Queen Elsa's Crowns

This past week at story time we had a royalty theme.  While looking for a good flannel story to go along with my books I came across an idea for using different colored crowns at Story Time Secrets.  I figured that could be an easy flannel story, have a princess who keeps changing her crown and we could sing to the tune of Mary wore her red dress.  Then, when looking for a princess clip art to use as a guide for my flannel I saw a picture of Queen Elsa and decided to go with that.  Thus 'Queen Elsa's Crowns:'

Queen Elsa wears her BLUE crown, BLUE crown, BLUE crown
Queen Elsa wears her BLUE crown every MONDAY.

I put up the picture of Elsa and had 7 crown options, each a different color (one was many colors and we called it rainbow).  Then, we went through the days of the week and at the start of each new verse I would ask the kids which day came next.  Sometimes we had to start at the beginning, but that helped them both remember and learn.  I also took suggestions for the crown color.  (There were a few little girls who took this responsibility very seriously.)

Of course they LOVED this.  Even the boys were into it - mostly for shouting out the days of the week - and they all were singing along.

Normally I prefer to make my flannels, but I do have to admit using clip art and a laminator made it super easy.  I may have to try a flannel  Elsa though, that would be a fun challenge!

Checkout this week's Flannel Friday round-up at What is Bridget Reading? or visit the Flannel Friday blog for more information including how to participate.  You can also visit the Pinterest page (click the button on your right) for ALL Flannel Friday postings arranged on rather helpful boards.

Story Time Royalty

So our story time theme this week was technically Royalty, but I thought that for toddlers that could get confusing given that I give them a letter and then a picture from our theme that starts with said letter.  I decided to make our letter of the day K for King, since he is the head of all the royals.  That was I wasn't giving them the letter R with a picture of a King or Queen and spending half of story time explaining things.  (I tend to over-think stuff like this.)

We talked about other words that start with a letter K - it was a bit concerning when they called the kangaroo a Horse (???) but they got the Kite, Kitty, King, and, with a little help, the Kiwi.

The first book that we read was Lullabyhullaballoo by Mick Inkpen.  Little Princess is trying to go to sleep, but some of the royal subjects are just too noisy.  With the help of the story time friends we shushed those noisy subjects so that the princess could get some sleep.  This story has rhyming text and some lift the flap pages as you tell various fantastical creatures to SHHH!

We followed Lullabyhullaballoo with The Learning groove's Dance, freeze, melt.  I have used this a few times with outreach groups this winter and it is always a hit.  As the song says the kids dance, then freeze, then melt.  With each action you count to 8 then to the next thing.  In subsequent verses they twirl, jump, and run, but each of those are always followed by the freeze and melt.

Our second book was King Bidgood's in the bathtub by Audrey Wood.  Once upon a time I had a projector reel with this book and an accompanying song.  I loved to show it, the song is great.  Sadly, it has not been transferred to DVD or CD.  I requested a tape of it, but it did not arrive in time for story time.  So, I read the book - which is still great.  I just have to watch myself as I really want to sing some parts.  The kids seemed to enjoy this one.  King Bidgood refuses to get out of his tub.  He battles, lunches, fishes, and dances from the bath.  Will anyone in the kingdom be able to get him out?  There is great repetition in this book and fun illustrations.

After King Bidgood we got out the shaker eggs and ran around to Mr. Eric's I can shake my shaker egg.  This song is set to the music of In the hall of the mountain king (my sisters and I used to dance frequently to this in our living room growing up) and it starts slow and gets faster.  Mr. Eirc has the kids sneak, walk, then run around the room with their shaker eggs in the fun, energy burning song.

Since the kids were a little keyed up after that song we followed it with an active rhyme I found called 'Castle Capers.'  It is posted here at the Delta Township District Library Storytimes page.  It goes:

I am the king of running,
I run and run and run.My subjects all run with me,And we have so much fun!I am the prince of turning,I turn and turn and turn.My subjects all turn with meIt’s an easy thing to learn!I am the princess of dancing,I dance and dance and danceMy subjects all dance with meAnd dance when they get the chance!I am the Queen of jumping,I jump and jump and jump.My subjects all jump with meAnd sit down with a bump.

To go along with the rhyme I made up some visuals using Disney characters.  We have Mickey the King, Minnie the Queen, Donald the Prince, and Daisy the Princess.  To help me remember the rhyme I wrote a few lines on the back (so, the visuals were more for me).

The last book that we read was The foggy, foggy forest by Nick Sharratt.  This book shows shadows in the foggy, foggy forest and kids can guess what they are.  Then, turn the page to see what it is.  Every picture has a fun twist, such as, they were able to guess the witch on the broom, but the surprise was she had a motorized broom.  The kids LOVED this book.

The kids also LOVED the final song that we did.  I called it Queen Elsa's crowns.  So, mainly they loved it because of Elsa, but even the boys had fun.  We had a picture of Queen Elsa and 7 different colored crowns (the multi-colored one we called rainbow).  The song goes to the tune of Mary wore her red dress and goes:

Queen Elsa wore her purple crown, purple crown, purple, crown.
Queen Elsa wore her purple crown, every Sunday!

