Flannel Friday: Ocean ideas

This story, Mitch the fish, is from the lovely Storytiming blog.  I made the story prop bigger to suit my audience a bit better.  Mitch the Fish is a fish who changes colors with the swish of his tail.  He has a cute song he sings and he turns the colors of other things he sees in the ocean.  The full story is on the Storytiming blog.  The fish scene is made out of a box lid covered in paper.  The string you see went around my neck, so I could have both of my hands free to change Mitch's color and be more interactive with the kids.  This was a really fun story to tell, and the kids really enjoyed the fish changing colors. A lot! Sweet preschoolers think of you as a magician when you pull your storytime tricks out.

Another popular rhyme was the 5 Little Jellyfish rhyme from Nikarella.  These were so fun to make!  Definitely use wrapping paper ribbon (twirling ribbon) because it gives the jellyfish some great movement.

Five Little Jellyfish
5 little jellyfish swimming by the shore, the yellow one got lost and that left 4.
4 little jellyfish swimming in the sea, the bright blue one swam far away and that left 3.
4 little jellyfish in the ocean bule, the purple one took a seahorse ride and that left 2.
2 little jellyfish swimming in the sun, the oragne one took a dive and that left 1.
1 little jellyfish swimming all alone, it was time for him to go home and that left none!

I had a giant sea shell that I brought out for this song.  I held it to my ear and pretended it was telling me about the creatures in the ocean.  The idea was to pass out the ocean animals and when I called a particular animal, those children would hold them up and show me their animal's "movement."  Well, since the audience is a large daycare, this didn't work out as great as it might in an audience with more parental help.  Sooo, in the subsequent tellings, I kept the props with me and after singing the sea shell's song, I held up the ocean creature and we all did the movement together.

Sea shell, sea shell, sing a song for me
Tell me about the ocean
Tell me about the sea.
In my ocean, there's _______.

In my ocean - there's a seahorse (bob up and down), a whale (make a big "thwack!" with your hands for a tail), a fish (fish face), an octopus (octopus arms), a starfish (arms like a starfish), and a shark (chomp, chomp!)

Fried ham, fried ham

This book is full of fun songs for sing alongs and the fried ham song, in particular, made me want to share and have fun with school age groups.   If you aren't familiar with this song, you sing it in different ways to make it terribly silly.  It goes "next verse same as the first, Texas accent makes it worse (or, underwater makes it worse; or, opera voice makes it worse.)" I gathered images of the items (some Microsoft Word images, some Google images) and turned it into a poster via Microsoft Publisher.  I've done it with a field trip and a class visit and success!  The best part of sharing this silly poster was the kids easily started volunteering their own ideas for singing it - including pirate accent and with dentures.  HA!

Flannel Friday: 5 Ferocious Lions

I made these not-so-ferocious lions to go with a rhyme from Finger Tales by Joan Hilyer Phelps.

Deep in the jungle
What did I hear?
Five ferocious lions
roaring loud and clear.
"ROAR!" said the lions
"SCAT!" said I.
And one ferocious lion
ran away...Good bye!

This lion craft is also from the book above.  These required some prep work for my daycare group, but they really enjoyed them and I think they're cute, cute!  The kids' versions, of course, were colored and WAY better than mine.



Books used for lion storytime:

Roar! A noisy counting book by Pamela Edwards.  A lion tries to find friends, but his roar scares them away before he finds a friend.  I jumbled laminated numbers 1-10 at the bottom of my magnet board.  After each grouping of animals, one child came up, found the number and we put our numbers in order 1 to 10 on the board.  This was a fun way to extend the story and get some number practice in.

Sitting down to eat by Bill Harley. This features a lion and way too many other guests coming over for a party.

We're going on a lion Hunt by Margery Cuyler.  We didn't read this one, but acted it out instead. 

Flannel Friday: Monday the Bullfrog

 Here's a cute little story that I originally got from this cute frog book that my son received when he was a tiny baby: Monday the Bullfrog by Matthew Van Fleet.

In short, Monday is a very hungry bullfrog, and he eats something different on each day of the week. The story gives you clues like "crunchy and red" (a crab) or "furry and white" (mouse). I cheated a teensy bit with the caterpillar and bee - changed those from the book, but for the life of me, I could NOT make a firefly out of flannel on the day I made this set! I think it's fun to have the animal-food-items poking out of their paper pockets, just a bit, so the kids get a small clue of what they'll be. I tell this story with a frog puppet, but you could also use just a flannel frog. The big surprise at the end is that on Saturday, Monday the bullfrog wants something sweet to eat . . . so he eats "you!" In the back of the book itself there is a mirror; I use a little dollar store variety. (Mine is a bit big, but it is easier for the kids to get the idea, I think).

