Thanksgiving Round-Up

We thought we would just do a quick recap on all of the Thanksgiving related posts we've done here at Library Village, just in case anyone's looking for any last-minute ideas!

Babies:
I don't feel like babies are really aware of Thanksgiving yet, so we usually just talk about food. That's the best part of Thanksgiving anyway, right?

Click here for Baby Story Time: Yummy Food!


Toddlers:
Miss Kristie has a great time celebrating Thanksgiving with her toddlers and their good friend, Biscuit the Puppy!

Click here for Toddler Story Time: Happy Thanksgiving!


Preschool:
Miss Sue is doing the "turkey pokey" with her preschoolers! What fun!

Click here for Preschool Story Time: Let's Talk Turkey!


Finally, click here for a Flannel Friday post that combines the talent of Miss Kristie and Miss Sue!
Miss Kristie has a rhyme that includes a pumpkin pie that's ten feet high!

 

 

And Miss Sue made a great felt set for the book I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Pie:

 

We hope you have a very Happy Thanksgiving! We have much to be thankful for here at Library Village!

 



Imagination Station - Let's Play "Post Office!"

 

Our most popular Imagination Station thus far has been, hands-down, our Post Office! Let's take a look at some of our activities:

 

The Post Office (puppet theatre):



 

The Mail Bag and Envelopes:

Made of felt, obviously!

Do you recognize these from a Preschool Story Time post? We didn't want to ruin Miss Sue's set, so we made a second mail bag and envelopes to be played with.

 

Postcards and Stamps:

Although kids loved this activity, it did, unfortunately mean a lot of paper waste.

Don't forget to mail your postcards in the Mail Box!:

A hidden flap in the bottom so we could retrieve the mail! Miss Kristie's creation!

 

And who wouldn't want to drive the Mail Truck??:



Duct tape straps made this so easy to slip on and "drive" around!
(This truck has since been recycled into a school bus!)

Miscellaneous:

We had foam visors, which once said "Mail" in foam letters, but they kept falling off!
Miss Kristie also made those little mail boxes, which we placed around the room.  That way kids could deliver the mail around the neighborhood!

 

This was probably our messiest Imagination Station so far, because we were constantly cleaning up the papers and stamps, emptying the envelopes, rounding up all of the pieces and straightening up.  But it was also the most fun! Kids really enjoyed driving the truck, wearing the visors and mail bag, and leaving us mail in the big mail box!

 

Looking back, it's clear that children were able to practice at least four of the ECRR2 practices:

Reading - "mail" related books were on display

Writing - they wrote on postcards

Talking - that puppet theatre got A LOT of use

Playing - just look at all of these cool things to play with!

 

Feel free to borrow any of these ideas - we borrowed some of them, ourselves! And share with us any great ideas you've had for imaginative play!

 

Thanks for stopping by!

Flannel Friday - Two Little Blackbirds

I love using nursery rhymes in Baby Story Time! It is so vitally important to pass these on to our children, both for the history and tradition, as well as for their role in developing early literacy skills!

I found these simple finger puppets for Two Little Blackbirds (including a free template!) on Kids' Brain.  Their directions are very easy to follow!

 

Here's the rhyme:

 

Two little blackbirds sitting on a hill,

One named Jack, the other named Jill.
Fly away, Jack! Fly away, Jill!
Come back, Jack! Come back, Jill!


Here's my take on them:

 

Each bird is two pieces of black felt, glued together along the edges.  The edge of the beak is glued in between them.

 

I glued the wings at different angles so you could see both wings from either side.  For the eyes I used small sequins, one on each side.  I think they turned out pretty cute, and they were very easy to make!

Happy Flannel Friday!

Thanks so much to Linda at Notes from the Story Room for hosting this week! Flannel Friday is for anyone interested in finding and sharing great flannel board ideas!  You can learn more about Flannel Friday and how to participate here.

Presenting: Library Village!

About a month ago, Library Village was lucky to have the opportunity to give a poster presentation at the Ohio Library Council's Convention and Expo. None of us had ever presented before, so this was a nice little baby step toward giving real presentations some day. And it was a lot of fun, too!

The theme of the conference was "bridging the past with the future", and our poster was all about how using felt boards in story times can do just that! Even though felt is an older medium, it has stood the test of time because of all the wonderful things you can do with it to improve your story times. And yes, while it may be less sexy and flashy than using, say, an iPad in story time, there are just so many ways that felt board activities can promote early literacy and sensory development, and can provide a captivating visual for children that isn't screen time. (But that's a rant for another day!)

Without further ado, here is our table: Felt It Again!: Fresh Ideas for a Classic Storytelling Method

 

(Do you earn extra points for being colorful?)

This took some serious teamwork! Let's break it down:

Miss Sue's tasks: Create a felt set that could work for three different age groups: baby, toddler, and preschool.  She decided it would be more fun to make two. Overachiever. You can read her blog post about those cute duckies (including templates!) here.

She also made this nice display with one of her favorite felt sets, "That Apple is Mine!":

 

Miss Kristie's tasks: Show three different ways to make a felt piece (with paint, with marker, or all felt).

(Painted puppy was still wet! He got added just in time!)

She also compiled this awesome binder of some of our favorite felt sets (smaller ones) just so we could show off our skills:

AND she made this colorful display of one of her favorite felt sets, "Rainbow Stew":

Miss Kristen's tasks: Make the handout - highlight how using felt sets in story time can promote each of the five practices of Every Child Ready to Read (2nd edition): reading, writing, talking, singing, and playing. Provide a list of resources and helpful tips for beginning felt-ers.
You can download the handout here:

I also assembled the enormous tri-fold boards, which was a labor of love:

 

(I also made the two small displays in the front - the Maisy Mouse and the three doghouses.)

And then we actually got to talk to people and share our ideas!:

And get into some general silliness:

And to top it all off, we got to meet The Very Hungry Caterpillar!!!:

This was such an amazing experience for us. We loved meeting other professional children's librarians who were as passionate about story times as we are, and who were interested in our work and our ideas.  All of our handouts were gone after the first day, and we received such positive feedback from everyone we talked to.  So with our inflated egos (just kidding!), we'll just end this by saying Thank You to OLC for giving us the opportunity to present, and we sincerely hope to do it again some day!