Tap, tap, tap, with your hammer

This week's exciting story time theme was tools.  I have noticed that having a 2 year old boy at home has influenced my story time choices some.  We have a few more 'boy' themes this spring.  Although, there were quite a few girls who also knew the names of tools, so it wasn't only for the boys.  Our letter of the day was T for Tools and after naming some 'T' words like tongue, toes, and turtles; Sparky pulled out a hammer to get us thinking about tools.

Our first book was Demolition by Sally Sutton.  When I asked if they knew what demolition meant they were no answers.  But, when I told them it was like building a block tower and knocking it down they all got it.  And that it what this book is all about.  There is lots of heavy machinery that knocks down a building, grinds up and recycles the materials, and then builds a new play ground.  This book has colorful, large illustrations and descriptive, rhyming text.

The second book that we read was Tap, tap, bang, bang by Emma Garcia.  This book is all about tools and the sounds they make.  As I read this book I would make motions like I was using the particular tools, such as the saw, drill, wrench, etc.  Many of the kids did this along with me and that kept them really really interested in the book.  There are lots of 'noises' in this book that can be fun to make (like the drill) and the cartoon tools are big, bold, and bright.

Our last book was Philemon Sturges' I love tools!  This book also talks about the different tools that are used in the construction of a bird house.  It has very simple, rhyming text as the little boy describes what each tool can do.

We had several tool related songs and rhymes this week.  We did a fingerplay that I found at Mel's Desk called 5 little nails.  Mel actually made hers into a prop that is cool, but we used our fingers and did the rhyme (my version was slightly different than Mel's):

5 little nails, standing straight and steady.
Here comes the carpenter, with a hammer ready,
Bang, bang, bang!

We counted out nails between each round and repeated with 4, 3, 2, and 1 nails.

I made a flannel board for a song that I found called Old MacDonald had a tool belt.  I first saw this posted by Meghan at Busy Crafting Mommy.  My version is shorter, and less beautiful than Meghan's, but the kids didn't know the difference and enjoyed it.
We sang:

Old MacDonald had some tools, E-I-E-I-O.
And with those tools he had a hammer, E-I-E-I-O.
With a bang, bang, here and a bang, bang, there.
Here a bang, there a bang, everywhere a bang, bang,
Old MacDonald had some tools, E-I-E-I-O.

We repeated with:
A saw that went see-saw
A wrench that turn-turned
A screwdriver that would twist-twist
Pliers that pinch-pinch
And a drill that went ZZZZ-ZZZZ

We also sang Carole Peterson's I can hammer.  This song starts with the kids using one hammer and each round adds a hand, both feet, and their head.

Raffi has a song called Bumping up and down that is a fun tool-ish song.  First you bump up and down in the wagon, but it breaks, so we bumped up and down tilted to the side.  Then we fixed the wagon with a hammer so we could bump up and down again, but it breaks and we tilt the other way.  We fix it again with some pliers so that we can bump up and down one last time.

It had nothing to do with tools, but for fun we got out the scarves and sang Johnette Downing's Shake your scarves.  I love this song and the kids really enjoy the scarves.  You shakes the scarves up, down, around, on knees, with different hands, on your back, all over.  It is fun and mildly therapeutic.

Our craft for the day was a hammer shaker.  I took empty toilet paper tubes, put a little corn inside and covered the ends.  Each kid had some white paper to color and wrap around the tube and a hammer for each side of the tube.  They really seemed to enjoy these hammers.  It was a little more prep than I tend to do, (good busy work if you have teen volunteers) but I think they turned out well.