Rainbow Rain Felt board Activity

 

April Showers are supposed to bring May flowers. Right?! I needed a felt board interactive rhyme that included a rainbow concept for our theme. I made up a rhyme; Rainbow Raindrops and cut out a bunch of colored raindrop shapes.  I will hand out the colored shapes and the kiddos will bring up the matching color raindrop as I put a glittery raindrop above the big umbrella. The giant umbrella will make another appearance later with my set of children when we do an umbrella theme in June. I have some other posts from past years with some cute Rain and umbrellas themes HERE!   Rain and Rainbows are a lot of Fun with Friends at Storytime!

Rainbow Bubbles!

We just did a fun storytime theme of Bubbles! We sang some songs and read this adorable picture book and then played a game. I made up a rhyme for an activity that the kiddos always enjoy. They get to add one or two pieces to the flannelboard. There are so many developmental skills involved with this game. The littlest ones enjoy patting the board with their piece and the bigger ones are proud of placing the correct piece where they choose on the board. Everyone can play! The rhyme is "Colorful Bubbles".

 

I used tissue paper and my handy little Swingline laminator, a 3" circle diecut and some dots of velcro to make my 'bubbles'.  I did outline each circle with a corresponding color Sharpie. Easy and so much fun! We handed out party favor size bubbles to the kiddos too!  Bubbles 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! 

Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head!

April showers are here! We've had a lot of rain and even bad storms lately. This is a chance to do some fun Rainy Weather themes. I have used several really fun 'rain' books. I'm sure you can find many others! Check out the Flannel Friday Weather Pinterest board.


I like to use a fingerplay, Five Little Raindrops go Bye-Bye, as well as my raindrop felt set. There's a fun, sweet song by Dr. Jean that I like to sing too. I like her version the best, The African Village Song (storyteller's perogative LOL!)  I found a pretty version of When the Rain Comes Down by Cathy Fink and Marcy Marxer. Here's the link for the rhyme, Five Little Raindrops Jump, that I've used for years. 

I also offered a craft. This is an easy prep. I did have an Ellison diecut for the raindrop shapes but if you don't they are a quick easy shape to cut several at a time. I used shiny curling ribbon but you could use mono filament  or even thread and tape or a dab of glue. I had the paper plates cut, the holes punched and the curling ribbon threaded through, including the hanging one. The kids could tape or glue on the raindrop shapes and color the rainbow with markers. Ta da! Now they have a mobile to hang in the window or on the doorknob of their room! 
Rainy Weather is a lot of Fun With Friends at Storytime!! 
Check out the other great ideas at this week's 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.

Art is in the Eye of the Beholder!

This week at Storytime it was all about ART! This turned out to be a really fun theme with both the older preschoolers and the younger toddler kiddos. The book we used with all the groups was David's Drawing by Cathryn Falwell. This book has fairly minimal text and nice clear illustrations with a great cumaltive device of David's drawing on each page. Since David's 'drawing' is so small in the top righthand corner of each page, I enlarged and copied it on a color copier. I mounted each picture on a piece of construction paper and laminated them. As we read the book we would put the laminated picture on the white magnetic board. The pictures stacked one slightly on top of the other (I put the magnet at the top back of each picture).  This combination of book and white board with pictures was very easy and effective with all of our age groups. I was also inspired to make a felt set of a post I saw @ Story Time Secrets by Katie Fitzgerald. It's called Harold's Other Crayon. I made felt crayons with an Ellison diecut and added glitter! LOL! Then using the same glitter colors I made a rainbow on a big piece of white fleece (my pretend paper) for a shiny happy ending! Big Hit!!

