Owls

Whooooo says we're doing a storytime on owls?  I do!

Books:

Little Owl Lost by Chris Haughton

I'm Not Cute! by Jonathan Allen

A Book of Sleep by Il Sung Na

Other Great Books about Owls:
Owl Babies by Martin Waddell by Judith Nicholls
Billywise
Cock-a-doodle Hooooooo! by Mick Manning
Whoo Goes There? by Jennifer A. Ericsson
The Owl who was Afraid of the Dark by Jill Tomlinson
The Littlest Owl by Caroline Pitcher
The Little White Owl by Tracey Corderoy
Good-Night Owl! by Pat Hutchins
Wow! Said the Owl by Tim Hopgood

Click Here to Order these Books on the Heights Library Catalog

I also brought an adorable owl puppet for the children to pass around while I read my stories. 

Art Project: We made cute little owls out of pinecones and other various materials.  The beauty of this activity is that every owl turned out different and had its own personality.  Here are a few of them:

This tall owl was made from a pinecone, acorn tops, googly eyes, a browm pom pom, feathers and orange paper for the beak.  Ears were made out of two pine cone bristles and were glued on the pom pom.

The "owlet" is made by wrapping cotten tightly around the pinecone.  Two acorn tops are glued on for eyes and an orange beak is made from colored paper.

This is the most simple owl made from a pinecone with 2 google eyes, a beak cut from orange paper and feathers stuck in the bristles of the cone.

*Just remember- if you're using pinecones that you find on the ground, pick ones without sap and make sure they dry and open up before you start decorating.

I also gave the kids an alternative option for the craft by making owls on paper and gluing on the supplies:

Hats

Good ol' hats.  An invention as old as time.  Whether functional or fashionable, they sure can be fun to wear.  And lots of people wear them!  That's why we're doing our storytime on the great head-topper.

Books:

Aunt Lucy went to Buy a Hat by Alice Low

Who's Under That Hat? by David A. Carter

Which Hat is That? by Anna Grossnickle Hines

Other Books about Hats:
Do You Have a Hat? by Eileen Spinelli
Circus Caps for Sale by Esphyr Slobodkina
Which Hat is That? by Anna Grossnickle Hines
Jennie's Hat by Ezra Jack Keats
What a Hat! by Holly Keller
Hats! by Kevin Luthardt
The Singing Hat by Tohby Riddle
The Hat That Wore Clara B. by Melanie Turner-Denstaedt
Millie's Marvellous Hat by Satoshi Kitamura
Miss Hunnicutta's Hat by Jeff Brumbeau
Rembrandt's Hat by Susan Blackaby
Buy My Hats! by Dave Horowitz
Hats Hats Hats by Ann Morris
Caps for Sale by Esphyr Slobodkina

Click Here to Order these Books on the Heights Library Catalog

Activity:  The amazing, wonderful Little Heights Program let us borrow their hat collection to show the children.  We had hats from all kinds of professions: firefighter, pilot, mail carrier, police officer, NASA engineer, construction worker and more.  We even had a hat for a jester, a wizard and fancy hats for dress up.  During each book and song, I pulled out a different hat and wore it.  At the end, I held out each hat and let the children identify who would wear that hat (this is a wonderful activity to after you read Which Hat is That?).

Art Project:  Children mad their very own silly hats to take home with them.  A square block was cut out of butcher paper and place over a bowl in the center (or their head or anything else with a small, round shape).  After forming the paper around the bowl, a piece of masking tape was wrapped around the bowl to form the top of the hat.  Then the excess paper around the edges of the center were folded in an upwards motion to create the brim of the hat.

Once this was done, the children were given various art supplies (markers, stickers, foam shapes, crepe paper, tissue paper, etc.) and decorated their hats to their heart's content.  They turned out so great!  Here is one already done:

Tools

Tools!  Tools!  Tools!  I got this wonderful theme idea here, and it seemed fun for both boys and girls.

