Birds Preschool Story Time

A patron recommended one of the books from today's story time today, and I decided to design my entire theme around it.  I really like including books that are suggested to me by preschool story time kids and parents -- it shows them that I really do listen to them and take their preferences to heart!  I sometimes will even take storytime "requests" -- if a kid says, "Can we do a story time about...." I will totally put it on my list of theme plans.  Story time is for the kids and the parents, I want to do everything I can to listen to their personal tastes!  I believe story time (and the library in general) is about learning to LOVE reading, and anything I can do to facilitate that is amazing.

And with that, here is my 2/26/14 BIRD themed story time :)

 Opening Song:  Open Them Shut Them (Click here for the link to my version!)

Opening Activity: Spell the word "BIRDS" in felt letters on the flannel board

At some point I should write a general "how I plan preschool story time" blog post to explain how and why I do this in my story time every week.  I will explain here, but I'll try to do that in the future!  I have a special box (it's really a pencil box that I've re-purposed) that looks like a copy of Dr. Seuss's Green Eggs and Ham.  Every week, I pull felt letters one by one out of the box, have the kids tell me the letter and the sound it makes, and together we sound out the word that is our theme of the week!  It helps with letter recognition, and also gets us in some group reading practice!  Sometimes I add activities to this such as asking if anyone in the group has any of the letters in their name, or asking what their name would sound like if it started with the letter on the flannel board instead of the letter it actually starts with.

Opening Nursery Rhyme: Itsy Bitsy Spider with Audiation

I just love this, I've been doing it more and more often. Thank you for the idea, Intellidance!

  Book #1: A Drop of Gold by Vlasta van Kampen

 This is the book that was recommended to me by a patron.  I love it because it is a folk-tale-ish story, but it's short enough to actually use in preschool story time (unlike a lot of folktales).  The pictures are really bright and colorful (the story is about how the birds got their colors).  I do wish the format of the book was a little bigger, but it worked ok even though my group was HUGE this week.

Action Song: Hoot Hoot Went the Little Brown Owl

Jbrary just did an amazing compilation of all the different verses for this song, and I did about four or five of them today.  They are super fun and silly, and I love that they make the parents laugh just as much as the kids.  Here's the video of Jbrary doing it -- I highly recommend watching, it is hilarious and adorable.

The original words for the rhyme go:
Mmmm aah went the little green frog one day
Mmmm aah went the little green frog
Mmmm aah went the littel green frog one day
And they all went mmm mmm aah
BUUUUT
We know frogs go shanananana
Shananana, shanananana
We know frogs go shanananana
They don't go mmm mmm aah!

Book #2: How to Paint the Portrait of a Bird by Jacques Prevert and Mordicai Gerstein


This is a really lovely book -- it might have been a liiiiittle too conceptual for preschool story time, but I think the kids who were really paying attention got it.  It's kind of surreal and lovely and funny if you're paying enough attention to get the joke.  I think I'd try to use it again in a smaller group (I had 93 people show up at this story time, would probably have worked better in a group of 20-40.

Flannel Board Activity: Birds:  Fly or walk?

For this activity I printed out and laminated and glue felt on the back of six different birds -- three that fly and three that don't fly.  As I pulled their pictures out of my Dr. Seuss pencil box, I had the kids sort them into flying birds and non-flying birds.  I picked five birds the kids would be familiar with, and one that was new to all of them:  we got to learn about what a cassowary is!

Book #3: Look Out, Suzy Goose by Petr Horacek

This was the PERFECT book to end story time with.  It had been a long time since we'd all stood up and wiggled around, so I had them actually stand up while I was reading and act out the book with me.  There are several animals who walk in different ways, and I had the kids say the words and do the animal's walks with me as we went.  The picture are big and bright and beautiful -- this is a great preschool story time book that I'd totally use again.

Closing Rhyme: Tickle the Clouds 

Closing Rhyme: Tickle the Clouds

Tickle the clouds
Tickle your toes
Turn around
Tickle your nose!
Reach for the ground
Reach up high!
Story time is over,
Wave goodbye!

I got this rhyme from this awesome Jbrary video: Jbrary Goodbye Songs

--Sara