Comes Santa Claus by Gene Autry. Here's a youtube link if you need to hear him sing it HERE.  I just sing it without any music so I can go slower or faster or even stop and make a comment if I need to. The pictures are big and beautiful and the ending is adorable!

My grandson and I have discovered a new Christmas favorite that is hilarious! Dori Chaconas has written a wonderful rhyming story with a very satisfying ending and Lynne Chapman's illustrations of the cows are absolutely hilarious! 

Since the main focus of the story is the tree dilemma, I have a not-a-flannel prop that I like to use. This is a bulletin board cutout that I embellished with a large star and glitter glue on the top and dots of colored glitter 'bulbs' to make the tree shiny and special. I use this prop with several Christmas tree rhymes.





I have a new felt set that I made this year. I used an Ellison diecut stocking and made 10 different colored stockings and added glitter!of course! I made Google images of items to match the rhyme/activity that I made up. I laminated the images and put a dot of velcro on the back. I hide the items behind each stocking. As I say the rhyme and give the clue the children guess what the item is. Here's the link to the rhyme Christmas Stockings.

I also wanted to share a couple of extras that I've used before and after storytime as activities for the children to enjoy. I used old Christmas cards (I save them every year) that had a small picture on the back that matched all or a part of the picture on the front of the card. I mounted the small pics on yellow construction paper squares and laminated the card front and the yellow squares. I lay out the cards and hand the children the small squares to match them up. The matching game is fun and helps the children learn to isolate parts of the bigger picture. My 2 year old grandson got the hang of it after a little instruction. My 4 year old grandson played it on his own and was very proud of himself when he got all the matches done correctly and quickly! The other activity is laminated cards that I punched holes around the edge and tied a ribbon in one corner so that the children can lace around the card. Excellent for eye-hand coordination.
 I hope everyone has a peaceful and love-filled holiday season!
Christmas is 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!

C is for Cookie!

Here's a fun interactive not-a-flannel prop for a Cookie theme.  I saw it at Read, Rhyme and Sing as a flannelboard activity but I wanted to make it a little differently.  I made up a rhyme for different colored 'cookies'.   I mounted a laminated poster board cookie monster to a box lined with black paper and a piece of black felt at the front of the box. The 'cookies' are some 3 inch circles left from another project. I did find a Google image of chocolate chip cookies for the brown cookie in the rhyme. I hand out the cookies and the children bring up the matching color cookie and 'feed' the Cookie Monster! Lot's of Fun!!

Cookies for Cookie Monster
by Kathryn Roach
Cookie Monster wants a yummy cookie treat,
Please bring him a *red, cherry cookie to eat.

*blue berry

*lemon yellow

*purple grape

*pink watermelon

*green apple (or pistachio)

*sweet orange

*brown chocolate chip

Yum!! 

Cookies are Fun with Friends at Storytime!

Thanksgiving!

I love Thanksgiving! I like it better than Christmas. I like thinking of all the things I'm thankful for!  It makes me feel so rich. One of the books I like to use at Thanksgiving is an older book, I Never Say I'm Thankful, But I Am by Jane Belk Moncure. We talk about what it means to be thankful and that we should say it more! It's so precious to hear little children talk about the people and things that they are thankful for. I have several thanksgiving flannels that I like to use too, especially my turkey ones. There are some really great turkey posts on the Flannel Friday Thanksgiving Pinterest board. I have one that I found at Mommy and Me Book Club called "Going On a Turkey Hunt!"  I used an Ellison diecut for my colorful turkeys. I got to thinking though, you could also make it a laminated file folder too.
I have ten little diecut turkeys that I can use several ways but I really would like to use them with this adorable song, Ten Little Turkeys by the Learning Station. I found another cute 10 little turkeys rhyme here.  Here's the link to the one I made up, "Ten Turkeys on the Fence".

Here's my favorite turkey rhyme/activity- The turkey body is colored pellon that I glued to a brown felt circle. I cut out a bunch of colored 'feathers' that I hand out and the children add to the 'nekked' turkey to make a beautiful turkey tail. The idea started with "Turkey Feathers" by Liz Wilmes from Felt Board Fingerplays with Patterns and Activities: Rhymes and Songs by Liz and Dick Wilmes. I used their turkey pattern but I wrote my own song to the same tune, Are You Sleeping?. Mine goes like this:

Turkey Feathers Game
(by Kathryn Roach)
Our poor turkey
lost his feathers.
Let's all help, everyone.
Do you have a  *(red) one?
Come and bring the *(red) one.
Oh what fun!
Oh what fun!

*change the color each time...
This is always a BIG hit!

 

I also have a sweet little 5 Little Pilgrims flannel set too. I have found it here and here.  I've used this set for years! The pieces are colored pellon. The food is separate so that I can add them as we say the rhyme: 

Five Little Pilgrims

Five Little Pilgrims on Thanksgiving Day

The first one said, "I'll have cake if I may"

The second one said, "I'll have turkey roasted"

The third one said, "I'll have chestnuts toasted"

The fourth one said, "I'll have pumpkin pie"

The fifth one said, "Oh, cranberries I spy"

But before they ate any turkey and dressing

All of the Pilgrims said a Thanksgiving blessing.


Last year I shared a couple of my pie felt sets as a guest on Trails and Tales's blog. I want to make this pumpkin pie set from Read Rabbit Read  to add to my collection. Food is always something to be thankful for. I usually do an activity where I name typical foods and ask for 'thumbs up if you like....'. Sometimes I get a thumbs up when I name broccoli!  The kids love this activity and it gives me the opportunity to talk about how we all like different things but that's alright! We can be thankful for one another!

I'm thankful for everyone that's a part of Flannel Friday. This past year this group has enriched my life so much. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!