Mushy Gushy Valentine Round-Up

Thanks to everyone who contributed to this week's Valentine themed round-up.  There are some great Valentine flannel boards as well as non-Valentine submissions.

I have to admit, there was so much 'cuteness' going on this week  that I had to pull up a thesaurus to try and avoid repeating the words 'cute' and 'adorable' along with every entry.  Admittedly the same words are still repeated a lot (a big pet peeve of mine thanks to a wonderful high school English teacher), but I had a hard time using a word like delectable for flannel, makes it sound like I want to eat them.  Although, we do have some flannel eating going on this week so perhaps that would have been appropriate.

Anyway, here is our Mushy-Gushy Round-Up for 2013, complete with mushy and many great non-mushy flannelboards.  They are color coded based on if they are Valentiney or not.  Shades of red are Valentine themed and shades of blue are not.  And there is one purple that is based on a non-Valentine book but could fit great into a Valentine theme.  Enjoy!

Amy from catch the possibilities features her sparkly version of Five little snowflakes and also shares some tips for making the task of cutting out those intricate flakes less daunting.

Andrea at librarianvsstorytime has a very cute Valentine game based off of Sara Weeks' book Be mine, be mine, sweet Valentine.

Anna of Future Librarian Superhero shares with us how she uses her adorable monster puppet Fergus in storytime.  I have to agree with Anna's post, puppets eating things during storytime is HIGHLY entertaining.

Anne at sotomorrow features a fun Circus Elephant cut and tell rhyme.  Not mushy, but you could argue that the elephants are kissing...

Jane and Piper from Piper Loves the Library are sorting their laundry with Valentine mittens!  Jane has also revamped Library Quine's currant buns to dress them up for Valentine's day.

Jen in the library brings us Vincent's Valentine Animals.  This funny story has got to be a hit, how can it not be with animals exchanging heads and mixing up their noises?

Kay at Storytime ABC's is bringing the cold to Florida with her darling Polar Friends.

Lena of sixcranberries felted some charming Finger Puppet Crows to go along with a wintry rhyme that she adapted from the song Three Craws.

Library Quine at Loons and Quines @ Librarytime has a darling Little Green Bug that is helping her share rhyming words in the library.  LQ also shows us her new (possibly faster) method of adding amazing detail to her flannels.

Linda of Notes from the Story Room shows us how to share the story Karen's Valentine's day surprise as either a draw and tell or a flannelboard story.

Lisa from Libraryland shares her version of the rhyme Valentine Race, complete with sparkly heart Valentines.

Lucy at In the Children's Room made her own version of a Valentine tree along with a super cute (and easy!) craft to go along with it.

Madigan from Madigan Reads shows us her adorable Owl Feltboard.  She uses some textured flannel that adds that extra something to some already charming owls.

Mel of Mel's Desk is skipping Valentine's Day all together and heading all the way on into fall.  That's right folks, this lady is really planning ahead with her impressive fall flannel pieces to accompany Lindsay Barrett George's book That pup!

Miss Kristine joins us this week via Loons and Quines (welcome Miss Kristine!) where she shares her delightful hand holding Octopi.

Mrs Shaia at Thrive After Three shares a very cute flannelization of the story Tuck me in.  Each of the adorable animals have a matching blankie, so cute!

Sandy from Storytime Sparks brings us the rhyme Five in the truck as well as several other ideas for a truck themed storytime.  Sandy claims that her flannelboard is not Valentiney but, I have had many storytime friends for whom Trucks = Love.

Sharon of Rain Makes Applesauce shares her fun version of the perfect Valentine story, Matt Novak's My froggy Valentine.

Tara over at Storytime with Miss Tara and friends is Blowing Kisses on her flannelboard  and then out to her storytime friends.  What a wonderful idea to include the audience and kids LOVE stickers!


Hopefully this will provide some inspiration for all of your upcoming storytimes, Valentine's or not.  Be sure to check the Pinterest Page for all of these as well as past submissions wonderfully organized by a wide variety of themes.  For all other Flannel Friday stuff, check the blog.

Next week's host is Anne at sotomorrow.

Also, keep in mind that there are two more extravaganzas coming up, the Dig in to Reading (SRP theme for many of us in the states - bugs and dirt) will be on March 1 and the Flannel Friday Birthday Extravaganza will be on March 15.

That's it for this week, until next week - Happy Flannelling!

Mushy-gushy Round-up for 1.25.13

This week we are kicking off the season of love - flannel style.  So, if you have one, please share a Valentine themed flannel board.  If you do not have one, please feel free to share any other flannel board that you love.  (That would make a good Valentine theme story time - 'Stories I love...')  Don't worry if you aren't going along with our theme, we are equal opportunity idea stealers!

Flannel Friday: My Froggy Valentine

While it is probably late for Valentine's flannel stories, I just had to re-share this one.  For the Valentine edition of Flannel Friday Miss Cate at Storytiming shared her flannel version of Matt Novak's My froggy valentine.  I ran across it last week when looking for something to use for my Valentine theme this week and it was too cute to pass up.  Also, if you happen to need a Valentine flannel for next week and have a frog dye-cut you could probably whip up your own version fairly quickly.