Books:

 

The Magic Toolbox by Mie Araki

Tap Tap Bang Bang by Emma Garcia

Whose Tools are These? by Sharon Katz Cooper

Other Great Books about Tools:
Toolbox Twins by Lola M. Schaefer
The Toolbox by Anne & Harlow Rockwell
I Love Tools! by Philemon Sturges

Click Here to Order these Books on the Heights Library Catalog

Activity: I brought in a real toolbox full of toy tools to show the kids.  I pulled out each one and had the children identify them (this is great to do after reading Tap Tap Bang Bang).  After reading Whose Tools Are These a great idea is to put an assortment of tools that different occupations would use (I had put these in my "magic toolbox").  You can show the children kitchen tools, a hairdresser's tools, an artist's tools, a teacher's tools or even a librarian's tools.

Art Project: We made our own "Magic Toolbox" (based on the book with the same name) with paper, glue, scissors and crayons.  Each child received a print-out of some tools (I just got them online here after searching for coloring pages on tools).  They colored the tools and cut them out.  Then they took a piece of red cardstock and made three horizontal folds, with one tab shorter than the other.  This made the illusion of a tool box.  We cut out handles out of black construction paper and glued this on the top of the folded shorter tab.  I also prepared small rectangles in which I had spray painted silver.  The tops of these were glued over the folded flap to represent metal clamps.  Inside the children pasted their little tools.  So cute!

Pizza

Ooh la la!  It's a pizza pie-a!

Almost everyone loves pizza.  It's flat.  It's round.  You can put almost any topping on it (as long as it tastes good).  What ISN'T there to love about pizza?  That's why we decided to do an entire storytime based on this delicious theme.

Books:

Hi, Pizza Man! by Virginia Walter

Pete's Pizza by William Steig

The Little Red Hen (Makes a Pizza) by Philomen Sturges

Other Great Books about Pizza:
The Princess and the Pizza by Mary Jane Auch
Dragon Pizzeria by Mary Morgan
Hold the Anchovies! A Book about Pizza by Shelly Rotner
Tony and the Pizza Champions by Tony Gemignani
Pizza at Sally's by Monica Wellington
Pizza Man by Marjorie Pillar

Click Here to Order these Books on the Heights Library Catalog

Special Visit:  How lucky are we?  A server and kitchen manager from Dewey's Pizza came over to show the children how a pizza is made.  They brought out trays of pizza dough and a bowl of flour.  They even let the children touch the dough and feel how sticky it is.  After this, the magic happened.  The amazing kitchen manager threw up the dough, tossing and spinning it into the air until it was perfectly flat and round.  We were all so amazed!  Every time he tossed the dough in the air, the children laughed and jumped.

First they prepare the dough by adding flour

He spins the dough until it gets bigger

And bigger

And whoa!  Look at the size of that thing!

What a blast!  Thank you, Dewey's Pizza, for sharing your talents with us and for making such delicious pizza!

We made this Thank-You Pizza for them to show our great appreciation

Art Project: We made our own pizzas of course!  But not out of food.  You see, the pizzas we made will never go stale.  For dough, we used a paper plate.  We then added red paint (a.k.a. "pizza sauce") to the middle of the plate.  Slap it on thick if you want to!  Shredded yellow paper was used in place of mozzerella cheese.  If the paint is still wet, it will count as an adhesive to the "cheese" and they will dry stuck together.  Now, you can't make just a cheese pizza for this project; we need toppings!  I prepared some of the toppings beforehand to get them started:

• Olives were made from cutting ovals in black construction paper.  A hole punch was then used to clip a circle to indicate that the olive is "pitted."
• Pepperonies were made out of circles cut from red construction paper
• Mushrooms were made out of brown construction paper
• Green peppers were made out of green tissue paper cut into thin strips
• Onions were made out of white tissue paper cut into thin strips
• Pineapples were made from yellow foam triangles
• Sausages were made from circles cut out of thin sandpaper and given a darker shade of brown textured from a brown crayon

These items were then glued onto the mozzerella cheese.  I left out construction paper of different colors and scissors so that the children could make any other toppings they desired.  Once it is dried, you can even cut the pizza into triangles to make slices and then put them back together again! 