Then, I would ask them what day of the week came next (a few times we started with Sunday and went through the week to get where we needed to be) and I let them pick a new color crown and we sang it again with a different color and day.  Of course picking the crown was the most important part!

Our craft was a crown that they were given to decorate.  We put out glitter, jewels, feathers,stickers,  and crayons.  More kids than normal did he craft, so they must have liked this one.

I forgot to take a picture of the activity sheet this week, but it was just a house made with different shapes so that they could work on tracing shapes.  For play time we pulled out the princess dresses, though no one seemed that interested in them, instead they played with the castle play set and had tea parties.

Flannel Friday: Teddy

This week's Flannel Friday story is an adaptation of Leslie Patricelli's book Binky.  Binky is a cute board book (a favorite of my 2 year old son) about a cute baby who is looking all over for his binky.  My story time theme this week was Bedtime for Prince and Princess, so I changed the book some to fit that.  I turned the baby into a prince (a baby prince) and instead of looking for the binky he is instead looking for his teddy bear.

The little prince.  He flips over to a happy prince.  There is velcro on his diaper to hold him on the board.

Since board books are quick and simple, I was able to sequence this one out on the flannel board.  I put all of the objects/people that baby goes to when looking for his binky on the board.  Then, I just went right down the line asking ... Where is teddy?  Is teddy behind the couch?  No.  In the cereal?  No.  In the potty (hope not)?  No.  Who has teddy?  Fishy? No. etc. until the end.

Here is the couch, cereal bowl, potty chair, fishy, dog, mom, dad, rug, and chair.

But, when we got to the end there were no items on the board and we still had not found teddy!  So, of course, the little prince threw a little fit.  And then...

The teddy bear was actually borrowed from my 5 in the bed flannel set, he is the 'little one.'

I turned the board around and there was teddy, in bed where he belongs!

Happy little prince!

If you wanted, you could do this without going in order.  The kids could suggest where to look and as long as teddy is on the back of the board you will still have a crying fit before flipping it over.  If you do flannels where they look for items a lot it maybe fun to have the surprise of not finding anything until it is flipped around.

This week's Flannel Friday round-up can be found with Katie over at Story Time Secrets, past round-ups with Anne at Sotomorrow, or you can click on the Flannel Friday button at the right to see us on Pinterest.

The Royals at Bedtime

This week the secret title of my story time was 'Royal Pains at Bedtime' but that didn't sound very nice (it is just amusing for those of us with kids).  So, for my story time friends our theme was Bedtime for Prince and Princess.  We featured the letter B for Bedtime for Prince and Princess since we had already used P during Penguin week.  After planning for this theme I realized that I should have saved it since the Summer Reading Program has a night time theme this year, but oh well.  I was really amused how many kids told me that they go right to bed and stay there all night.  I could hear all of the parents muttering about how their child was lying :)

The first book that we read was The prince won't go to bed by Dayle Ann Dodds.  This book is a little longer than I usually read for the 2's and 3's.  I ended up skipping a few pages because the story worked without them.  It was great for my Family Time group that is more of a 4 and 5 crowd.  This is the story of a prince that just will not go to bed.  They try a bath, pudding, extra mattresses, fluffier pillows, a lullaby, but nothing works.  Luckily, his sister is there to realize they were forgetting one specific thing from his routine.  I really like the rhyme and repetition of this book and there is a phrase 'Wah, wah, wah, I will not go to bed!' that the prince repeats a lot.  I had all of the kids do this part, but I made them first promise that they will not repeat it to their parents at bedtime.

Our second book was Naomi Howland's Princess say goodnight.  This is a sweet bedtime story about how a princess gets ready for bed.  She does many of the things typical children do, like take a bath, have a snack, brush her hair, have a lullaby, etc. just in a much fancier manner.  This was good for talking with the kids about bedtime routine and what they do to get ready for bed.  This book also had great rhyme along with fanciful illustrations.

The final story was a flannel board that I adapted from Leslie Patricelli's board book Binky.  I love Leslie Patricelli's board books.  They are a favorite at my house.  The bold, simple illustrations are great for toddlers and her subject matter, style, and language are so easy for the little ones to relate to.  Binky is about a baby who is looking all over for his binky only to discover that it is in his bed, right where it belongs.  Since many of my story time friends are past the binky stage, we had him looking for a teddy instead and I gave him a crown and called him a prince.  You can read more about the flannel board here.

Since lullaby songs are not very exciting to use for story time, I instead used songs that had napping and resting.  We sang Laurie Berkner's We are the dinosaurs since the dinosaurs march, eat, rest, and roar.  We also sang Berkner's version of the Goldfish because the goldfish take lots of naps in between swimming, showering, brushing teeth, and biking.

I threw in Carole Peterson's I like my hat just for fun.  I needed a song to use with our scarves and I figured a hat and crown are similar, not that it really had to go with the theme.

Our craft this week was a pop-up Prince or Princess.  I gave each kid a royal purple card cut to look like a bed.  They accordion folded a strip of card stock and used that to attach the prince or princess inside of the bed.  Then, when the covers are lifted the little royal pops out of bed.  The kids had crayons and stickers to decorate the royals and their beds with.