This story is a cute take on the story of the Princess and the Frog.  We did not actually have the book at my library (nor did any libraries I had access to though ILL) so I had to modify some and based my re-telling on Cate's post and reviews that I could find for the book.  All of the flannel pieces have 2 sides, so when you say 'Poof' (or whatever you want to use) you flip them over (which is why this one is actually made of flannel).  Also, Polly has some kissing lips that you put on each frog as she kisses him.  As I told it:

Princess Polly was lonely and she decided that she really wanted to meet a prince.  The problem was that she spent most of her time down at the pond, so all she met were frogs.

One day she was telling the frogs about how lonely she was and how much she wanted to meet a prince.  The frogs informed her that they were, in fact, princes under spells that could be broken if she kissed them.  Being that Polly knew her fairytales, she decided to give it a try, so she puckered up and gave the first frog a BIG kiss.  (Here I had all of the kids make kissing sounds).  And, poof!  The frog turned into...

... a hairy beast!  'You are not a prince,' cried Polly, 'you are a hairy beast!'
'True,' replied the Hairy Beast, 'but I am Prince of all hairy beasts!'
But, Polly was not looking for the Prince of Hairy Beasts so she decided to give the second frog a kiss.  (Kissing noises from the kids again).  And, poof!

... an ogre!  'You are an ogre, not a prince' said Polly.
'No, I am the prince of ogres,' replied the Ogre.
But, Polly was not looking for an Ogre prince, so she went ahead and kissed the third frog.  (Kissing sounds).  And, poof!

... a toad stool!  (From what I could find the book has a goblin here, but I already had decided that I wanted a toadstool.  Not sure why, maybe to much Mario Bros as a kid?  Either way he is my favorite and got lots of  'awwwws' from the parents.)  'Let me guess,' said Polly, 'you are prince of the toadstools?'
'Yep,' said the Toadstool, 'marry me?'
'No thanks,' said Polly.
She turned to the last frog.  At this point she was really sick of kissing frogs, but there was only one left so why not try.  She puckered up... (kissing sounds) and, poof!

Princess Polly turned into a frog!  'You are in luck,' the last frog told her, 'for I am Prince of the Frogs and you can be my princess!'
And the two frogs hooped happily away together!

Anyone feel like kissing a frog?

You can find this week's round-up all the way across the pond (if you are in the States like I am) with Library Quine at Loons and Quines @ Librarytime, a history of round-ups with Anne at Sotomorrow or you can have a visual feast of flannel at Pinterest by clicking on the Flannel Friday button to your right.

Happy Valentine's Day!

This week at story time we celebrated Valentine's Day a week early.  Next week the actual holiday falls in the middle of my story time week and since our craft is a valentine card we went ahead and did the theme this week so that the kids can give their card to someone.  So, our letter of the day this week was V, for Valentine, Van, Vest, and Violet (a color and a name!).

The first book this week was all about hearts.  Micheal Hall's My heart is like a zoo is an adorable book that features lots of animals made for various sizes of hearts.  There are lots of animals depicted in this simple yet bold style.  The kids seemed to like this one and we were able to take a break from time to time and make animal sounds.  There were also a few 'silly' pages with hippos drinking apple juice and walruses lounging on towels that the kids enjoyed.

Our second book was Felicia Bond's new book Big hugs, little hugs.  This is a very simple and sweet story all about hugs.  It shows different animals hugging and different ways of hugging.  With only a few words on each page this one is good for the toddlers.  It would also be a good book about opposites.

This week's flannel story was from the book My froggy valentine by Matt Novak.  I ran across this story at Storytiming when Miss Cate posted it for a Valentine edition of Flannel Friday.  I loved the innovative use of the backs of the frogs so I added it in this week.  The story is about a princess that is looking for a prince.  She lets some frogs talk her into kissing them when they promise that they will turn into princes.  However, they are not human princes as Polly finds out after kissing them.  The real surprise is at the end when Polly kisses the last frog and turns into a frog herself!  Cute surprise that the kids (and parents) seemed to enjoy.  You can read more about my version of the story here.

Not all of our songs this week were lovey-dovey, but we tried.  We did do a few such as If you love me and you know it.  I modified If you're happy and you know it to sing:
If you love me and you know it wave hello,
If you love me and you know it wave hello.
If you love me and you know it then you really ought to show it,
If you love me and you know it wave hello.


Repeat with:
Give a Hug
Give a Kiss

We also briefly reference Valentine's Day with the song Counting valentines (to the tune of 1 little, 2 little, 3 little indians):
1 little, 2 little, 3 little valentines.
4 little, 5 little, 6 little valentines.
7 little, 8 little, 9 little valentines.
10 little valentines for you!

Then we sang it again only counting backwards.  We practiced our counting beforehand.  I had made up felt hearts to use as we sang, but instead opted to just count on my fingers since the song doesn't take very long.

Another song we did this week was Carole Peterson's Shake a friends hand.  This concept may have been a little above the 2 and 3's, but they made and effort to shake a friends hand, give high fives, scratch backs, and bump hips.  It was nice to see the parents getting involved too.

Just for fun was sang The Wiggles' version of Shake your sillies out.  We got out the shaker eggs for this one.

We ended story time this week with the song Skinnamarink.  I used Carole Peterson's version here.  It is nice and slow and goes through twice, so the kids get the hang of it but it doesn't go on forever.

Our craft this week was based on the book My heart is like a zoo.  I saw these adorable heart lions posted at Storytime ABC's.  I modified them so that they became cards with the message 'I love you, I'm not lyin'!'  (I have to say, my husband hated this pun and wanted me to put 'I love you and I'm not a tiger!' - too bad he is not in charge of story time!)