Maxine White/Sutherland Public Library

This week at toddler/preschool story time, we read books about friendship. Our color of the week is green.

First, we read the book, “Grandpa Green” by Lane Smith.

It’s a beautifully illustrated book that’s told from the great-grandson’s perspective of his great-grandfathers life. His great-grandfather loves to create topiary’s and that’s how the story is told; through various topiary’s. The sad note in this book that the parents picked up on but the kiddos didn’t, is that his great-grandfather has Alzheimer’s Disease and is starting to forget things.

To celebrate the color green and to tie in with the book, we made paper doll elephants and used our dot-dot markers to color them green. I really think the kids enjoyed this craft. My problem is that we had six kiddos here but only two markers.

In hindsight, I should have brought my dot-dots from home and asked a story time mom to bring in hers as well. Ah well. This gave the moms a chance to talk, the kids a chance to learn how to take turns and to play with one another and me a chance to check out books for our story time friends.

We then sang, “If You’re Friendly and You Know It” which I think the kids enjoyed. I was the only one singing so that was terrifying but it worked out well because the kids had big grins on their faces.

If You’re Friendly… added 1-26-00 Original Author Unknown

Sung to: “If you’re happy and you know it”

If you’re friendly and you know it,
clap your hands.
If you’re friendly and you know it,
clap your hands.

If you’re friendly and you know it,
and you really want to show it,
If you’re friendly and you know it,
clap your hands!

I know that type is tiny but I’m not sure how to make it bigger. Please bear with me! I’m learning more every time I blog! Here’s the website that I found a variation of the song we did today:

http://www.preschooleducation.com/sfriend.shtml

 

Our second book of the day was “Pine and Boof” by Ross Burach.

This is a great book about friendship and has lots of silly giggles thrown in. The kiddos were a bit distracted because we had that down time in between with the craft. I won’t put the craft in the middle of story time again! Either at the very beginning or at the end. I’ve learned my lesson! But, I got loud with this book to help draw their attention back and that seemed to work well.

Finally, we did a finger-play called “Two Little Friends”. At my conference last week, one of my classes was about diversity in story time and tips on how we can make everyone feel welcome while adding some cool things to our kiddos worlds.

 

We did this finger play using American Sign Language. First, we counted to ten using ASL and then we did this finger play:

Two little friends are better than one,

And three little friends are better than two

And four are much better still

Just think what four little friends can do!

Here our friends are painting their elephants.

My children’s school was selling this old kindergarten stand because they didn’t need it anymore. I picked it up for $5 you guys! I was super excited. It’s our new story time corner toy shop. The kids really like it because it’s their size and all of our fun toys fit perfectly on it’s shelves. We had to drag them away for story time!

 

This week at preschool/toddler story time, we read “The Little Yellow Leaf” by Carin Berger because our color of the week is yellow! It’s a great tale about a leaf that’s just not ready to let go of the tree until she makes a friend. The kids really liked this book.

 

Our craft today was painting a yellow leaf. This was our messiest craft so far this school year. I took contact paper and cut it out into the shape of leaves. Then the kids painted the paper and the moms and I pulled off the contact leaves to leave a white space where the leaf had been. Here’s our mixed results: This is before we pulled the contact paper leaves off. Some kids just wanted to paint the leaf and some wanted to paint all over.

Here is when the contact paper leaf was pulled off. It’s not too bad.

This is the sample one I did, using a permanent paint.

*Poetry Foundation*

For our author spotlight, we read books by Shel Silverstein because his birthday was on Tuesday. I love his books and poems. I read about four poems that the kids really seemed to enjoy. I think some of the humor and irony was too mature for the kids though so I probably won’t do Silverstein with this age group again.

I also read “The Giving Tree” by Shel Siverstein to the kids because it’s one of my favorite books! However, I had to paraphrase it because it’s too long and the pictures aren’t as engaging for this age group. I had worried that might be the case but I wanted to try it out just to make sure. I had one little girl that was really listening well but the other kids got really restless.

Here’s our moms and daycare providers helping the kids with their paintings:

We also did the song, “What Color Are You Wearing?” and each kid got a chance to stand up. I found it on this great website called Teaching Mama. Here’s her link:

10 Preschool Songs About Colors

We had some kids that popped up every time, regardless of what color they were wearing. We had kids that didn’t want to pop up at all. We had kids that listened really well and only popped up when it was their color. I was happy with all of it! I thought it was reinforcing some color names, working on listening skills and helping them learn one another’s names. All great skills to work on so I was thrilled.

 

 

This week, we read books all about autumn. We read “Leaf Man” by Lois Ehlert and “In the Middle of Fall” by Kevin Henkes. We read poems about leaves and played with some during our story time. The color of the week is orange.

I posted the few books we have that either have an orange cover or are about autumn. That’s a category that we definitely need to beef up for next year.

 

We even tried out the new flannel board that I just finished yesterday. I found this website SUPER helpful in creating our flannel boards.

DIY: Make your own flannel board for preschool

The kids really had a blast looking for the blue bird and naming the different colors of trees.

I found this website called “Sunflower Story Time” and that’s where I got today’s ideas for our autumn themed story time. You can click here to see more fun ideas for autumn:

Fall Leaves Fall

Our craft today was fingerprint trees.

 

 

Next week, we’ll read books about leaves and talk about Shel Silverstein because his birthday is next Tuesday. Our color of the week will be yellow.

 

On a side note, this years story time is really a lot more fun and less stressful than last years. I feel like the kids are learning more things and the ability level is spot on for what they can do. I’m so glad I changed how I was running story time. Best.decision.ever!

Today at preschool story time, we read “Ten Apples Up on Top” by Dr. Seuss and “Apples: How They Grow”. We also learned about the color red. This week, we had four friends join us. Today our activity was putting red apples on top of the animals heads from “Ten Apples Up on Top”. We also sang songs about apples. There was a lot of giggling! We also now have a couple of displays set up that focuses on that weeks color and theme. Next week, our theme is Autumn and the color of the week will be orange. Remember, you can bring in a show and tell item that either matches our color or Autumn.