Dragons in Story Time

So, we are already in the fourth week of this sessions story time and I am just now getting around to posting about the first week of story time.  That's what happens when real life hits, blogging falls to the back burner.

 Anyway, for our first week of story time this fall I wanted to feature dragons so that I could introduce my dragon puppet, Sparky.  Sparky actually started doing story time with me last fall, but there are lots of new two year olds who have not met him.  So, we did a dragon themed story time with the letter D for Dragon.

The first week is always a little hectic, I lay out a few guidelines (such as keep all adult conversation for after story time because we are role models for our children) and that takes up a little time at the beginning.  I also introduce myself and give a little overview of how a typical story time goes so that they know what to expect.

After all that housekeeping we read our first dragon book Me and my dragon by David Biedrzycki.  This is a cute story about a boy who wants a fire breathing dragon for a pet.  He talks about all of the fun things that he would do with his dragon and throws in a few funny anecdotes (like why feeding broccoli to a fire-breathing dragon is bad).  Before reading this book we talked about pets and what would be a good pet..lion?...puppy?...elephant?  And then everyone yelled what they have at home as pets.  No dragons though...

Our second book was James Mayhew's Who wants a dragon?  This is the story of a sweet little baby dragon who just wants someone to love him.  Trouble is, most people in the kingdom are afraid of him.  Luckily, baby dragon finds someone who will love him.  The dragon in this book is very cute and not at all scary.

For our final story I took Eric Kimmel's I took my frog to the library and I dragon-ized it.  You can read all about it here.  Basically, I wanted to talk about good library behavior and use dragons.  So, I had dragons that brought different forms of havoc to the library - such as knocking down books with their tails, making messes they didn't clean up, ruining books, and even setting fire to the librarians hair!  

Since dragons songs are on my list of 'what children's artists need to sing more action songs about' (I admit it is a very wishful list) we did some monster and dinosaur songs instead.  Laurie Berkner's We are the dinosaurs is always a very popular song with my story time crowd.  Many know it already and that seems to make it all the more fun.

My new favorite artists Mr. Eric and Mr. Micheal have a song called We are monsters on their Bouncy Blue album.  This is a fun song that involves lots of roaring.  (Warning - it did make one little girl cry, but all the rest has SO much fun that I will keep it in the rotation.)

We also pulled out the shaker eggs for Shakable you, a super fun song by the Imagination Movers.  You shake different parts of your body then you shake and jump!  This turns into a what looks like a toddler rock concert.  I can only imagine what the people walking by my story time think we are doing at the library.

Our craft was a fire breathing dragon.  I found the idea at the KangarooBoo blog.  I modified it a little.  For the eyes I cut a slit near the bottom of the cup and the kids could slide the circles into that.  They also had stickers for the eye balls.  The 'fire' is crepe paper stuck on with double sided tape.  I poked holes in the bottom of the cup and they put a straw (cut in half) into it.  They loved that the dragon actually blew out fire.  It worked really well if you tucked the crepe paper into the cup before blowing.
 

Flannel Friday: I took my Dragon to the library

Fall story times are almost here and I managed to get my first week's flannel story done over 2 weeks before we start!  Yay for non-procratination, it is a rare feat for me.  Anyways, for the first week of story time I wanted to feature dragons so that I can introduce my puppet friend Sparky.  Sparky is a quiet dragon, he talks in whispers to me and not out loud.  He helps in story time by 'revealing' the letter of the day (very Vana White of him).  He also collects name tags at the end of story time.  Sparky only eats name tags, if you feed him anything else he will spit it out with a loud 'Blegh!' and get lots of giggles.  He has been fed many craft projects as a result.

In addition to my Sparky introductions I wanted to do a little about the library so we can tie in some conversation about story time behavior and library services.  I have always loved Eric Kimmel's book I took my frog to the library for introducing library themes, so I re-made the story and filled it with dragons.  Thus, I took my dragon to the library!  (The title just screams trouble!)

My dragons really love to read, so, I decided to take them to the library.  They can be a handful, so I took them one at a time.  On Monday, I took my Purple Dragon to the library.  My Purple Dragon loves books, but her long claws kept poking holes in them.

 On Tuesday I took my Red Dragon to the library.  My Red Dragon was really excited to check-out some DVD's, but his big teeth made all of the babies cry and we had to go home.

On Wednesday I took my Pink Dragon to the library.  She went right over to the picture books and started reading.  But, she left lots of shiny scales behind and made a big mess.

On Thursday I took my Blue Dragon to the library.  My Blue Dragon has a very long tail and when he ran too fast around the library he bumped into people and knocked shelves over.  He had to run home.

On Friday I took my Yellow Dragon to the library.  My Yellow Dragon loves story time, but she has really big wings and they blocked all of the other kids from seeing the books.  She also talked so much that no one could hear the librarian read.

On Saturday I took my Green Dragon to the library.  My Green Dragon is very well behaved.  He handled the books gently, he smiled nicely at the babies, he cleaned up his messes, he walked carefully around the library, and he sat quietly in story time.  But, my Green Dragon has allergies and he sneezed and caught the librarian's hair on fire!

The nice people at the library told me that I can come visit whenever I want, but from now on my dragons all have to stay at home.  My dragons don't mind because I bring all of their favorite books and movies home to them.  Except my Green Dragon, I can't afford to let him set and library books on fire.

My dragons and most other pieces are made from craft foam.  I found a cute clip art image that I used for the shape of the dragons and free handed the rest.  The librarian's hair is yarn that I really did light on fire (at home, not in the library!)

The flannel round-up may be found this week at Loons and Quines @ Library Time.  Past round-ups and future round-up locations can be found at the Flannel Friday blog along with lots of other goodies.  All posts are arranged on the Pinterest boards.  Check out the newest board that features the pins just from this week.