Halloween Combined Story Time

For our holiday story times we combine all three of our groups together to make things a little easier. This included our Lapsit (Birth - 18 months), Toddler (18 - 36 months), and Preschool (3-6 yr. old) groups. We had an amazing turnout with some super awesome costumes.

Mrs. Alicia started off the festivities by introducing special guest Mrs. Frizzle from the Magic School Bus ( Pssst... It was ME!) to read the story for the day, Pumpkin Trouble by Jan Thomas.

Next Mrs. Alicia did Five Little Pumpkins sitting on a gate with the assistance of her mitten and five pumpkins.

Finally, Fancy Nancy (Mrs. Jillian) joined the story time to help us sing some pumpkin tunes.

This was followed by snacks, sparkle juice, and crafts. Mrs. Alicia had bags they could make to pick up their loot when they went on the parade later. Mrs. Jillian had black paper plate wreaths that they glued ghosts and pumpkins on and I had Paper Plate Ghost crafts.

For the finale we took a parade up and down both floors and stopped by each desk to get a special treat and see all the other staffers all dressed up. Everyone was wonderful and did a great job helping out!

And for a special treat here is a picture of the Garden Variety Mrs. Frizzle and Fancy Nancy:

Ahoy Mateys: It's a Pirate! Story Time

Ahoy, Ahoy! We be having a fantastic time at story time today! Yo ho ho and a sippy cup of milk as I always say!

As you can tell, our story time featured pirates today. I have been anxiously awaiting this one since I decided on it in August.

Yeah, I made that sweet pirate bunting.  Also you can see the awesome pirate hat we made for our craft today!

First story of the day is Shiver Me Letters: A Pirate ABC by June Sobel where the captain decides "R" is not enough.

Then we sang If you're a pirate and you know it. I made sure to write this out on a giant yellow pad to help the parents with the lyrics. Although the tune is familiar, I find the parents are more likely to join in if they have a visual aid.

If you’re a Pirate and You Know It

If you’re a pirate and you know it, swab the deck,

(Swish, swish)

If you’re a pirate and you know it, swab the deck,

(Swish, swish)

If you’re a pirate and you know it, then you’ll hear the sea winds blowin,

If you’re a pirate and you know it, swab the deck,

(Swish, swish)

Verses two and three:

If you’re a pirate and you know it, walk the plank

(Stomp, stomp)

If you’re a pirate and you know it, say ahoy.

(Ahoy!)

You can see the yellow pad I used in this photo.

Second story up is Bubble Bath Pirates by Jarrett Krosoczka.

For our flannel board story today we had Five Pirates on A Treasure Chest.

Probably my favorite part about the entire story time was getting to see the toddler's in their own pirate hats! I found the pattern here. From there I cut out all the shapes and did an outline of yarn on them to give them a pirate feel. I cut up strips of poster board for the band. All the kiddos have to do is glue on their teddy bear crossbones and then the caregivers and Miss Megan can staple the band and construction paper hat together. I rocked my own version for the story time.

Five Pirates on a Treasure Chest flannel board story

Avast ye land lubbers! It be a flannel board story about pirates and their treasure! Haha. That never gets old. Any who, here is a rhyme I used in my Ahoy Mateys: It's a Pirate! story time. I found the original rhyme here. However I changed it up just a little bit to suit my age group.

5 Pirates on a Treasure Chest

        Five pirates on a treasure chest

        One jumped off and four are left.

        Four pirates on a treasure chest

        One slid off and three are left.

        Three pirates on a treasure chest

        One tumbled down and two are left.

        Two pirates on a treasure chest

        One blew away and one is left.

        One pirate on a treasure chest.

        She climbed down and now 
        there are none.

        No pirates on a treasure chest!

        Yo ho ho and now it's all MINE!

I found a sticker book (pictured below) at Michael's that featured pirates and only cost  $1! Hot dog! It worked perfect. I stuck the stickers on card stock and printed out a treasure chest clip art from the internet and laminated the set. I placed magnets on the back only because we are currently out of velcro. 

Five Little Pumpkins

For my pumpkin story time this week I made this version of Five Little Pumpkins.  I like it because it's different from others I have heard  and I could really animate the pumpkins as they moved around the flannel board.

