Once Upon a Story... Summer Story Times Week 3 and 4

     Still in catch-up mode, but I think I am going to accomplish my goal!  Hopefully I will be caught up by the time August comes to a close!  I can’t believe I just said that!  Where in the world did August go?!  Oh well, let’s get back to the task at hand, Summer Reading Story Times weeks three and four!

Week 3- SLUMBER PARTY!

     No, we didn’t really have a slumber party!  But believe me when I say I think the kids would have loved it!  Instead of having a slumber party, the kids were told to come to the library in their pajamas.  We made slumber party crafts and read books about pajamas!  It was a lot of fun and fit perfectly with the “Once Upon a Story,” theme.

This book is SO CUTE!  It is great for both boys and girls.
I was able to discuss colors and patterns and the kids were able
to yell out the answers!  Nothing is better than yelling out an answer!

The kids made these sleep masks out of
felt and sequins.  Our weren't as fancy as these,
but the kids still seemed to enjoy them.

Oh My Goodness!  This book is TOO CUTE!
It has a great moral lesson about listening to one's
parents and all the kids in class loved it.
One little girl wouldn't leave the library unless I let her check it out.

I had the bigger kids make something similar to this.
I gave each kid a piece of felt rolled to look like a bag.
They were then able to add hair, googly eyes, and a smile
to make it look like themselves in a sleeping bag!

Week 4- GLOW IN THE DARK!

     I don’t know about you, but I was always interested in things that can glow in the dark.  When I found out that Summer Reading was a night theme, I just knew that I needed to end Story Times with this theme!

This book went PERFECT with our summer theme.  It also
had both fireflies and owls to go with our crafts!
WARNING:  This book is faith-based.  However, I was
able to gloss over the faith-based portion by only
reading the letter and what it stood for.

What kid doesn't love Band-Aids?
Glow in the dark Band-Aid fireflies!  Enough, said!

I stuck with the glow in the dark theme for our second craft.
I had each kid color an owl.  Afterwards, they brought the owl
to me and I painted around its eyes with glow in the dark paint.
The kids LOVED it and we couldn't keep the bathroom lights on
with all the kids desperate to see their owls glow! :) 

Lastly, I just couldn't find that perfect glow in the dark book.
So, I went the easy route, a back to school book.  The kids at my last Story Time
were headed back to school and this book was great for getting them excited
to go back, and for some, start school for the first time! 

     Well, that seems to be the end of Summer Reading Story Times.  For those of you who don’t know, this is also the end of my time here at the Mooresville Public Library.  I will be posting one more “Goodbye” blog with a few more details about my newest adventure.  Don’t worry, though, the new Early Literacy Assistant will take over right where I left off!

     I hope you have enjoyed all of the hard work I have put into this blog.  My biggest wish is that this blog was able to spark an idea with someone, somewhere!  Stay tuned for Miss Jaymi’s LAST INSTALLMENT!

Sammy-grams: Sammy's Weather Report

     So Sammy has decided he wants a career change!  Ok, maybe not a career change, but he definitely wants something to fall back on in case this library things doesn't work out.  Let us know what you think about Sammy the Toucan, the meteorologist.

Once Upon a Story... Summer Story Times Week 1 and 2

     Things around MPL have been a bit CRAZY since summer began!  As I write this, summer is already OVER and the kids have gone back to school.  Thus, I am going to play a quick game of catch-up!

     At MPL, we have Summer Story Times every other week.  This means that instead of having eight, or one per each week, we only do four.  This gives me a bit of a break, as well as giving parents more time to enjoy the GREAT outdoors with their kids.  In attempt to get this posted before August finishes, I am going to show you what we did in Weeks 1 and 2 of Summer Story Time with my next post wrapping summer up!  I hope you enjoy the new format!

Week 1- MONSTERS!

     What kid doesn’t love monsters?  Sometimes they are scary and sometimes they are nice, but I have yet to meet a child that isn’t a little bit interested in monster tales.  Monsters also go GREAT with our Summer Reading theme.

The kids loved this book.  They thought it was funny
that the little girl annoyed her brother ALL DAY!

What kid doesn't like monster feet?
I know mine LOVED walking around in these.
Find this craft here.

To the tune of, "If You're Happy and You Know It."
No kid I know can sit through this story without
wanting to get up and dance!

Another fun craft.  The kids liked making these,
but they enjoyed chasing each other around
as monsters more!

Week 2- OUTERSPACE!

     Just like monsters, children love learning about the unknown, and space is definitely an unknown frontier.  Yes, scientists and astronauts have learned a lot about space, but kids still seem drawn to learn more.  What a better time to teach them a few things about space than Summer Reading!

This book was cute.  It covered quitea bit of basic
space terms and the kids really enjoyed it.

