Preschool Story Time - Alligators and Crocodiles!

Yet another theme with a heaping helping of books and materials to choose from, Alligators and Crocodiles as a story time theme is just as much fun as a land alternative to the Shark story time.  There's a whole-lotta chomping going on!

My story times are divided in two camps...my Wednesday story times were heavily laden with very busy boys, and my Thursdays were chock full of delightfully attentive girls.  That happened naturally over the course of time but always left me wondering how my story times would go over on the different days.  This one seemed to please both camps!

Here was the plan:

The Fantastic Mr Wani - by Kanako Usui

What a sweet book!  Mr Wani is late for a party.  He runs as fast as he can, but needs a little help from his friends to make it.  Just a fun and silly book that the kids enjoyed.

Song/ Felt - Lady With the Alligator Purse 

I am a contributor to the Flannel Friday blog but never blogged this one.  Quite frankly, it isn't my idea so I didn't feel like I should make a blog post.  I found these images on a site selling felts and thought that I could make a set just like that for myself.  In the interest of crediting the seller, you can find that link HERE. The site hasn't been updated since 2006 so I am not sure they are still selling it.  I just did a search for felt sets and spotted this one and thought it to be the cutest of the bunch!  My set is made with black puffy paint on white felt and shaded with marker.

This was surprising to me that not many of the moms knew it.  I have seen this concern addressed on Facebook - what to do when you start a song or finger play that no one has heard before?  Well, I always supply the words to any song/fingerplay to each of my parents via my newsletter.  I also preface these by asking the parents for help with the song if they know it.  Finally, I just go and have fun - these songs and fingerplays have repetitive tunes and lines which most people can catch onto.  Who knows, you might even get a parent asking where they can find the song on tape to take home! (** Hint: Have copies of The Lady With the Alligator Purse on display and see if you can also find it on CD for the display area as well!)

Alternate Felt - Big Wide Mouth Frog

This is one of my most favorite felt sets and stories out there.  I blogged about it in our early days of our blog (as you can tell by the not-so-great photo). Click HERE to read more about the Big Wide Mouth Frog felt set.  This one was a big hit with the kids.

Open Very Carefully by Nick Bromley

This was a book that left the kids full of anticipation.  Whatever will happen next?  The kids couldn't take their eyes off this one.

Finger Play - 5 Little Monkeys Sitting in a Tree 

This is a classic which everyone knows.  The best part is, most of the children will play right along with you!

5 little monkeys sitting in a tree - teasing Mr. Crocodile "Can't catch me!"
Along comes Mr. Crocodile - SNAP!!  Oh NO Where is he??
4 little monkeys.....
(and so on)

For the movements, I use my fingers as tails which hang from my opposite arm (as tree branch).  When I make the crocodile, I use my hand to make a puppet-like mouth...moving through the grass until SNAP!

Alternate activity/story - AlphaGator!

This is another one of my early story time ideas, although I just blogged about him recently.  Click HERE to learn more about AlphaGator.

Snip, Snap - What was THAT? By Mara Bergman 

Oh boy - the suspense was killing us all!  What WAS that??  I had to tone down how I read this one to my shier group because I could see them becoming nervous.  Overall, a good pick for the story time, however!

Craft - A is for Alligator

I used this one in my Letter A story time, but that is OK.  It was new to all of the kids in my story time that day so no harm, no foul.  It is simply three strips of green paper, and some teeth and an eye.

And there you have it!  So many options!  Alligators are fascinating creatures so you can even throw some fun facts or a good non-fiction book into your story times.  Like the shark story times, you might want to be careful about how you use your actions and voices because some little ones may be frightened, but overall I suspect your story timers will simply love an alligator story time at your library or school.

Thanks for stopping by!




 

Toddler Story Time - Monkeys!

I had a lot of fun planning this week’s story time.  Monkeys!!  Ee-ee!  Oo-oo!  Last week I announced the theme at the end of story time and suggested that the little ones bring a favorite monkey.  I was so excited by how many little ones came this week with their monkey friends.  It really added to the fun of the morning! 

Books I read…

Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed by Eileen Christelow

I had to read this book, so I did it first!  By the end of this repetitive monkey tale, all the little ones (and grownups) were saying with me, “No more monkeys jumping on the bed!”.  I thought about doing this story off book, but I really liked the illustrations.  It was easy to just turn the pages while saying the rhyme.

Kiki’s Blankie by Janie Bynum

Kiki loves her blankie!  It goes everywhere with her until a big wind blows it away.  Eek!  It ends up near a crocodile!  Kiki must find a way to get it back.  The illustrations are adorable and I loved that she cleaned her blankie in the washing machine upon its return! 

 Two Little Monkeys By Mem Fox

A rhyming story about two monkeys, one named Cheeky and one named Chee.  These two little monkeys have to hide from a big scary cat in a “big old tree.” It is a great read aloud book.  It was a little longer than I usually read for a last book, but the little ones were sitting so well this week that it worked! 

