Preschool Story Time - Cats!

Here at the Village, we are no strangers to using cats in our story times.  With a perfect plethora of material, the options are endless.  Quite frankly, I had little time to prepare for this one - but no matter!  What I lacked in planning I made up for in execution!  Here I will show what my plan actually was, then add some alternatives pulled from other story times we have done at Library Village.  I hope you enjoy them!

So What's it Like to be a Cat? - Karla Kuskin

In this darling book written in verse, a young boy asks his cat "What's it like to be a cat?"  The boy continues to interview his cat and discovers what his days are like.

Finger Play - a Kitten

A kitten is fast asleep under a chair (hide thumb under one hand).   

And Donald can’t find her anywhere!

He’s looked everywhere (Fingers circle eyes to look).   

Under a table (look under one hand).   

Under a bed (look under the other hand) 

He looked in a corner and then Donald said: “Come Kitty, Come Kitty (hands up to mouth) 

This milk is for you! (cup hands like a bowl) 

And out came the kitty calling “Mew Mew” (thumb walks across lap)

 


Or if you prefer, Miss Kristie completely rocked it with her Hey Diddle Diddle Felt Set:

 Click HERE for more on the Hey Diddle Diddle Set!

The Three Little Kittens - Galdone

This is an absolute classic nursery rhyme.  Paul Galdone has renewed many classic rhymes and tales with his fresh illustrations.  With this particular book, you can do the text a number of ways.  You can read it, of course, you can sing it, or you can do it as a felt set or finger play.  Check out some YouTube videos on how the tune goes.  It is really quite simple.  Truth be told, I learned a completely different tune growing up, so I left a lot of mom's baffled.  Luckily I could switch over to the 'right' tune so I could have moms sing along with me.

Activity - Matching Mittens

This activity couldn't come at a better time as we finish the The Little Kittens book and song!  Because imitation is the best form of compliment, I humbly snitched this idea from Storytime Katie.  I even used her photo from her blog because, quite frankly, I didn't improve any on this activity!!  Storytime Katie is the best and I thank her for providing me with some of 'my' best ideas.   Please visit Storytime Katie's Blog for more.

For this game, I handed out one of each of the mittens (mine were laminated paper mittens actually) and had the mitten mates on the clothes line behind me.  One by one (and not in any order), I pointed to one and asked who had the matching mitten?  Then the child could come up and place the mitten under the clothes pin with its mate.  The preschoolers had a really great time with this activity.

Pete The Cat - Eric Litwin

Alternate Felt Set for Pete The Cat!

This is the full set for Pete The Cat - I Love My White Shoes that I made quite a long time ago.  With so many kids in story time, he needed so many shoes so everyone could participate.

BUT -  I also made another Pete set with a standing Pete.  There are fewer shoes, but more options to use Pete with his other picture books:

Click HERE  for more on this set!


Did you hear the one about Grumpy Cat!  Immortalized in felt!

Click HERE for how I used this piece in story time.

Cat Secrets - Jeff Czekaj

I am a huge fan of Jan Thomas and really enjoy books where the characters appear to speak right to the reader.  Cat Secrets is written in the same vein.  The little listeners leave the book feeling like they tricked the cat into spilling all of their secrets.  Fun!

Craft - 3 Little Kittens Puppets

This is just a sample of the die-cuts I had available for the children to create their own Three Little Kittens puppet set.  I let them decorate them any way they wanted.  They made as many as they wanted too.  I wanted to encourage story retelling.  Definitely not a fancy craft, but sometimes the easy ones for us are the most enjoyable ones for the little ones.

Thanks for stopping by!

Preschool Story Time - Grumpy!

It is fantastic to work in a great team who encourages you to take risks and become a better librarian.  In response to Miss Kristie's "What Does the Fox Say" story time, I just had to do something that the parents especially would really enjoy, so I chose Grumpy Cat!  I just love Grumpy Cat and actually, "grumpy" makes a great story time theme!  

This is my 50th Story Time at my current branch, but alas, my last one.  I accepted a new position and start tomorrow!  I'll be in a new physical village, but I will definitely be blogging with the best team ever, my Library Village.  So here we go!

From www.grumpycats.com

Emotions are a concept that children can't see our touch, so as parents, we need to help them identify when they are angry or grumpy or frustrated. I hope this story time gives preschoolers a little more vocabulary for those off days.

Grumpy Cat by Britta Teckentrup

Poor cat is so grumpy all of the time!!  Everyone leaves him alone.  Perhaps he is just lonely though.  Kitten tries to find out.  


