I don't know why I'm not a huge fan of doing a Valentine's Day story time, but for some reason it feels kind weird to me? I do love the spirit of the day (love is lovely!), but instead of doing a straight up hearts and chocolate and pink things story time, I usually go a little sideways and doing something related but not exact. Today, I decided on doing a friends themed story time, since we have an adorable "Friends Forever" themed display up created by my lovely Fairy Twin Emily.
My story times tend to go a little long (I usually go from 10:20-11:00ish -- almost 45 minutes!), and my supervisor asked me if I could try to keep things a little more succinct (so hard for me...I just tend to want to keep going). So today, I tried to pare things down a little. I think it went ok -- I had to do one less song than normal, but I did actually end on time for once! Any opinions on the ideal length for a preschool story time from those of you out there in story-time-land? My group is pretty great at going long, but maybe I should try to stick to 30 minutes from now on?
Opening Song: Open Them Shut Them (Click here for the link to my version!)
Opening Activity: Spell the word "FRIENDS" on the flannel board using felt letters.
Opening Nursery Rhyme: Humpty Dumpty
Book #1: A Year With Marmalade by Alison Reynolds
I LOVE the art in this book (we talked a little bit about it before we started -- the kids agreed that the black and white with splashes of color was just lovely). This is a great book for talking about how the text can be part of the illustrations -- my favorite moment is when the words curl up into a little circle as they talk about the cat curling up like. It's a really sweet story about a girl missing a friend and becoming close to a cat :)
I've used this before -- I really like doing sign language in story time the more I do it. It gives us something to do as a "finger play" that actually means something and teaches a skill, and gives us something to do with our hands as we learn a new song! Thanks as always, Jbrary!
Book #2: Boy + Bot by Ame Dyckman
I ended up spending a lot of time with this book. We talked about it pretty thoroughly as we went, and I was really pleased with how it went. We really took time to understand why the humor worked (why is it funny that the robot is giving the boy oil to try to fix him?) -- it was a great choice for story time, and I was a little hesitant at first about it for some reason. Would definitely use it again.
Flannel Board Activity: Friend match! I printed out and laminated and glued felt on the back of a bunch of picture book friend pairs for this activity. I had Curious George and the Man in the Yellow Hat, Elephant and Piggie, Madeline and Miss Clavel, and Frog and Toad. I would pull each of the characters out of my box, and the kids had to match the right character with their friend! We also took the time to talk a little bit about how you could figure out the answer even if you hadn't read the book by looking at the art style and matching the ones that look similar. It went great!
Action Rhyme: Tall as a Tree
Action Rhyme: Tall as a Tree
This is one of my faaaavorite ways to get out the wiggles between books. I actually use SLIGHTLY different words for this -- we do:
Tall as a tree
Wide as a house
Thin as a pin
Small as a mouse
We also make little squeaky noises at the end, and then do it faster and faster and faster. Preschoolers seem to really love doing things as FAST AS POSSIBLE!!! By the end we're exhausted and ready for one more book :)
Tall as a tree
Wide as a house
Thin as a pin
Small as a mouse
We also make little squeaky noises at the end, and then do it faster and faster and faster. Preschoolers seem to really love doing things as FAST AS POSSIBLE!!! By the end we're exhausted and ready for one more book :)
Book #3: Love Monster by Rachel Bright
Cute story about a monster who feels overlooked because he's weird looking and living in a world filled with cute fluffy things. My favorite part, I think was when a little boy about halfway through said, "Heeey, this is a Valentine's Day book, isn't it?" It was a good, straightforward book for ending story time on a sweet note.
Closing Rhyme: Goodbye Friends
Today we changed up our normal ending song and do the goodbye version of the "Hello Friends" sign language song from earlier. It worked so well, I might switch and start using it every time!
Happy Valentine's Day everybody!
--Sara
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