We did this craft a little different than described,
mostly because I have too many kids to let play with paint.
Instead of paint, we colored our rockets then glued
them to an outserspace themed paper.
Find this craft here.

This book is quite tricky!  It explains that we
all live in space, even humans!  The kids were a little
confused, however once explained, they began to understand
that humans live on Earth, which is a planet in space!
This leads into the solar system craft smoothly!

The solar system craft was quick and fun. The kids liked it and their
parents liked that they were making something educational.
Find it here.  My suggestion?  Make the planets a bit larger!

     That seems to be it for the first two sessions of Story Time.  I can tell you, the kids absolutely loved both of these themes.  The stories were fantastic and the crafts only enhanced the experience.  Summer is a great time to try something new, so don’t be afraid and jump right in!  I know the kids you work with will appreciate it!

Y is for... Yellow and Yarn!

     Still playing catch up over here at Explore to Learn.  This week, we tackle the letter Y.  I know I say this almost every week, but for some reason, I struggled with Yy.  I thought about yak (which I am sure my kids have NO IDEA what that is) as well as yo-yo, but ended up going VERY simple.  Yellow!  I love the color yellow and my library has so many yellow stickers that I thought it would be fun and simple!

Materials:  Index card with capital Y, yellow crayon, and yellow stickers.

Front of card

Back of card

 

1)    Color the capital Y yellow.

2)    Trace the upper and lower case Yy on the back of the card.

3)    Stick the yellow stickers on the letter Y.

 

     As usual, my 4-6 year olds made a second craft.  As I was just relegating myself to the fact that I was going to have to do something with a yo-yo, I came across yarn in our crafting closet!  Perfect, right?  Thus, I took some craft stick, glued them together to make a picture frame, and decided we were going to work on our fine motor skills via yarn wrapping.  Needless to say, it took my kids forever and with their short attention spans, they were not happy with the craft. Oh well, I was happy they at least tried it out.  Most of my kids took home half-finished (like my own, below) frames to complete at home.  You win some, you lose some!

 

     The first book we read this week was all about colors.  Kitten Red, Yellow, Blue by Peter Catalanotto is a great book to not only discuss various colors but occupations as well.  My kids really enjoyed this book because they were able to shout out many of the colors and occupations, while also learning new colors such as teal and chartreuse.  It is definitely a cute book and a great read-aloud.

     Extra Yarn by Mac Barnett went spectacularly with my yarn theme.  Although this book is quite long, it definitely lends itself to being cut down a bit.  I did omit a couple of pages without losing any of the story.  The kids were able to follow along and understand that the little girl had a magic box of yarn.  They enjoyed guessing who the little girl might sew a sweater for next.

 

     I promised last week I would present a new song.  Well, if you haven’t heard of the amazingness that is Jim Gill, let me be the first to introduce you to his music.  My kids love his upbeat music and “The Color Game” is no exception.

     Ok, I have done it!  I have gotten two blog posts up in the same day!  I am making up some ground for sure!  Tune in again soon to see if I can get to Z.  Thanks!

W is for.. Watermelon and Watches!

     The past couple weeks in Indiana have felt like summer!  Yes, we wake up and it’s a bit chilly, but by lunch time, it’s been between 70 and 80 degrees outside and I LOVE it!  Although I am a Hoosier through and through, I can’t stand Indiana weather so it was nice to get a mild winter and unseasonably warm temperatures early in spring.  With all of this summer-like weather, it was easy to use watermelon for our letter craft this week.  When it gets warm outside, nice, cool, refreshing watermelon is what I crave!

Materials:  Index card with capital W, green crayon, pink W cut from paper, watermelon seeds, and a glue stick.

Front of card

Back of card

1)    Color the capital W green.

2)    Trace the upper and lower case Ww on the back of the card.

3)    Glue the pink W on the inside of the green W.

4)    Glue seeds to pink W to make it look like a watermelon.

     As for our second craft, well, my library recently came across our old die cut machine in the basement.  Apparently everyone knew it was down there but me!  I found the cutest watch die-cut and decided it would be quick and easy to create.  When you are making 24 of anything, you definitely want to keep in mind the process of creating as well as the intended outcome.  This craft was the best of both world and I thought the kids would really like it! 

All from a die cut machine!

     This is the part where I always delve into my book choices and how easy or difficult they were to find.  This week, I didn’t choose the first book, Miss Suzanne did!  I was a little under the weather (rotten sinus infection) and called in sick!  Like a champ, Miss Suzanne stepped in for me and did my Monday programs.  The book she chose was Watermelon Day by Kathy Appelt.  After discussing this choice with Miss Suzanne, and reading it myself on Tuesday and Wednesday, we each decided it was a little too long and needed to be shortened for the attention spans of our listeners.  This was actually REALLY easy to do with this book without losing any of the important content.  Miss Suzanne did also say that it was difficult to find a good watermelon book! HINT HINT… authors and publishers... get on this!