Here was my simple little action rhyme this week - Feelings by Karen Folk @ Warren Publishing House:
Sometimes on my face you'll see (point to chest)
How I feel inside of me (point to face)
A smile means happy (smile)
A frown means sad (frown)
And gritting teeth means I'm mad (grit teeth)
When I am proud, I beam and glow (puff up chest and smile)
But when I am shy my head hangs low (bow head).

I really couldn't wait another minute to show off my new felt!  I based it on an illustration I found on the internet, and traced it back to Erin Hunting

While I was at my felting, I wrote a quick little song to the tune Farmer in the Dell:

The Grumpy Little Cat (by Miss Sue)
The Grumpy Little Cat
The Grumpy Little Cat
How do you think he got that way?
The Grumpy Little Cat

"NO" says the cat
"NO" says the cat
What do you think that cat will say?
"NO" says the cat

Let's hug that little cat
Let's hug that little cat
A hug a day keeps the grumps away
Let's hug that little cat

(Now the best part - the mouth/nose piece of the felt flips over for this last verse)

The happy little cat
The happy little cat
Turned that frown upside down
The happy little cat!

Here's a link to my Flannel Friday Post about this happy cat! 
 

The Pout-Pout Fish by Deborah Diesen

Pout-Pout fish is grumpy - because he is.  There's nothing you can do about it. Until...
The kids were squealing through this book and repeating "I'm a pout-pout fish with a pout-pout face."  This one has become a favorite.

After halftime, I settled the kids down with a sing-a-long song. 

One of my New Year's Resolutions was to learn enough of the ukulele that I could play in story time when I needed to.  The first song I learned was "If You're Happy and You Know It" because I use it every week!  So with that in mind, I debuted my uke this week singing these words:

If you're grumpy and you know it, make a frown.
If you're grumpy and you know it, make a frown.
If you're grumpy and you know it and you really want to show it, if you're grumpy and you know it, make a frown.

Continue with:
Fold your arms
Look away
Stomp your feet
Say 'NO WAY'


Now to my FLANNEL BOARD story!

Pete the Cat and His Magic Sunglasses by Kimberly and James Dean

I try to do a flannel board story at each story time.  For some reason, our library didn't receive a copy of this book fast enough for me to let the kids take out copies, but I DID get a chance to immortalize it in flannel!  

You will have to check out my Flannel Friday Post (Click Here to see it) to see the entire set because it doesn't fit on a flannel board! These pieces have a flip side to them which makes them so functional.

Grumpy Bird by Jeremy Tankard

A fun way to end story time - Grumpy Bird just wants to take a walk and no one will leave him alone.  There are lots of opportunity for funny voices in this one - even a 'play along'.  The kids will want to do what Grumpy Bird does.

And for our craft this week, I decided to model a stick puppet after Pete the Cat and his Magic Sunglasses.  One side is Grumpy Pete, and the other side is Groovy Pete!  They do not have their stick yet in this photo but they will!  The kids really loved this one and ran to show me their work.

What a successful story time!  I'll be doing this one again at my new library for sure.  It was hard to say goodbye to 'my kids', but can't wait to meet my new kids! Thanks for visiting!

Flannel Friday - Grumpy Cat

Grumpy Cat was all the rage in 2013.  If you haven't seen the memes of this cute cat named Tarder Sauce here is one:

You can see more about Grumpy Cat at their official website or on Facebook.

I decided to do a theme called Grumpy to talk about those negative emotions that we all feel but not all know how to deal with.  Grumpy Cat is also the name of a children's book I used in story time.  I found a great illustration of grumpy cat by Erin Hunting which I chose to base my flannels on.

Isn't he GREAT???  I also wrote a quick little song to accompany the flannel as well.  It is to the tune of The Farmer in the Dell:

The Grumpy Little Cat (by Miss Sue)
The Grumpy Little Cat
The Grumpy Little Cat
How do you think he got that way?
The Grumpy Little Cat

"NO" says the cat
"NO" says the cat
What do you think that cat will say?
"NO" says the cat

Let's hug that little cat
Let's hug that little cat
A hug a day keeps the grumps away
Let's hug that little cat

(Now the best part - the mouth/nose piece of the felt flips over for this last verse)

The happy little cat
The happy little cat
Turned that frown upside down
The happy little cat!