Dewey's' Pizza was so kind, they equipped each child with a small Dewey's pizza box to take their pizzas home in.  How great is that?  It was absolutely the perfect take-home project because then the pizzas could dry safely in their boxes.  Oh yeah, and they look pretty perfect in there too.

If these supplies are hard to obtain, a delicious looking pizza can be made from simply using a paper plate and colored construction paper (this pizza was made in an earlier storytime with the same theme and goes great with the artistic style of Sturges' The Little Red Hen [Makes a Pizza] done entirely with cut paper).

Bon appetit!

Music

Tra la la!  Do Re Mi!  Uhem. 

Just warming up for this week's Explorastory on music!

Books:

"Meeow and the Pots and Pans," by Sebastien Braun

"Farmer Joe and the Music Show," by Tony Mitton, illustrated by Guy Parker-Rees

"Pete the Cat," by Eric Litwin (aka Mr. Eric), illustrated by James Dean
You can download the song "I Love My White Shoes" for free by clicking here!

Other Books about Music:
"Tubby the Tuba," by Paul Tripp, illustrated by Henry Cole (comes with a wonderful audio CD)
"Song of Middle C," by Alison McGhee, illustrated by Scott Menchin
"The Remarkable Farkle McBride," by John Lithgow, illustrated by C.F. Payne
"Catfish Kate and the Sweet Swamp Band," by Sarah Weeks, illustrated by Elwood H. Smith
"The Jazzy Alphabet," by Sherry Shahan, illustrated by Mary Thelen
"Violet's Music," by Angela Johnson, illustrated by Laura Huliska-Beith
"Zin! Zin! Zin! A Violin," by Lloyd Moss, illustrated by Marjorie Priceman
"Our Marching Band," by Lloyd Moss, illustrated by Diana Cain Bluthenthal
"Jazz on a Saturday Night," by Leo Dillon
"Jazz Baby," by Lisa Wheeler

Click Here to Order these Books on the Heights Library Catalog

Activity:  Since we're learning about music, I thought it was really important that we actually hear some music, right? I decided to bring my guitar in and do a couple ditties with the children.  We all sang "The Wheels on the Bus" and I let them choose their own verses.  Another great song to do with a guitar is "If You're Happy and You Know it."  This is great because, like the other song, you can pause and let the children make up their own verses.

At the end of the storytime segment, I played the song "Dance Tonight" by Paul McCartney.  This is a great song with a steady beat and I thought the kids could really get moving with it.  I am lucky enough that our library has a cabinet full of various instruments just waiting to be played (different percussion instruments, bells, a triangle, drums, shakers, rhythm sticks, etc) and brought these for children to use and play along with the beat of the song. We ended up walking in a circle forming a musical parade!  It was amazing and I think the children really enjoyed it.

Art Project:  Paper plate tambourines!

First start by punching holes in two paper plates.  You can choose as many holes as you want (I would suggest 3-5 holes) around the rims of the plates.  Make sure the holes match up when you place the plates together.

When holes are punched, decorate the bottom of both plates however you'd like.  I suggest markers, paint, and stickers.

When you are finished decorating, place the plates together with the top sides (the sides you eat on) facing each other.  Take a small jingle bell and thread a short piece of pipe cleaner through it.  Then take the pipe cleaner and thread it through both holes of the plates and twist the ends to bind them together.  Take another jingle and repeat this step on every hole of the plate.

Once you are done you should have a music playing, jingle belling machine!  

I got the idea here.  Click for an even better step-by-step instruction.

Let's Have a Picnic!

What's the yummiest summer activity?  Having a picnic!  Whether it's at a park or in your own backyard, eating food outside is always fun for some reason.  That's why our Explorastory program learned about picnics this week (without the ants. Gross).

Books:

"The Best Picnic Ever" by Clare Jarrett

"Picnic Farm" by Christine Morton-Shaw

"We're Going on a Picnic!" by Pat Hutchins

Click Here to Order These on the Heights Library Catalog

Rhyme:
5 Hungry Ants
5 Hungry Ants, marching in a line,
They came upon a picnic, where they could dine,
They marched into the salad,
They marched into the cake,
They marched into the pepper--
Uh oh!  That's was a mistake!
AAACCCHHHOOO!

