Flannel Friday Guest Post Palooza - Pete The Cat

Flannel Friday is 4 years old!  WHOOT!  To celebrate, seasoned bloggers such as Library Village were paired with guest bloggers who wanted to give blogging and Flannel Friday a try.  Miss Sue was paired with Mary Eames, an early childhood specialist and stay-at-home mom who wanted to share a multitude of ways she uses Pete the Cat with her adorable sons.  She sent along a ton of great photos, ideas, and resources.  I bet you NEVER thought about SHOELACES on Pete's shoes!  Read on for more about that!  Without further ado, here is Mary:

Pete the Cat Activities

My sons LOVE Pete the Cat! We have definitely hoped on the bandwagon with this one. I have an Early Childhood Education degree and a degree as an Intervention Specialist. Currently though, I stay home with my 3 year old son and 16 month old son. In order to keep us busy, we do lots of FELT activities! So I knew as we rented all these books from the library, that we just HAD to make some felt-board activities with Pete!

My felt board is a piece of big green felt hooked to a metal drip tray that is attached to our playroom door. The inspiration for the magnet board part was found at:

http://www.babble.com/toddler/20-repurposed-projects-for-toddlers-diy-ready-made/

But the idea for the green felt board part was my own idea.

 We also have a small one that I made by taking the glass out of an 8x10 picture frame and putting blue felt into it. This is our “on the go” one or when we feel like sitting at the table or on the couch to do a felt activity.

These are our felt pieces for Pete the Cat: I Love My White Shoes by Eric Litwin.

Pete the Cat loves his brand new white shoes so much, he walks down the street singing this song, “I love my white shoes, I love my white shoes, I love my white shoes...”

Oh No! (My son loves yelling this part out). Pete stepped in a large pile of (I let my son tell me the fruit here) STRAWBERRIES! What color did they turn his shoes? (I let him tell me the color) Red! But did Pete cry? (My son will yell out) GOODNESS NO! He kept walking along and singing....

Once again- he’s walking and singing his song....Sing it now, inserting the word “Red.”

Repeat all steps again, except it’s a pile of BLUEBERRIES! So they turn his shoes BLUE.

Now after you’ve done, “Did Pete cry? Goodness no!” He keeps on walking...just now with BLUE shoes. Until....he steps in a pile of MUD this time, turning the shoes BROWN. So repeat all steps using these words and props.

So continue the song about the BROWN shoes, same as before. Until he steps in a BUCKET OF WATER! Now his shoes are (back to white because it washes off all the red, blue and brown) WET! He sings, “I love my wet shoes, I love my wet shoes, I love my wet shoes...”

Story ends with, “The moral of the story is- no matter what you step in, keep walking along and singing your song, because it’s all good.”

My son enjoyed being able to put the shoes on Pete the Cat, along with putting the items on the board for Pete to “step in.”

In order to keep add a “mathematical element” to this, I put one “shoelace” (aka a black marker line) on the first shoe, two on the second, etc. It also helps me to keep them in piles to minimize the shoes from getting lost.

These are our felt pieces for Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons by Eric Litwin:

This is Pete with just his shirt on, to show what it looks like. I made Pete separate from the shirt, so that I could reuse him with other stories. The shirt is also 2 separate pieces, so it could make it as close to the story as possible when the buttons pop off.

So the story talks about how much Pete puts on his favorite shirt with four big, colorful, round, groovy buttons. He loves them so much he sings this song, “My buttons, my buttons, my four groovy buttons. My buttons, my buttons, my four groovy buttons.”

But then POP! A button pops off (I pull it off dramatically) and rolls away. How many are left? (I have my son count the number left and tell me) 3! 4-1=3. Did Pete cry? My son yells- Goodness no! Buttons come and buttons go! He kept on singing his song....

My belly button is hard to see because my son keeps pulling it off. I think I’m going to put a new one on using white puffy paint instead of a small piece of white felt. It will last much longer!

We also found an AMAZING extension activity on http://www.heidisongs.com/blog/2012/08/a-pete-cat-freebie-and-brand-new.html that has free printables of “Pete the Cat’s” with blank shirts and numbers next to them. The activity called for velcro and paper buttons, but I put them in a binder with page protectors and gave my son large real buttons to put on the shirts. He loves to count the buttons out and put them on each cat. I have to admit I love it too! I used buttons I had, but I know Wal-Mart carries buttons that look just like the ones in the book. This can work one-on-one as shown here, or for a group!

GREAT JOB Mary!  It was my pleasure to host you this week.  Big thanks to Mollie Kay from What Happens In Storytime for hosting Flannel Friday this week. Mollie has a great blog which you can read (and make sure to follow!) by CLICKING HERE!  If you would like to know more about Flannel Friday, read their blog by CLICKING HERE.  You can also follow Flannel Friday on Pinterest and Facebook (just search for Flannel Friday), or on Twitter with the hashtag #FlannelStorytime

I really enjoyed hosting this week.  If you are a gentle reader who would like to share your ideas but do not blog, I would be happy to host you sometime.  Just let one of us at the Library Village know you are in need of a space.

