A storytime ode to garbage trucks

Before the storytime session began I decided that I wanted to do a garbage truck theme.  So, our letter of the day was G for Garbage.  This idea stems from living with a toddler boy and being privy to the car, truck, machinery, construction obsession.  Since many toddler boys are on the same wave length I figure it is all good for storytime material.  Although, I can only imagine what the storytime parents are thinking of me as I did a garbage truck theme one week and was singing the Booger song the next!

A garbage truck storytime is not complete without reading Andrea Zimmerman's Trashy town.  This is a cute book about Mr. Gilly, the trash man who works tirelessly to clean up trashy town.  The story has a lot of repetition that the kids can join in with and the illustrations are not too busy for a big crowd.

Our second book was Smash! Mash! Crash!  There goes the trash! by Barbara Odanaka.  This book features some garbage pigs as they noisily gather the garbage on the block.  They pile all kinds of nasty things into their truck before they drive away.

Instead of a third book or a flannel board** I decided to show the video version of I Stink! by Kate McMullen.  This book is a favorite with many two and three year old boys - and girls - but it is a little long to read out loud.  The video version is a great option and the kids seemed to enjoy the treat of getting to watch a 'movie.'  There were lots of giggles and EEEEWWWWW's as the garbage truck read through his gross alphabet soup.  

**I did have a plan for a flannel story, but I realized to do what I wanted was going to take more time than I had.  You can read about the idea here.

Carole Peterson's Stinky Cake is a song that fits perfectly with a garbage storytime.  She sings about making a cake using smelly socks, baby diapers, and moldy fish.  As we sang I had the kids do the motion of stirring the cake batter.  As we went further in the song we began to stir with our feet because the cake was just so stinky!

I like my hat is another song by Carole Peterson that I like to do with scarves.  We pretend that the scarf is a hat and we put it on our elbows, toes, knees, bottom, etc. before finally getting it to the right place on our head.

 Our craft was a garbage truck trash can game.  Sounds elaborate, but it was really easy.  Basically, each kid had half of a paper bag and two garbage trucks to color.  The trucks were taped to the outside of the bag and the kids got some trash (the top part of the paper bag and some cotton balls) that they could toss at the bag and try to make a basket.  Or they were told they could use the bags to clean up trash around their homes.