Pickles for My Picnic

It's summertime and picnics are on the schedule. I've done some other posts for PICNIC that needed one more fun activity! I have an interactive rhyme about a jar of pickles for our lunch.  I made a large jar shape and added the light grey lid shape with silver fabric paint. I made about 30 pickle circles with felt and used dark green fabric paint for the peel and white fabric paint for the seeds.  I can hand out the pickles and tell the kiddos to listen as I give a clue. I then say, "If you're wearing sandals today, bring up your pickle and add it to my jar.". I'll continue with different clues,  If your name starts with (say a letter); or if you have a dog for a pet... We'll celebrate together when the jar is full of pickles! Pickles are so much Fun with Friends at Storytime!

                                      

One Potato...and more! *Update!

  * This is an update with a new picture book that would be so fun to use with older preschoolers.  My 4 year old grandson liked this book a lot! His 9 and 11 year old brothers enjoyed the clever play on veggies plus animals!  

I've been thinking about St. Patrick's Day and this summer's library theme, "Dig Into Reading", and naturally I thought of potatoes!  I did a potato storytime several years ago and we all really enjoyed it!  I used Diana Pomeroy's One Potato and Potato Joe by Keith Baker.   I've recently discovered this adorable book, Pigs Love Potatoes by Anika Denise, and would like to find a way to use it too!  Of course we'll do the traditional One potato, Two potatoes rhyme and I found a cute potato chant at Yakaberry that I want to use too.  I really didn't find any other potato rhymes so I made one up to go with some felt potatoes that I had made for a simple count to 10 activity. 

 

Digging Potatoes  

by Kathryn Roach

Let’s go out to the garden and dig in the ground,
Down in the dirt 10 potatoes will be found!

10 brown potatoes growing so fine,
The farmer dug one up and that left nine.

Nine brown potatoes will be yummy on my plate!
The farmer dug one up and that left eight.

Eight brown potatoes in a line so even,
The farmer dug one up and that left seven.

Seven brown potatoes for my potato pancake mix,
The farmer dug one up and that left six!

Six brown potatoes have grown to a good size.
The farmer dug one up and that left five.

Five brown potatoes now,... there used to be more!
The farmer dug one up and that left four.

Four brown potatoes that have eyes but cannot see!
The farmer dug one up and that left three.

Three brown potatoes to add to the veggie stew,
The farmer dug one up and that left two.

Two brown potatoes that never saw the sun!
The farmer dug one up and that left one.

One brown potato, the last one of the bunch

The farmer dug it up and baked it for his lunch!

   

The Turnip: a Russian Folktale

This cumaltive tale of an Enormous Turnip is a lot of fun! There are a lot of variations too.  I used The Flannel Board Storytelling Book by Judy Sierra for my patterns and story.  I made the ground as a pocket for the turnip to 'grow' and pop out at the end. I used a couple of shades of purple marker to shade the top of the turnip. Here's a tip, let it sit and dry for a couple of hours!  I did add a lesson at the end of the story. "Big or small, old or young when we all work together we get the job done!"  Such a lot of Fun with Friends at Storytime!

Veggies in the Garden

Time for planting gardens!! I made a set of veggies to go with a
song by Jean Warren to the tune of "Down by the Station. I can't remember where I found it originally because it's not on her excellent website, Preschool Express right now. There are a lot of other great vegetable songs there though!

Here is a printable copy of the song/flannelboard rhyme, Out in the Garden. I didn't really use a pattern for these pieces. I looked at a few Google images but they are pretty easy shapes to just freehand cut out. I could see playing the ever popular game, 'Which one is missing?' after singing the song. There's any number of ways to use these pieces and the song/chant. The children can help add the pieces or take off the pieces. If your group is too big you can have a puppet animal 'eat' the veggies!! Vegetables are 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!