We did a really fun Nocturnal Animal themed storytime last week. I love it when I get to teach little children big words. I think that at least one or two of the kiddos will remember the word nocturnal after today. I really drilled it! LOL! Anway, I used this great board book with large pictures and cutouts for guessing. I want to buy my own copy to always have it on hand. The children ages, 2-5 were very engaged the whole time. On the page with the large yellow eyes the 5 year old in the group guessed that it was a cat. When I turned the page we saw that it was a fox. The 2 year old beside him said, "Kitty!" and no matter how many times I said, "it's a fox!" he kept saying, "Kitty!". The other 2's took up the refrain until I turned the page. Hilarious! This is why I love storytime!! There's a fox, weasel, owl, and several other nocturnal animals including the last page that has a lot of small cutouts with eyes that are the mouse's family. Awwww! Happy ending!
We used Nancy Stewart's song of the month, "
Nocturnal Animals". I used Google images to make a large set of pictures for me and small pictures that we laminated and hotglued to large tongue depressors. We practiced holding up the matching picture as I held up the big picture and then we tried it again with the song. Big Hit!! I also used her song, "
Five Coyotes".
This theme was a chance to use my
Five Little Bats again. I also have a set of 5 little owls that were a big hit with the kiddos. Eli really liked the goofy eyed owl! He even wanted to hold it after storytime and fly it around. Precious moments for me to see the joy of a child! I got my design idea from
Loons and Quines@ Librarytime.
Here's the Home Extension that we handed out. We had a lot of help prepping these from our Teen Corp Volunteers. Thank goodness! Actually, this is fairly easy to prep. We used hole reinforcers for the eyes. I made small pics of the finished piece for the caregivers and paper clipped all the pieces together. They loved it! I'm a firm believer in these Home Extensions. As the child does the activity they can remember the storytime theme and activities we did at the library. Everytime the kiddo looks at their raccoon they'll remember our book,
Raccoons and Ripe Corn. They might even remember that big word, nocturnal! Nocturnal Animals are so much
Fun with Friends at Storytime!
*Update* For a terrific customized search through MANY blogs for a theme or topic head over to Mel's Desk and use her search box!! It's Terrific!!
The rest of the Flannel Friday Roundup is HERE. Have questions about Flannel Friday? Check out the Flannel Friday official blog. Be sure to check out the Flannel Friday Facebook page too!
I'm starting the year off with a basic theme of Shapes! I saw this post about Summer Shapes @ Mel's Desk and loved the idea of using shapes to make seasonal items. I decided to make a winter set for our shape theme. I've got circles for a snowman, a square shape for his hat, triangles for trees, a rectangle for a sled and for tree trunks. This game/activity will go well with the book, Shape Capers!
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!! 
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.
We did a really fun Nocturnal Animal themed storytime last week. I love it when I get to teach little children big words. I think that at least one or two of the kiddos will remember the word nocturnal after today. I really drilled it! LOL! Anway, I used this great board book with large pictures and cutouts for guessing. I want to buy my own copy to always have it on hand. The children ages, 2-5 were very engaged the whole time. On the page with the large yellow eyes the 5 year old in the group guessed that it was a cat. When I turned the page we saw that it was a fox. The 2 year old beside him said, "Kitty!" and no matter how many times I said, "it's a fox!" he kept saying, "Kitty!". The other 2's took up the refrain until I turned the page. Hilarious! This is why I love storytime!! There's a fox, weasel, owl, and several other nocturnal animals including the last page that has a lot of small cutouts with eyes that are the mouse's family. Awwww! Happy ending! 