Three Little Pigs

I did a Pig Storytime this week and we had a good time with the Three Little Pigs.  I have some fabric houses that I use for a variety of things, but they were originally made for this story and these finger puppets.  The fabrics are representational, ah hem, of bricks, sticks and straw.

Doing a finger puppet show for a group of kids is not the best medium, but I did it on purpose. I did it to model for them what they could do with their craft for the day.  I think that's important.  Yes, we do a lot of really neat things in storytime and we have kinds of neat props and puppets.  I told them "those finger puppets are really silly, aren't they?  But they're so fun! And YOU can do this yourself at home!"

My group is a daycare, so the teachers took their "stick puppets" to pass out later in the day.  Oh my, these kids were sooo excited over them, and I had little voices ringing out all over asking "where's my pigwolf??"

Flannel Friday: Trashy Town

Trashy Town is one of my favorite books - I love the rhythm and the option for motions and movements.  For trash storytime, I made signs for each of the stops Mr. Gilly makes in the book, and I placed some "trash" near the location.  I place these all around our program room.  As we read the story, we stop, look for the given place (the doctor's office, the pizza parlor, etc) and selected kids get up and pick up the trash for me.  I have a big dump truck that the kids put the trash in (sorta like a garbage truck!) and then we do the refrain together, making appropriate motions as we go:

"Dump it in! Smash it down! Drive around the trashy town!"

I've done this storytime several times and the kids really get into picking up the trash and doing the refrain of the book.  

I'm afraid I don't have a source for this cute rhyme; I've had it in my rhyme box for a while. It has some great action elements to it that the kids really got into when I did it in storytime. The trucks were drawn, but the "look" of them is clearly based off of Mr. Gilly's trash truck.

Five little Garbage trucks painted green

Picking up trash to keep the town clean

They work and they work until they fill up

Now one of the garbage trucks drives to the dump!

Back up!

Beep! Beep! Beep!



Here's another rhyme; it's from Awesome Storytime. This is a great action rhyme that the kids just loved.  I borrowed a cute trash can from a coworker and gave each child a colored piece of trash.  I then called up each color, the kids put the trash in the trash can, and we acted out this rhyme.

Pick up garbage and throw it in the bin!

Push it down, and stomp it in!

Carry the cans to the street

for the garbage trucks to eat.

When the truck comes roaring by,

workers lift the can up high.

Garbage falls in to the back.

Crush it, mash it, smash it flat!

Set the cans down with a thump.

Now drive that garbage to the dump!

Super cute craft idea that I cannot take credit for!  It came from Awesome Storytime, too.

And the lovely books we used:

Caterpillars & Butterflies

I tend to take on ideas in the 11th hour.  Bad news for getting things like statistics done but good news for my storytime audiences! This idea, orignially from Read it Again is GENIUS, and even though it was not my original plan, it was too darling to pass up.  I had already been inspired by Miss Mary Liberry's butterfly design.

I got 5 booktape boxes and covered them in black construction paper.  I put velcro dots on the front and back.  The caterpillars start out on the front of the boxes, and we use the rhyme "5 little caterpillars and not one more, spun a cocoon and then there were 4." {Rhyme from the book Storytime Magic.} Replace each caterpillar with a cocoon as you go, placing the caterpillar in your box.

To finish, you can use "then one cocoon opened up in the sun / a butterfly came out and that makes one..."  But, I really liked the idea of clapping for the butterfly while it came out & that is what I did today, just letting the rhyme drop after the cocoon line and having the kids clap so the butterfly will emerge.  Each of the butterflies has fishing line taped to its back, so you just grab the line from the back of your board and give it a tug.  Since the butterflies are flannel, they lightly stick to the board and the string doesn't have to be held taut.  The part I love the most about this idea is how visual and symbolic it is for the actual caterpillar/cocoon process - I feel like it is a great way to help kids visualize it and the surprise of a butterfly is truly surprising and delightful.

This set for the Very Hungry Caterpillar was one of the first things I made when I started at the library - it is showing its age, but it was a labor of love at the time.  When I tell this story, I keep the pieces in my lap, hold them up at their time, and have the caterpillar munch through them.  When done, I just set them on the floor or a chair beside me.  I think the size of my pieces are the main appeal, as well as cute Mr. Caterpillar. 

I have a piece of brown suede fabric that I use for the cocoon, just wrapping it around him and mentioning that he fell asleep for two weeks.  Then the warm sun comes out and little caterpillar begins munching his way out of the cocoon and, surprise, butterfly wings!  Anyone who reads this story loves it, of course, but it is a tribute to the story itself that it is so flexible.  It can be done from young gradeschool down - even babies - you just limit the details and even edit out some of the food if needed.  But the story stands on its own, to be sure, and is a delight.

And here's a classic bee rhyme, just for fun:

Here is a beehive
But where are the bees?
Hidden inside where nobody can see.
Let's count the bees as they come out of the hive -
1, 2, 3, 4, 5!
Buzzz!