Something Fishy

Week 4 of the summer reading program brought with it books about fish.  Given all of the wonderful books out there about fish it was easy to do this theme as well as our earlier 'under the sea' theme.

The 2's and 3's started with the book Fish wish by Bob Barner.  This is the story of a little boy who wonders what it would be like if he were a fish in the sea.  This book has wonderfully vivid illustrations and simple text that is great for the 2 and 3 year old storytime crowd.

Our second book was Ten little fish by Audrey Wood.  When mama fish takes her little fish out to play, they disappear one by one until there is just one lonely little fish left.  But that one fish isn't lonely for long.  This is a nice counting story and the illustrations are very appealing to younger children.

The final story that the 2's and 3's read was Hooray for fish! by Lucy Cousins.  Hooray for fish shows the plethora of different fish that you might find in the ocean, along with a few that might just be a little to strange to be real.  The rhyming text and vivid illustrations make this the perfect storytime book.

Keeping with our theme, we sang our fish songs that we had been singing all session: All the fish by Sue Schnitzer and The goldfish by Laurie Berkner.  We also revisited the 'Creatures in the Ocean' song that we sang with the Commotion in the Ocean story time.

We finished this week of storytime with a simple craft, both the 2's - 3's and 4's - 5's did the same craft.  Each child was give a blue sheet of cardstock, some green crepe paper, some goldfish crackers, glue, and crayons.  They used the crepe paper to make sea weed and spread the fish in the ocean around, in, or behind it.  It did take quite a bit of glue to get the crackers to stick, so the papers were a bit wet when they left.  But, the children were really creative with this craft and came up with some great collages.

The 4's and 5's started with the book The rainbow fish by Marcus Pfister.  Rainbow fish is the only fish with beautiful, shimmering scales.  He is the most beautiful fish but he has no friends.  Rainbow fish is told that to make friends he should share his scales, but he isn't sure that he can part with his beautiful rainbow scales.  This is a great story for this group about sharing and making friends.

Next we read The pout-pout fish by Deborah Disen.  Mr. Fish is really grumpy and as all of his friends try to cheer him up he reminds them that he is a pout-pout fish and is 'destined to be glum.'  The pout-pout fish is one of my favorite books to read aloud.  This story has great repetition and rhyme and a fun 'surprise' ending.

Finally we finished with The fish who could wish by John Bush.  One silly fish has the ability to make anything that he wishes come true.  He has lots of fun wishing for all sorts of silly things just because he can, but what happens when he wishes to be like all the other fish.  This is a silly story and a great book to share with the 4's and 5's.