SHARK!!!!

Our final summer storytime for the 4 and 5 year old crowd was all about sharks. I didn't want to scare them too much (just in case there were a few beach vacations planned) so we worked our way from kind of scary sharks to friendly 'smiley' sharks.

The first book we read was What if the shark wears tennis shoes? by Winifred Morris. This book features a very inquisitive little boy who is rather concerned that a shark is going to come and eat him. His mother tried to reassure him, but he persists informing her that 'you don't know everything.' I really love what happens when the shark does show up to eat him!

Our second shark book was Shark in the Dark by Peter Bently. In this story the poor little fishes are getting fed up with the big mean shark in the dark. They have to band together to see if they can teach that shark a lesson he will never forget.

Finally we read Smiley Shark by Ruth Galloway. This made a nice pleasant ending for our shark books as Smiley Shark is just a friendly shark with a bad reputation. None of the fish want to play with him as they are all scared of those big, white teeth. But, Smiley Shark finds that those sharp teeth can be useful.

While the shark books were easy to come by, the shark songs were a little more fleeting. We did the rhyme 5 little Fishies:

5 little fishies swimming in the sea, Teasing Mr. Shark you can't catch me. Along came Mr. Shark as quiet as can be, And SNAPPED a fish right out of the sea!

Repeat with 4, 3, 2, and 1 fish until 'Mr. Shark is now lonely.'

Another song we did was The Goldfish by Laurie Berkner. There aren't any sharks in this song, but it has fish and is fun to sing.

Another 'song' we did was more of a chant. It is called Baby Shark. I have seen it several places, one being the Boy Scout website. You do the chant with hand gestures, I'll note those next to the lines:
Baby Shark Doh-Doh Doh-Doh (Hands together like a clam) Mommy Shark Doh-Doh Doh-Doh (Arms together with elbow as a hinge) Daddy Shark Doh-Doh Doh-Doh (Arms up and down as wide as possible) Grandpa Shark Doh-Doh Doh-Doh (Same as Daddy with fingers curled in - he has no teeth!) Swimmer Dude Uh-Oh Uh-Oh (Swmming motion) Swim Away Uh-Oh Uh-Oh (Swim faster) Swam to slow Oh-No Oh-No (Thrash about) Got away Whoo-Hoo Whoo-Hoo (Wipe brow) Lost a leg Boo-Hoo Boo-Hoo (Hop on one foot)

Thankfully, I had one child inform me that sharks don't eat people, so no worries there!

We ended with Tooty Ta by Dr. Jean and then the kids all made a shark craft. I adapted this from an alliagator craft we'd done before where you fold a piece of cardstock length wise and cut-out a shark shape so that the folded edge does not get cut. The kids cut teeth for the shark and then glue on felt scraps in various shades of grey and ivory. Since the cardstock was folded, the shark stands up on his 'feet.' (I guess if you really wanted to you could give him some tennis shoes!)