Five Friends Play Dress Up!

Miss Margaret and I and our newest staff member, Camille, are busy planning the fall programming session. When you get three storytime-picture book lovers together the ideas are abundant!! We are planning several themes in a row with a unifying device of a story that our mascot, Harvey is 'writing'. This will tie into our ECRR component of Writing! So the first week we are doing Astronauts and space, then Pirates, then Cowboys, then Ninjas and finally, Monsters! That will get us to our Halloween Hoot and dress up fun! I made a set of 5 friends that we will use each week as we talk about our story.  I can tell from the pictures that I need to do a little trimming but I was too excited to wait to share them with everyone. Here's the link for my dress up friends from last year. Here is a second version of the Friends dressing up rhyme from that post...Five Jack-o-lanterns shining Bright (opt. version). Friends that dress up are going to be a lot of Fun with Friends at Storytime!! There are more great ideas on the Flannel Friday Roundup. Check out the wonderful resources on the Flannel Friday Pinterest Boards. Here's the link for the official Flannel Friday blog for more info!

Everyone Loves a Marching Band!

Miss Margaret has struck again! She had an idea for a Marching Band theme but we couldn't find any flannelboard rhymes to go with it. So...we collaborated and made up our own. Well, she did most of the rhyme and I made the felt pieces to go with it. I may end up making a couple more band members for a clarinet and saxophone. Just not yet. This was kinda labor intensive since I made my patterns as I went and *gasp* I threw them away!! You can see that I started with a Google image and I tweaked it some and I made my own pattern for the instruments. Anyway, here is a link for the rhyme  'The Marching Band'.  Music and marching bands are so much Fun with Friends at Storytime!

There are more great ideas on the Flannel Friday Roundup. Check out the wonderful resources on the Flannel Friday Pinterest Boards. Here's the link for the official Flannel Friday blog for more info!

Five Jack-o-lanterns Shining Bright

We are combining Halloween and a Medieval storytime theme this year. Dressing up for Halloween is a great time to pretend to be a king or princess or knight in shining armor!  Miss Margaret had a cute prop of 5 jack-o-lantern shapes that are clothes-pined to a cute wooden fence. So, to use that prop and tie it into our theme I made up a rhyme and made this set of flannel children for our combination storytime.

Five Jack-o-lanterns Shining Bright

  (by Kathryn Roach)

Sitting on a fence on Halloween night

Five smiling Jack-o-lanterns are shining bright.

Watching the kids going Trick or Treat

Filling their bags with something sweet.

First comes a king with his crown on tight

He takes a Jack-o-lantern shining bright.

Next a princess, such a beautiful sight

She takes a Jack-o-lantern shining bright.

Third comes a knight with his sword of might!

He takes a Jack-o-lantern shining bright.

Fourth comes a dragon, I don't think he'll bite!

He takes a Jack-o-lantern shining bright.

Last is a jester with black and red tights

She takes a Jack-o-lantern shining bright.

Five Trick-or-Treaters on Halloween night 
Have five smiling Jack-o-lanterns shining bright.

Happy Halloween!

Check out my post about dragons HERE. And my Medieval post HERE.   Dressing up for Halloween is a lot of Fun with Friends at Storytime!

There are more great posts on the Flannel Friday Roundup. Check out the wonderful resources on the Flannel Friday Pinterest Boards. If you want more info about Flannel Friday here's the link for the official Flannel Friday blog.

More Super Heroes!

Here's the sequel to my previous Super Hero post.  I made 5 more little Super Heroes and 1 Villain! I am super pleased with these little guys and girls!! Take a look!  

 

I think we are ready for Super Hero Action this summer with our SRP storytimes! Wow! Biff! Kapow!! We'll have some Super Fun with Friends at Storytime! There are more great posts on the Flannel Friday Roundup. Check out the wonderful resources on the Flannel Friday Pinterest Boards. If you want more info about Flannel Friday here's the link for the official Flannel Friday blog.

Super Hero Fun!

Five Superheroes and Their Mixed-Up Capes

By Kathryn Roach

 Five superheroes have been standing up for Right!