I needed another artsy type of rhyme so I finally settled on a file folder of a paintbrush and I made up a rhyme that ended with a picture and segued into the Home Extension for each kiddo. We had a cardstock programmed 'frame' for each kiddo to make their own picture! Here's the link for my rhyme Colors in My Picture.  I used a Google image of a paintbrush and drew on the drop and puddle of paint. I used black construction paper and some silver paper to make the handle. I cutout the brush, drop and puddle, then laminated the file folder. I stacked the color paper and made the picture to match the rhyme and had it last in the file folder. Oohs and Aahs when I turned it around for the kiddos to see! This turned out better than I had expected! Love it when that happens! Art and colors are so much Fun with Friends at Storytime!!

The rest of the Flannel Friday roundup is @Story Time Secrets. Be sure to check out the Flannel Friday Pinterest Boards for other great ideas!

Let's Go Fly a Kite!

Hooray, it's March and almost spring! It still doesn't feel like spring here but we know it's coming. We are doing some typical March themes at storytime including Kites.  I know there are several great Kite links on the Flannel Friday Pinterest boards like the one here. Two great kite theme books are, Someone Bigger by Jonathan Emmett and Kite Day; a Bear and Mole Story by Will Hillenbrand.  We have several kite flannels but I really wanted something interactive for the toddlers.  So, here's a rhyme and set of small felt kites that the kiddos can add to the board as we talk about colors and kites.

Color Kites

by Kathryn Roach

On a breezy spring day

Way up in the sky,

See the many *red kites

Flying high!

orange, yellow, green, blue, purple,

  

On a breezy spring day

Way up in the sky

   See the lovely rainbow color kites flying high!!

It's hard to see the red kite against the red felt of our board.  Anyway, I cut out 5 of each color and used the primary color variegated yarn (Walmart) cut into small lengths the same color as the kite for the tails. (It's the small things HA!) I usually stack the kites in the color sequence to be sure that every color is handed out. Then as I say the rhyme the kiddos bring their color kite up to the board.  They really enjoy this type of active rhyme. There are a lot of cognitive and social skills involved in this type of storytime activity; active listening, waiting for a turn, and a sense of collaborative pride when the board is full of the different color kites to make a 'rainbow'. Wow! I'm tired just thinking about it LOL!   

Kites are so much Fun with Friends at Storytime! 

Check out the other Flannel Friday posts at the roundup hosted by Amy at Catch the Possiblities. 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!

Old McRainbow's Pumpkin Farm

I just finished doing a Pumpkin themed storytime at a preschool to 10 classes divided into 4 groups.  It was a great success!  I heard, "Read it again!" or "Do it again", or even as he was leaving, a child said, "I love you!".  Of course, I replied," I love you too!".  *sigh*  That's why I do what I do!! Anyway, I used some old favorite flannel sets and a new favorite set copied from Sarah at Read Rabbit Read called Five Giant Pumpkins.  My set is a combination of felt pumpkins with glitter (of course!) and laminated Google images under the pumpkins. We even played a "which one's missing?" game with the Google images. This was a great hit!  But, I didn't have any interactive sets so that the children could get up and participate.  I realize, in that setting, there were just too many kids to really do the interactive game but I still would like a set for my library storytime or a classroom setting. I thought about it for several days and this is what I came up with:

Old McRainbow's Pumpkin Farm

by Kathryn Roach

There's a funny kind of farm where colored pumpkins grow;  

     planted by a funny farmer, Old McRainbow

         (chant or sing to tune of Mary Wore Her Red Dress)

       You can see a red one, red one, red one,

            a pretty red pumpkin on the farm.

(repeat with other colors as children bring up their matching colored pumpkin and add it to the 'farm')

        (speak the last rhyme to close the activity)

 What a funny rainbow farm with pumpkins row by row,

 Colorful pumpkins planted by Farmer McRainbow!

I die cut 4 of each color.  I plan to hand them out to the kiddos to bring up and add to the board as I chant/sing the color verse for each color.  I could see this being tweaked to apples or different veggies or fruit depending on the color. The first verse could be; There's a funny kind of farm where colored produce grow...  That gives me the chance to define a new, big word for the kiddos.  Rainbows and pumpkins are so much Fun with Friends at Storytime!