The cat was made using the technique of printing the photo to size and using it as a template. I cut out the cream color part first and traced it onto felt with puffy paint.  Then I cut out the brown parts and traced those.  I keep cutting from the template the next smallest pieces to trace. The mouth piece was my own creation just cut to fit the space. After the puffy paint dries, I can cut it out and add detail.  A little black and white puffy paint gives the cat a little more life.

My Grumpy story time is next week!  Stay tuned for how it went and thanks for stopping by!!  A HUGE shout out and thank you to Lisa at Libraryland for hosting Flannel Friday this week!  If you'd like to learn more about Flannel Friday, check out the Flannel Friday website!

Toddler Story Time - Shh... It's Nighttime!

This week’s theme changed directions several times while I was planning it.  But, I was really happy with the end results!  The theme was nighttime.  It primarily focused on the moon, but ended up with a sprinkling of stars too!    

Books I read…

Moongame by Frank Asch

This book was longer than the books I usually read.  I was a little concerned, but I read it first and we did make it all the way through!  It is a cute story about a bear playing hide and seek with the moon.  

 

Kitten’s First Full Moon by Kevin Henkes

A wonderful story about a kitten who thinks the moon is a bowl of milk.  This story did not hold the little ones attention as well as I thought it would.  However, they did enjoy the kitten jumping into the pond! 

Goodnight Moon By Margaret Wise Brown

You simply cannot go wrong with this book!  This was a great way to end our busy story time.  I tried to read it slowly so it would bring the excitement level down a bit.  Most of the little ones sat very still throughout this book and I could see they were enjoying it.

How it went…

We began with the action rhyme Moon Ride from SurLaLune Storytime via Storytime Katie.  (Thanks: SurLaLune Storytime)  This was a great rhyme to begin with because it ends with “Sit back down, and I’ll read you a book.”  An awesome segue into book one! 

Do you want to go up with me to the moon?      (Point to friend, self, then to sky)
Let's get in our rocket ship and blast off soon!      (Pretend to climb in ship)
Faster and faster we reach to the sky.      (Jump and reach)
Isn't it fun to be able to fly?      (Stretch arms out)
We're on the moon, now all take a look.      (Look down)
Sit back down, and I'll read you a book.      (All sit down)

 

After reading our first book, we were back up on our feet with the song, The Moon Up Above

(to the tune of “The Wheels on the Bus”). 

(Thanks: Morristown Centennial Library)

 

The moon up above is      
Big and round                                  
Big and round                                  
Big and round                                  
The moon up above                       
Is big and round                              
In the sky                                          

The moon up above is

Near the stars 
Near the stars
Near the stars
The moon up above is
Near the stars
In the sky 

The moon up above helps

Me to sleep
Me to sleep
Me to sleep
The moon up above helps
Me to sleep
In my bed!

Our flannel this week was Hey Diddle Diddle!  The little ones love to look at the felts so Flannel Time is always a bit crazy.  Once I had all the pieces on the board, we were able to say the rhyme together, giggling along with the dog! 

With the felt pieces safely put away, I passed out bells and we jingled our way through Aikendrum from Raffi’s cd Singable Songs for the Very Young.  Most of the little ones were not familiar with this song, but Aikendrum was a man from in the moon after all, so it totally needed to be included in this story time!

Slowing it down a bit in anticipation for a quiet storytelling of Goodnight Moon, we did the fingerplay Stars.  (Thanks: Concord Public Schools) This sweet fingerplay was so much fun, we did it twice!  We followed it up by singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.

At night I see the twinkling stars      (Fists up and open hands over your head)

And a great big smiling moon      (Circle arms overhead)

My Mommy tucks me into bed      (Lay pointer of one hand across the palm of the other hand)

And sings a good-night tune.      (Rock your hands back and forth)

 

This was my most well attended story time and the energy in the room was contagious!  It can be a little difficult to accomplish some activities with a large room of little ones.  But, overall it went fantastic!  I think everyone was ready for nighttime when it was over!

 

Flannel Friday - Hey Diddle Diddle

Nursery rhymes are a great addition to any story time!  These classic rhymes are easy to use at a moment’s notice because we typically already know the words!  What better way to teach new little ones these rhymes, but with a fun flannel set to accompany it.

Hey Diddle Diddle

 

   Hey diddle diddle,

The cat and the fiddle,

The cow jumped over the moon,

The little dog laughed,

To see such sport,

And the dish ran away with the spoon.

This week I am using this flannel as part of my nighttime/moon theme, but I am excited to use it again and again!

--- Miss Kristie