They sent their capes to the cleaners to get them clean and bright.

But while the capes were there, the villain made a switch!

Now their capes are mixed up. Let’s find which is which!

*talk about each color of cape and match it to the color superhero.*

Now, our superheroes have their own cape to wear.

All you evil villains better beware!

These colorful heroes are strong and brave.

They are ready to make every villain behave!

Well, we are getting ready for the Super Hero fun this summer and I made a set of Five Little Superheroes. Here's the link for the rhyme: 5 Superheroes. The original rhyme is from Jbray. A coworker added one more verse. This felt set was labor intensive because I was making up and tweaking the pattern as I went. I started with an image given to  me by a coworker. The redhead with the black cape is the original pattern.  I changed the mouth and used google eyes on my superheroes. Then I made the other superheroes with different hairstyles and used 5 shades of skin tones. I made each one so that you could see the back because the cape and masks are separate pieces.This made the boots and gloves double pieces and the hair had to cover the back of the head. Each superhero is about 8 inches tall. I used my star diecut for the first little guy and lots of fabric paint, glitter glue, rhinestones and Aleene's Tacky glue! I made up a rhyme that involves matching the capes to the Super Hero. Here's a link for a printable copy Five Super Heroes and Their Mixed Up Capes.  This was a lot of fun and I'll probably make 5 more different ones so that we'll have a set of Ten Little Super Heroes. Check out the Super Hero Flannel Friday Pinterest board for more ideas!

There are more great posts on the Flannel Friday Roundup. There are more wonderful resources on the Flannel Friday Pinterest Boards. If you want more info about Flannel Friday here's the link for the official Flannel Friday blog.

Let's Be Friends!

We used this theme as a Thanksgiving tie-in. There are so many great 'friend' books that this theme would be easy to do any time of year. I like to do it at Valentine's too.  I used my pellon set of 10 little children/friends that I made many years ago. I'd really like to either, remake them bigger out of pellon, or try making the set out of felt. I'll just add that to my to-do pile ;) I made up a quick little 'counting to 10' rhyme to use with them and then used them to play, "Which One Is Missing?" after the rhyme. To make this a little easier for younger preschoolers you could use only 5 of the easiest colors; red, blue, green, yellow and pink. I think (it was a really long time ago) I used illustrations from the book, The Best of Totline Newsletter edit. by Jean Warren;  illustrated by Kathy Kotomaimoce.This is an awesome resource!! 

Here's the link for the rhyme 10 Friends Today.

We made Harvey's Friend name badges as our Home Extension. These were laminated so that we could add the kiddos' names and some double-sided tape for each of our storytime friends.  This was so much Fun with Friends at Storytime!
Check out the rest of the Flannel Friday roundup @ What is Bridget Reading? for great ideas. Have questions about Flannel Friday? Check out the Flannel Friday official blog. Be sure to check out the Flannel Friday Facebook page too!   

Mmmm, Cookies!!

We had such fun with this Cookies theme! Yum!! I saw  this post @ Story Time Secrets for The Doorbell Rang and wanted to make my own. This turned out to be a big hit with the preschoolers! We added a twist by using our Cookie Monster box that I made last year with a set of ABC chocolate chip cookies on a magnetic tray (the shelf of our easel). When the doorbell rings after Grandma brings in her tray of cookies, we bring out Cookie Monster and our tray of 'cookies'! We invited the kiddos to come up and put 2 cookies in the monster's mouth.  The older preschoolers said the letter as they picked off the cookies. Of course, I made a lot of cookie eating noises! Margaret tells the kiddos that Cookie Monster got too full and .... (dumps out the cookies) "Oh No! Cookie Monster lost his cookies!" LOL! Here's a cute idea @ Thrive after Three for Who Ate All the Cookie Dough?  Here are a few other cookie theme/rhyme ideas: @Miss Mary Liberry; @ storytime Katie ; & @ Mel's Desk. ...last one @ Read, Rhyme and Sing.