For everyone else, I hope you enjoyed all of the guest posts this week.  Shine on everyone!
Thanks for stopping by!

Preschool Story Time - The Letter of the Month is C

Moving on from the letter B, we come to a challenge.  The letter C.  Hmmmm.  Two natural sounds - that sound like other letters.  Combine C with a 'friend' for a whole new sound.  This was a very difficult thing for everyone to process.  I might have stuck with a hard C and not tried to introduce so much information.  Here's what we did:  First up we always do our Mail Call.  Here's my original post on the Mailbag with letters.

Our mailbag offerings for this month include  5 envelopes with various C words.  This month it was the letter C, a cat, a cow, a coat, and our Animal in Underwear (Todd Parr): Chick.  Chick started off our way-too-lengthy discussion of the weird C sounds.  Again, I think I should have stuck with the hard C sound.

Then we sang our usual "Letter of the Month" song to the tune of Old MacDonald:
Our librarian has a book - E-I-E-I-O
And in that book there were some Cs - E-I-E-I-O
With a cuh, cuh, here and a cuh, cuh, there.
Here a cuh, there a cuh, everywhere a cuh, cuh
Our librarian has a book - E-I-E-I-O

(and then we repeated with the soft C sound.  I accompany them on ukulele)

Then it was on to the books!

Aside from the fact that no one knows what a typewriter is anymore, this one was a hit and got a lot of laughs.  I used to read this one to preschoolers years ago, but this was the first time I did it in my story time.  Sadly, this book might need to be updated to "Laptop."

We paused for some C songs here.  This is to the tune of Pop Goes the Weasel

Round and round the paper I go.  What fun to go around like so.
What have I made, do you know?  I made a circle.

This one is to the tune of Row, Row, your boat:

Drive, drive, drive your car safely down the street!
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, don't for get to beep (BEEP BEEP!).

Easy little song but the kids enjoyed pretending to drive and honk. Don't forget to go BIG on your motions!

Last minute switch, but a good one!  Each animal gets their due feed, but the cow loves cookies!  Why does the cow love cookies so much?  Another good one for story time.

After halftime, it was time for my Flannel Story!

I pulled out my Pete the Cat felt board for today!  I actually have two sets of Pete to go with this book.  One has standing Pete - like this book, and one has sitting Pete, which uses only 2 shoes per color.  I have the standing Pete for larger crowds because 16 shoes is better than 8 when your numbers are larger. My Versatile Pete posts are HERE and HERE for more about how I do Pete's other stories.
Everyone loves Pete the Cat - so this was a very easy one to do.  It takes a long time to get through though, so be ready for lots of pauses for costume changes on Pete!

Happy Anniversary to The Very Hungry Caterpillar!!!  I won't tell you which one of us is older, but it's a pretty close call.  Everyone loves this book. I did the pop-up version today which was stunning for the kids to see.  Lots of Oooohs and Aaaaahs.  A warning!  Like Kristen says in her Baby Story Time, this one is harder to read in a crowd because everything opens up at funny angles and it's hard to read along.  Be creative!


I was torn between two books at this point, as we were over time.  I wanted to read Chicken Little by Ed and Kimberly Emberley, but since I had no more time, I went with Cookie Count because it was pretty to look at.

Not really a great story time book, but since it was a pop up, it was fascinating.

And the craft today - Well, the letter of the Month is C!!  So, C is for caterpillar.  The Very Hungry Caterpillar at that.

This craft was a big hit with the kids.  They drew a C on their paper, and then they would do a pattern or all one color or just randomness with the greens.  Owning a circle punch in several sizes is one of the best bits of advice I can offer.  It makes craft prep so much easier!

I won't get to see this project through to Z, as I only have three story times left.  I hope I have passed on some great tips on how to do a Letter of the Month story time at your library.  Just have fun with it.  The kids will be in school soon enough.  Some will already know their letters and sounds, and some won't.  No matter, make story time fun, and the leaning will just happen.

Thanks for stopping by!

Flannel Friday - Pete the Cat and His Magic Sunglasses

Someday I will do a Flannel Friday post on my "Versatile Pete".  Basically with the same Pete, I just keep making pieces to fit him so I can do any of the Pete the Cat books.  But for now, I wanted to show you my latest Pete creation (as everyone loves Pete the Cat!).  This is Pete the Cat and His Magic Sunglasses by Kimberly and James Dean.  All of the artwork is based on their book.  I just tooled the pieces and story to fit a flannel board.

 GROOVY!

To Paraphrase this great story:
Pete was grumpy.  Pete was never, ever grumpy before.  He had the blue cat blues.

If that wasn't bad enough, along came Grumpy Toad.  Grumpy Toad was always grumpy, but not today!  He said "Hey Pete, try these cool, blue, magic sunglasses, they help you see things in a whole new way!"
Pete put on the glasses "Awesome!  The sun is shining, the birds are singing, I am feeling alright!"