Song:
"The Ants Go Marching"  Get the song and lyrics by clicking here

Art Project:  Each child received a paper plate, one piece of paper and some markers.  On the paper plate they drew pictures of their favorite foods.  The paper plates were then glued onto the piece of paper, where the children designed and drew their own table cloths. 

We hung them all up on a large sheet of butcher paper, decorated it with some napkins and plastic utensils and hung it up for the rest of the library to see.  Doesn't it make you hungry?  Time to eat! 

Turtles

Our theme for this week was funny green turtles!  Before I even introduced our theme with the children, I read this book and had the children guess what it was that we would be learning about:

 "Guess Who Hides," by Sharon Gordon

Once they guessed that we would be learning about turtles, I brought out a couple of turtle puppets (one was particularly cute, you can stuff it's head and legs in the shell and have them pop out for the kids.  It was also cleverly wearing a turtle neck).  We then read the books:

"Banana Moon," by Janet Marshall

"Turtle Splash," by Cathryn Falwell

 Other great books about turtles:

"All About Turtles," by Jim Arnosky

"Turtles," by Trudi Strain Trueit

"Fun Facts About Turtles!" by Carmen Bredeson

Click here to order these books on the Heights Library Catalog

Fingerplays:

 

This is my turtle,

(Make fist and extend thumb.)

He lives in a shell.

(Hide thumb in fist.)

He likes his home very well.

He pokes his head out,

(Extend thumb.)

When he wants to eat,

(Circle thumb around.)

And pulls it back in,

When he wants to sleep.

(Hide thumb in fist.)

Rhyme:

I had a little turtle, his name was Tiny Tim.

I put him in the bathtub, to see if he could swim.

He drank up all the water, he ate up all the soap.

And now he's sick in bed, with a bubble in his throat!

(Hiccup!)

Art Project:  We made some fun loving turtles using an upside down paper bowl.  Children received different shades of green and blue paint and tissue paper to decorate its back.  For the head and legs, green card stock paper was used.  We then topped it off with some large googly eyes.  

Butterflies

C'mon.  You can't think about springtime without thinking about fluttering butterflies.  So let's learn about those beautiful winged creatures in this week's storytime through books, music, art and play!


Books:

"Butterfly Butterfly," by Petr Horacek 

The always classic, Eric Carle's "The Very Hungry Caterpillar."  I know most children have read this book several times, but I swear they always seem surprised when they see the giant butterfly at the end (Spoiler, sorry.  Also, for an even more exciting reading, use the pop-up version of this book).

There are some great puppets out there, but we had one in particular that was a hit.  It first looks like a caterpillar with a zipper around its body and when you unzip it and fold it inside out, it turns into a butterfly.  This is a GREAT one to use while reading "The Very Hungry Caterpillar." I set it out as a caterpillar while I read the story.  When finished, I unzipped and let the children enjoy seeing the magical transformation.  At this point, we talked about metamorphosis.

Other great books about butterflies:

Click here to order these books on the Heights Library Catalog

Fingerplay:
A creepy crawly caterpillar that I see
(shade eyes)
Makes a chrysalis in a big oak tree.
(make body into a ball)
He stays there and I know why
(slowly stand up)
Because soon he will be a butterfly
(flap arms)

I really wanted to bring in this great toy I had at home (but alas, it slipped my mind).  It is a robotic toy butterfly that lives in a jar.  When you tap it, it springs to life and moves around the jar in an astoundingly real way.  It's fascinating and mesmerizing.  This would be a great tool to pass around the room, let the children tap it and discuss butterfly features and movements.  Here's a video of the toy, and you can find more information by clicking here.



Art Project:  We made butterflies using coffee filters, watercolor paint and a pipe cleaner.  First the children flattened out their coffee filters and laid them down flat on a paper plate.  With watercolor paint, they splashed color onto the filter and let it dry.

Folding it up like a fan and pinching it in the middle, a pipe cleaner was bent in half and places around the middle of the coffee filter.  By twisting the middle and curling the ends, the pipe cleaner became the body and antennas.  Tie it to some string or fishing line and watch it fly!