Here's our segue from Thanksgiving to Christmas since we won't have any Christmas programs. We used the 5 Christmas Cookies rhyme I shared last year. Of course, there was more munching and pretend eating as I took each 'cookie' off the board. Baking Day at Grandma's is a new picture book that we just had to use. There's a repeating refrain that the kiddos really enjoyed saying with me! Our Home Extension was a ziplock bag with 2 chocolate chip cookies! Those little faces lit up when I got out our tray with the bags of cookies. Adorable!  Mmmmmm Cookies are so yummy and Fun with Friends at Storytime! Check out the other posts of Flannel Friday @ Mel's Desk. Have questions about Flannel Friday? Check out the Flannel Friday official blog. 

Every Hair in Place!

A few weeks ago I was asked to take my 2 yr. old grandson to get his hair cut.  He was a brave little boy and climbed right up in the chair and sat still and we cheered and admired the big boy haircut!  That trip inspired this rhyme and then I had a brainstorm and composed a second rhyme/activity that I'll share next week. You'll recognize the rhyme style of both as techniques I've used before. Thank goodness preschoolers love repetition! Here's the link to Barber Shop and here are my five little boys 'before and after'.

There are many cute books to use with this theme. One of my favorites is Crazy Hair Day by Barney Saltzburg. Another cute book is Bippity Bop Barbershop by Natasha Anastasia Tarpley. *update(6-12-2014) I found another really cute book for this theme: No Haircut Today! by Elivia Savadier. This could be a really fun and versatile theme for lots of Fun with Friends at Storytime!

Be sure to check back next week, I'll be hosting the Flannel Friday Roundup! The Flannel Friday Roundup is hosted this week by Bridget at What Is Bridget Reading?.   Have questions about Flannel Friday? Check out the Flannel Friday official blog.  Be sure to  join us on the Flannel Friday Facebook page and enjoy the great Flannel Friday Pinterest boards too!

Five Sweet Babies!

When my children's librarian mentioned doing a baby theme, of course I was happy to help plan that!! Everyone loves babies!  I had a previous post about emotions that involved a set of babies that we're using with our baby theme. Then, I found an adorable clipart baby to use to make a set of 5 babies. I made up a counting rhyme, 'Sweet Babies' to use with the felt babies. I cut out the whole body (including the head minus the ears) I cut out a second head that I glued on with the features and a separate diaper. The bottles are from a baby shower confetti set that I had. There is a black slick fabric paint bellybutton too!  These little guys are so cute!  

We are offering a Home Extension craft too. This is super easy to prep and prepare.  I used the 2 inch circle of the Sizzix circle diecut that I have to make the little pink baby faces. I made a blob shape that resembles a swaddled baby body. The children glue the baby face on the blanket and then glue the swaddled baby on the folded paper plate 'cradle'. Now the baby can rock while we sing, "Rock-a-bye baby".  Another cute baby song is Laurie Berkner's song, "Five Days Old".  Babies are so much Fun with Friends at Storytime!

 Check out the other posts at this week's roundup by Brooke @ Reading With Red. Have questions about Flannel Friday? Check out the Flannel Friday official blog.  Be sure to  join us on the Flannel Friday Facebook page and enjoy the great Flannel Friday Pinterest boards too!

Poor Little Baby!

We recently decided to do an 'Emotions' theme for storytime. We used several cute books.  Of course we sang, If You're Happy and You Know It! I made a couple of felt sets to go with this theme inspired by posts on Flannel Friday.  Miss Angela's post about expressions/emotions at Spectacular Story Time was the first set I made. And then I made a cute set of babies that I plan to use again later when we do a 'Babies' theme. I was inspired by the Babies post by Lisa at Libraryland!! I loved the peek-a-boo rhyme/activity she shared; 'Poor Little Baby'.  Here's my set of babies...I made each one have a different emotion, under a different colored blanky, until...hooray!...the last little baby is happy! Sighs of relief and cheers all around!

Feelings and Babies are so much Fun with Friends at Storytime. The Flannel Friday Roundup is hosted by Katie @ Story Time Secrets!  Have questions about Flannel Friday? Check out the Flannel Friday official blog.  Be sure to  join us on the Flannel Friday Facebook page and enjoy the great Flannel Friday Pinterest boards too!