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: