Gone Fishing!

This year's summer reading program was 'Make a Splash, Read!' I fully embraced this theme and planned storytimes that were everything water related. I'll post some of the ones from earlier in the summer later, but for now I'll post the last week, a fishing theme (as we were getting a bit sick of all the fish). This story time was for the 2 and 3 year olds (4 and 5 year olds got Shark stories, I'll post them next).

Generally in my storytimes go as follows:
Hello song
Book 1
Song / Rhyme / Fingerplay
Book 2
Song / Rhyme / Fingerplay
Book 3
Song
Goodbye Song
Craft / Activity

Especially for the little ones I try to let them get up and move between stories and then calm down before the book. It tends to work well, though we still get the occasional 'runner.' Hello and Goodbye songs don't change during each session. Other songs and rhymes do, though we often repeat many of the same rhymes and fingerplays week to week.

As every other week we started with our 'hello' songs:

Hello, hello, hello how are you?
I'm fine, I'm fine.
I hope that you are too!

And Wake up toes, by Joanie Bartels from her Morning Magic album.

Then we read the book A Fishing Surprise by Rae McDonald. This is a cute book about some children who go fishing to catch some fish for dinner but come back with something else instead. The illustrations are a bit fall like, but the story isn't and the kids don't seem to care.

The second book we read was Stanley goes fishing by Craig Frazier. Stanley sets off on a fishing trip and ends up finding the fish in an unexpected place. I really like the ending to this story and the simple text and bright illustrations were great for the younger kids.

Our final book for the day was Click, clack, splish, splash: a counting adventure by Doreen Cronin. Doreen Cronin's books are usually a hit and this one was no exception. The barn animals are up to something once again. They leave a note that says 'gone fishing,' but their definition of fishing doesn't quite match up with the farmer's. This book is also great for a little audience participation as you can count the fish - you know, just in case duck missed a few!

Songs in between the books were:
Goldie Rock by Debbie Clement (they each had a shaker egg to play along)
Row, row, row your boat by the Old Town School of Folk Music

We ended with Tooty Ta by Dr. Jean (always a crowd pleaser) and our 'Goodbye' song:

Goodbye, Goodbye, Goodbye to you.
We're done, we're done.
We hope to see you soon!

The craft for the day was a fishing pole. It was fairly simple. I gave each kid a straw, a piece of yarn, a paperclip, and a cardstock cut out of a fish. Before hand I punched a small hole near the fishes mouth as well as punched a hole through the straw and tied one end of the yarn. Then I placed lots of stickers and crayons on the table and let the kids sticker and color the fish before 'hooking' it with the paperclip which thier cargiver tied to the other end of the yarn.