Here is the Rhyme:
Five little pumpkins bouncing by the door, (Place each pumpkin by the door)
One rolled away (remove one), and now there are four.
Four little pumpkins sitting in the tree, ( Place each one on the tree)
One jumped down, and now there are three. (Remove one.)
Three little pumpkins playing 'Peek-a-boo', (Place each on board between door and tree)
One ran away, and now there are two. (Remove one.)
Two little pumpkins sitting in the sun, (Place the sun up above the pumpkins)
One went home, and now there is one. (Remove one.)
One little pumpkin, feeling kind of shy, blows you a kiss, and waves, 'good-bye'. (Remove last pumpkin.)

When it says rolled, jumped, etc. I made the pumpkin do the action. When the pumpkin played peek a boo so did I. We did it a couple times and that resulted in the kiddos collapsing into fits of giggles.

The tree is the same template I borrowed when I made the Autumn - Blue is the Sky flannel story.

It's a Cat in the Hat Pumpkin!

My library is holding their second annual staff pumpkin decorating contest. All the patrons get to see them on display and vote for their favorites. The winner is announced during our big combined Halloween story time.

Since this is my first year I have my fingers crossed that i'll knock out the competition. For my entry I made the Cat in the Hat with Thing 1 and Thing 2. The cat is a real pumpkin and the things are fake ones just because they were the right size. I used felt, acrylic paint, and a boa from the dollar store. The whole thing was free handed.

Enough yapping, here are the pictures!

Ignore the mess and the almost empty bottle of Dr. Pepper. A girl gets thirsty when she is crafting it up!

Before the hat.

I hope you enjoy my pumpkin! If anyone has any questions about how I did any part of this just let me know!


On Display:

P is for Pumpkin!

Yesterday was quite hectic so I'm posting a little late. Better late than never!

Our theme this week was Pumpkins! I set up plastic pumpkin trick or treat buckets around the room and put some pumpkin window clings on the window. The kids had fun pointing them out!

The first story of the day was The Pumpkin Fair by Eve Bunting. This book has a great flow to it!

Our song for the day was Ten Little Pumpkins to the tune of Ten Little Indians. Parents love it because they know the tune and they can follow along. Kids love to count on their fingers and can easily learn the tune if they haven't heard it before. Plus it can be adapted to almost ANY theme! Love it!

The second story was Apples and Pumpkins by Anne Rockwell. This one is short and sweet. The kids liked pointing out the apples in pumpkins in all the pictures.

                                     

The flannel board for the day was called Five Little Pumpkins. I'll be posting the rhyme I did since it is different than a lot of the versions I have previously heard. The kids really seemed to enjoy this one but once again I'll explain more in the flannel board story post.

Our craft was easy but turned out so cute. I printed an outline of a pumpkin I found online  Here is a picture of the finished product. I cut different sizes of tissue paper instead of using pumpkin seeds( for the kids I made some that were a lot bigger than mine. This allowed for easier application for the little ones and the caregivers could talk to the child about the difference between the sizes.) and they applied them where they had put  a little bit of glue from the glue stick.

Inspired by Flannel Friday - Autumn - Blue is the Sky

October is here and that means  (hopefully) cool air, leaves changing colors, and fall has begun in Texas time.
For my Leaves story time I decided to go with Autumn - Blue is the sky which I saw on Mel's Desk. It is short and sweet but helps illustrate some of the key parts of fall and the colors that are associated with it.

As you can see from the above picture I used all felt except some shiny silver wrapping paper I glued onto the stars. I did my old standby of searching for clipart that matched the elements of the rhyme. There is a pateern on the link to the original for the tree which I save and have used for a couple other upcoming flnnel stories that involve trees just because I love this shape so much.

SATURDAY! SATURDAY SATURDAY! It's MONSTER CANS!

Sorry to shout out the title there but I'm just so EXCITED about our last crafter-day saturday craft project. I had every intention of making monster feet using rectangle tissue boxes but sadly I didn't get enough donated in time.

So I had to think on my feet. What would the kids like to do using supplies we already had donated? Hmm We have a TON of empty coffee cans. I opted for the small ones. After stripping off their respective labels I gave them two coats of washable paint (mostly just because it's what I ahd laying around and let's face it. I'm a messy crafter, heck, a messy everything.) I gave the kids scraps of paper, pom poms, pipe cleaners, Easter grass, and other odds and ends to just have at it.

I put out two example kids I did myself as well as fliers telling them how to do a couple different techniques. I love my shaggy blue and orange monster!