Pete was rolling along when he saw squirrel.  "I am so mad, nothing is going my way"
So Pete let squirrel try his cool, blue, magic sunglasses...

FAR OUT!

Then Pete came upon Turtle.

"I am all upside down today!"
So Pete let him try his cool, blue, magic sunglasses!

Groovy!

Then Pete was rolling along when he fell - and his glasses broke!!  Oh no!
Pete saw Wise Old Owl in the tree who told him "Pete, you do not need cool, blue, magic sunglasses to see the world in a whole new way -you must find the good in every day!"
COOL! The sun is shining, the birds are singing, and we are feeling ALRIGHT!

Like I said, that was paraphrased.  Also, there is an alligator in the book which I decided to omit because of the scale of the alligator to the rest of the pieces and the size of the flannel board I have to work with.  The story still flows nicely with that one less piece.

The squirrel, the turtle, and the glasses are reversible to save time and felt.  The turtle's head is a separate piece so I can pull off the flip.  The toad is not on his motorcycle in this version.

I used this in my GRUMPY STORY TIME last week, but I imagine there are lots of uses for this set.  I hope you enjoyed this flannel board as much as the kids did!

Thanks to Kathryn at Fun with Friends at Storytime for hosting this week's Flannell Friday!  To learn more about Flannel Friday, CLICK HERE!

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!

Preschool Story Time - Jingle Jingle Jingle

There is excitement in the air at the Library Village!  The busy librarians are all crafting their finest story times to bring the children tidings of good cheer.  My preschool story time this week takes flight in a sleigh full of joy and laughter.  Off we go!

Llama Llama Holiday Drama - by Anna Dewdney

Oh dear, the holidays are stressful aren't they?  Everyone loves Llama Llama so I decided to use this book as the ONLY book that I read during this story time.  No really!  The kids are very squirrely at this time of year, so I opened with a book, and then pulled out my huge bag of tricks for the rest of story time.  And as always, I needed to be ready with more material than I actually used!

The Night Before Christmas by Clement C Moore

When I became a children's librarian, a friend gifted me a huge box of professionally made story boards.  It was the equivalent of my mom getting me my first briefcase after I graduated college.  I usually make my own sets now, but look how great these are!  I don't think I could do better, so I was very excited to use them.

Preschoolers are definitely old enough for this poem.  Use your story telling skills and the kids will be rapt!


For Halftime (cue the music - I normally do 'Popcorn' by Greg and Steve so we can stretch and get the wiggles out), I decided to use a Christmas song.  I thought Jingle Bells would be a great choice and it was. We got out the instruments and shook it!

Pete the Cat Saves Christmas  - by James Dean and Eric Litwin

So yes, I read this book, technically, but I also sang it!  After the first verse, the kids were singing too!  I love interactive books.

Did you catch our awesome Flannel Friday Holiday Blog Post???
All three of us posted great flannel board ideas for the holidays.  Check it out!  Mine was this tree that we used to the tune of Old MacDonald.

Old St. Nicholas had a tree
Ho, ho ho ho ho!
And on that tree he had some lights
Ho ho ho ho ho
With a blink, blink here and a blink, blink there
Here a blink, there a blink
Every where a blink blink
Old St. Nicholas had a tree
Ho, ho ho ho ho! 

Then the song continues with the rest of the verses:
Ornaments - glow
Drums - boom 
Bells - ring
Candy Canes - Yum
Star - Shine

Click HERE for more information on how I made this board and how I used it.

There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Bell - Lucille Colandro

If you follow our blog, you know I do an Old Lady book pretty regularly.  The kids get excited to see what the Old Lady swallows and what will happen at the end.  I have flannelized almost all of Lucille Colandro's books.  I did NOT flannel this story, however, because I already had two for this story time, but I do sing this book, and prompt the kids to sing along with me.  Another interactive book!

Well, we had to finish story time with a bang, so instead of doing the Freeze Dance, by Hap Palmer, we danced "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" with alternate lyrics:
We wish you a Merry Christmas (x3)
and a Happy New Year.
Let's all do a little clapping (x3)
and spread Christmas cheer!
Let's all do a little stomping (x3)
and spread Christmas cheer!
Let's all do a little twirling (x3)
and spread Christmas cheer!
We wish you a Merry Christmas (x3)
and a Happy New Year!

My craft was pretty simple, but I have found that preschoolers love to place things on paper - so anything with stickers, bling, tissue paper squares, or even cotton (as shown here), keeps them happy and focused, and really helps with fine motor skills.  I found this image online (if you Google 'Santa Craft Preschool', you will see a dozen examples of this craft so I am unsure who to credit) and created a template for the face and hat.  Knowing the kids would be excited, I had everything cut out for them so I didn't have scissors in the room.

Happy Holidays from Miss Sue and everyone at the Library Village.  
See you next year!