     I thought a book on watches would be easy to find.  Instead of watches, most of the books at my library were about clocks!  So I went with it when I found a great book by John Archambault entitled, Boom Chick Rock.  This book is great.  The beat is great.  The mentioning of dances, including the Electric Slide, the Tango, and the Bunny Hop, is great! And the pictures are great!  Can you tell I really liked this book?  My kids also like being able to participate in the reading of the book when the line “Everybody rock! Around the room! Boom chicka rock, chicka rock, chicka boom!” came about.  The more times we read this line, the louder it got!

     I also want to take just a moment to brag about my good friend Carolyn Mueller, and this seems like the perfect place to do it!  My roommate Carolyn is going to be a PUBLISHED AUTHOR!  That's right.. a PUBLISHED AUTHOR!  When she told me about a month ago, I felt like a proud mom.  I was there with her senior year of college when she would hole herself up in her room for hours on end working on her senior writing thesis.  She worked so hard and I am so happy that it is soon to pay off.  So why am I just now blogging about her book?  Well, not only does it come out next month and you can pre-order it here, but my library just purchased it!  I have no idea what a dwarf zebu is, but I am super excited to get it and perhaps have it signed?  Don't worry, I definitely plan on reading it in my Story Time class sometime soon so we can all find out exactly what this mysterious animal may be!

     I didn’t introduce any new and fun music this week.  Like I mentioned, due to my missing of Monday, I didn’t have time to throw anything new together and I like to keep all of my classes on the same schedule.  I did, however, add an old favorite to my Story Time classes.  It’s another alphabet song, but this time you use a bean bag to act out the different letters.  The song, “Bean Bag Alphabet Rag,” by Hap Palmer, is an old favorite and I can’t believe I have put it on my YouTube channel before now!  I hope you enjoy it as much as my kids do!

     That seems to be all for this week.  I can’t believe we are almost to the end of our Alphabet Adventure.  It seems like yesterday that I started this blog.  Although I have a great craft for next week and the letter Xx, I am struggling a bit with Yy.  There is the norm of yo-yo, but if you have any other ideas, let me know!  I am a bit desperate at this point! Thanks and tune in next week when I give a little shout out to my mom!

S is for... Sharks, Spiders, SAMMY, and Seuss!

     Sammy totally made me write his name in all capitals!  He really is that excited for his “special” day.  I haven’t had the heart to tell him that it is really just “S” week.  Oh well!  If it makes Sammy happy, then let’s go with it!

     Like I mentioned previously, the alphabet letter this week was “S.”  I decided to go with spiders, because everyone loves spiders, right?  Haha, no way!  I hate spiders, but the kids seemed to really be into this week’s craft.

Materials:  Index card with capital S, 8 strips of black paper, googley eyes, glue stick, crayons

Front of card

Back of card

1)    Color the capital S to look like a spider.

2)    Trace the upper and lower case Ss on the back of the card.

3)    Accordion fold the 8 strips of black paper to make the spider legs.

4)    Stick on the googley eyes and glue down the accordian legs to create your spider!

     Our second craft this week was rather creepy and scary as well. SHARKS!  Yes, I know it isn’t Shark Week, however, it fit so well, and the craft I found was so cute.  All you need is a paper plate, scissors, glue stick, and blue construction paper.  If you really want to get festive, add some googley eyes to the mix.  I found the craft here.

     I know that I work in a library and that I should be up-to-date on great kid lit, however, as mentioned before, I have a tendency to pull books that my kids just don’t like.  This, however, was NOT the case this week.  I found the BEST books for both spiders and sharks!  In fact, my shark book had spiders in it!  Both of these books are funny with some humor that is not only great for kids, but adults as well!

     You know, I often write about the songs I use in class, however, most of them are action based.  Let's be honest, when you work with 0-6 year olds, the more action, the better!  However, I also have two great "Goodbye" songs that my kids really like.  In fact, I have had one parent ask me where she could find the goodbye song because in my class, is triggers the start of "clean-up" toy time and she was hoping it would do the same for her child at home!  I think that is just hilarious! 

The first song I use is called the "Goodbye Song," by Playhouse Disney.

The other song I often use is from this CD.

It is the last song in this video and starts at 7.32.

     Well, that seems to be all for this week! WAIT!!!  I forgot one really important thing!

Today is Read Across America Day.  This is in celebration of Dr. Seuss' birthday.  In fact, if Dr. Seuss was still alive, he would be 108 years old today! WOW!  Here at the Mooresville Public Library, we love Dr. Seuss!  I mean, who doesn't?  Here are some of our favorite Seuss books.  What are yours?

This was my FAVORITE book growing up! My poor
mom had to read this to me over and over!

     Well, that is officially it for this week!  Next week is T.  The possibilities a limitless with T.  Come back next week to see what we think of!