How it went…

We began with the action rhyme Monkey See, Monkey Do that I found from the Perry Public Library.  This little rhyme got everyone acting like little monkeys!  After jumping around for a couple verses, it ends with all the monkeys sitting down.  It was a great intro for our first book.

Monkey see, monkey do
Little monkey in the zoo
Monkey, monkey, in the tree
Can you jump around like me?
…swing your tail…clap your hands…nod your head…sit down…

After our first book, and with all monkeys safely put to bed, we all stood up and did a sweet monkey rendition of the Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear poem.  The moves were simple enough for even the youngest toddlers to follow.  I found this action rhyme at Themed Storytime Ideas.

Monkey, monkey, turn around (turn around)

Monkey, monkey, touch the ground (Touch the ground)
Monkey, monkey, dance on your toes (Dance on tip toes)
Monkey, monkey, touch your nose (Touch your nose)
Monkey, monkey, give a little clap (Clap)
Monkey, monkey, take a nap! (Lay head on hands like sleeping)

Flannel Time travelled off the board this week and onto the storytelling glove.  This is a great prop for toddlers because I can hold it up high!  This week was Teasing Mr. Crocodile.  It is a set from Lakeshore Learning.   To make it even more fun, I used silly plastic peepers that slip onto your hand to make a Mr. Crocodile puppet.  I secretly put it on my hand behind my back to surprise them as Mr. Crocodile snaps at his first monkey!  It was a fun flannel story, but next time I might start with only three monkeys to shorten it up a bit. 

Teasing Mr. Crocodile

Five little monkeys
Sitting in a tree
Teasing Mister Crocodile:
“You can’t catch me.”
Along comes Mister Crocodile,
Quiet as can be
And SNAPS that monkey
Right out of that tree!
(Repeat counting backwards to one monkey)
…No more little monkeys
Sitting in a tree!

I looked high and low for a great monkey song and I think I found it with One Monkey Who from the Wiggles cd, Go Bananas!  Everyone danced around the room with their monkeys.  The song gets really fast at the end and super silly! 

Wow!  We needed to sit down and rest at this point so we did a couple quieter activities before our last book.  I found the fingerplay Three Little Monkeys which was super simple and super cute.  Then we sang the Itsy Bitsy Monkey (sung to the tune of the Itsy Bitsy Spider, of course).  We loved the song so much, we sang it twice!  Thanks SurLaLune Storytime for the idea!

Three Little Monkeys

Three little monkeys sitting in a tree   (hold up 3 fingers)
Eating bananas just like me   (pretend to eat a banana)
One had a frown   (make a frown face)
One had a grin   (make a smile)
One had banana all over his chin!   (rub chin)

Itsy Bitsy Monkey (To the tune of “Itsy Bitsy Spider”)

The itsy bitsy monkey climbed up the coconut tree   (Pretend to climb)
Down came a coconut that bopped him on the knee   (Make a fist and touch knee)
Along came his Mama, who kissed away the pain   (Give kisses!)
Then the itsy bitsy monkey climbed up the tree again   (Pretend to climb and reach way up high)

I try to occasionally highlight a nonfiction book and this week it was Monkeys by Valerie Bodden from the Amazing Animals series.  I didn’t read it, but the photos were too wonderful not to show! 

Instead of free play, we finished this week with a craft.  I drew a palm tree on a plain piece of paper and photocopied on cardstock.  I also photocopied cute little monkey heads.  (Thanks About.com for the monkey heads!) The little ones colored their trees and glued on their monkeys.  They turned out great!

Miss Sue has done this theme for Preschool too!  If you would like to see how, click HERE!

Flannel Friday - Big Wide-Mouthed Frog

This is our first Flannel Friday Post.  I just couldn't wait to show off my flannels!

I love the story of the Big Wide-Mouthed Frog.  We have lots of versions in the library, but I wanted to create a flannel story where I could just tell the story.  I really like Ana Martin Larranaga's version with the Australian animals, so I created flannels based on her art.  When I saw that we had only one copy of this book in the library left, and it was a much-loved, taped-up copy, I knew I had to work fast!

They are large felts so placement is off:  The pieces are made by photocopying the pages of the book (I love the illustrations!) and sizing as needed.  I traced the pieces on felt, then went over with puffy paint.  Some pieces got embellishment with other colors of paint.  I have to say that this is my largest set, so you will want to be aware of the size of your board (or travel board in some cases) before making it to size.  But I also work with large groups so the size is needed.  One more note, some of the creatures are reversed so they always face the same way.  This was to reduce the number of frogs I had to make.

Here's the Wide Mouthed Frog as he meets Kangaroo and Emu. 

Then the Koala and Possum....I made one tree where the koala could sit on one branch, then remove her and add the possum family branch. The possum is connected to the branch by yarn legs and tail.

And finally, the frog with his teenie, puckered mouth as he meets the crocodile!

Miss Kristie used my flannel board today for a visiting preschool.  Next week is when I get to use my set for the first time in my Frog themed story time, I am so excited to try it out!  I hope to get a lot of use from this story.

-Miss Sue