Pretending at Story Time

This week our story time theme was Pretend to kind of go along with Halloween.  Sometimes I will embrace a holiday and plan a story time around it, other times I will pick a theme that kind of goes with aspects of the holiday (i.e. pretend or dress up for Halloween, gifts or toys for Christmas etc.).

So, our letter of the day was P for Pretend.  This was little harder of a concept.  For the letter of the day I have been printing of a very large letter and putting it up with a picture that goes with our theme (like a big A and a picture of an Apple).  Most weeks, they can get the letter and the word easily with the picture.  Today many of them knew the letter 'P,' but we got to have a little chat about what it means to pretend.  They liked this part because they got to tell me what they were pretending to be today (I had told them all to come in costume).

  The first book that we read was You're a lion: and other fun yoga poses by Taeeun Yoo.  This books was a LOT of fun for the kids.  It goes through different animal yoga poses.  The poses are simple enough for all of the toddlers to do (and for me to do whilst holding a book).  I really like that the directions for the pose are given on one page and then you turn the page to find out what animal you are.  This allowed the kids to guess what they thought it was and then yell out the answer when they saw the pictures.  Then, when appropriate, we made the animal sounds.  This was a super fun book that would be great for any animal, pretend, yoga, exercise, movement etc. theme.

Our second book was Anne Margaret Lewis' Fly blanky fly.  In this story a little boy pretends his blanky is all sorts of things, such a a rocket, camel, whale, airplane, and snake.  For this book I passed out our scarves and told the kids to pretend that the scarves were their blankies.  During the story they used the scarves to do the motions of the blanky swooping, wooshing, marching, etc.

The last story that we did was a flannel board that I made for Halloween based on Pete the Cat: I love my white shoes by Eric Litwin.  In my story Pete goes out to trick or treat and meets some 'scary' charaters.  But, he is not scared as he knows that they are just other cats dressing up in costume.  But, what happens when he comes across a pumpkin dog?  You can read the full story here.

To go with the Halloween side of the theme this week we did my favorite monster songs.  First was Laurie Berkner's Monster boogie where the monsters boogie and wiggle around the room.

We also sang The Learning Groove's We are monsters where the monsters stomp, clap, shake, and roar around the room.

Since Halloween is a few days away and we all have candy on the brain we ended story time with a little parade though the library and a very quick trick or treat where the kids got to pick one piece of candy and a pouch of fruit snacks.

Our craft this week was a simple mask.  The kids got a white card stock mask that they could decorate with feathers, markers, and foamie stickers.  Then, they could tape the mask onto a jumbo craft stick to hold it up to their face.

In addition to the craft we had a few activities.  I did a Halloween party for a family program last week and my son (who my mom brings to my toddler time) really wanted to do the games.  So, we had a few games added to our play portion of toddler time.

Spider ring toss: I wrapped white yarn around an empty picture frame.  The kid threw spider rings at the web and tried to get them to stick.

Ghost bowling: I added white tissue paper to our bowling set to make the pins ghosts.

Pumpkin bean bag toss: We happened to have three of these plastic pumpkins so we tried to throw the bean bags into them.

I also set up a Spider Web Walking game that I found via Pinterest from the notimeforflashcards blog.  You can click on the link to see how the original poster set her game up.  Mine was a little simpler, there was a web and I taped spiders at various spots.  The kids were supposed to walk along the web and hop over the spiders when they got to them.  Although, a few kids used the bean bags and tried to toss the bean bags onto the spiders, so that game was fun too!

Flannel Friday: Halloween with Pete the Cat

So, if you have read this blog in the past you may know that I have a little bit of an obsession with Pete the Cat.  I have made both a Christmas and Valentines version of Pete the Cat stories.  Now, I have a Halloween version.  This story is much like the original Pete the Cat: I love my white shoes by Eric Litwin.  In this story, Pete is off for a night of trick-or-treat fun.

Trick-or-treat featuring Pete!

It was Halloween night so Pete the cat put on his grooviest costume and headed out for trick-or-treat.  As he walked he sang to himself:

‘Trick-or-treat, trick-or-treat.  Can I have something yummy to eat? …Please?’

When all of a sudden,from out from the shadows jumped a scary witch!

Was Pete scared?  Goodness no!  That witch is just a cat you know.  So Pete kept walking.

‘Trick-or-treat, trick-or-treat.  Can I have something yummy to eat? …Please?’

All of a sudden, from out from the shadows jumped a frightening monster!

Was Pete scared?  Goodness no!  That monster is just a cat you know.  So Pete kept walking.

‘Trick-or-treat, trick-or-treat.  Can I have something yummy to eat? …Please?’

All of a sudden, from out from the shadows jumped a creepy mummy!

Was Pete scared?  Goodness no!  That mummy is just a cat you know.  So Pete kept walking.

‘Trick-or-treat, trick-or-treat.  Can I have something yummy to eat? …Please?’

All of a sudden, from out of the shadows jumped a chilling ghost!

Was Pete scared?  Goodness no!  That ghost is just a cat you know.  So Pete kept walking.

‘Trick-or-treat, trick-or-treat.  Can I have something yummy to eat? …Please?’

All of a sudden, from out of the shadows jumped a pumpkin dog!

Was Pete scared?  Well… maybe a little.  But, Pete, he knew just what to do.  He looked at that dog and he said:  BOOOOOO  and Happy Halloween!

You can find the rest of this week's round-up with Katie at storytime katie.  Check out the blog for all things Flannel Friday or stop by the Pinterest boards for all Flannel Friday submissions.  

A belated Halloween

I fell behind in my storytime posting so I am just now getting around to adding my Halloween week post.  In the past I have somewhat avoided Halloween.  Tradition at our library is that kids wear their costumes the week of or the week before Halloween and I always go along with that (parents want to get the miles out of those outfits!) but I have skirted the Halloween books and done themes about dressing up, birthdays, parties, and friendly monsters.  The birthday party year was fun as the week before I had all of the parents address envelopes to their house (we did a mail theme so it fit well) and then I mailed out 'invitations' to our storytime and threw in some stickers for the kids.

This year I just embraced the theme.  I warned the parents ahead of time that the theme would be Halloween and we would be reading not too scary stories.  In the past we have had a few families who opposed the Halloween theme, but that does not seem to be an issue recently.  However, I still like to give them a head up, plus remind them that the kids get to come in costume.  So, our letter of the day was H for Halloween.

The first book that we read was Snappy Little Halloween by Dugald Steer.  This is a cute pop-up book that features some not very scary characters that kids see a lot of in October.  There is a witch, a black cat, a bat, a dancing skeleton, and a vampire whose pants fell down among others.  Each page has a big pop out and a little rhyme about the character featured on that page.  The kids enjoyed telling me who they saw on each page and watching the character 'dance' around as I moved the pages a little.

Our second book was Susan Hood's Just say boo!  This is a new book and I knew it would be great for storytime when it came in.  It features a group of kids who are out trick-or-treating and they get scared by various things.  But, each time they are scared they yell 'Boo!' and discover that what was scaring them really wasn't that scary.  Some things they encounters are the wind, wet leaves, a spider, and a woman in a skeleton costume.  I love the end of this book because it shows a baby being scared by kids in dinosaur costumes and the kids are instructed to teach the baby to say 'Boo!'

The flannel story we used was based on Chocolate chip ghost by Meighan Peifer.  My coworker actually made her own version that I borrowed.  Essentially, the story is that in order to stay white little ghosts have to keep to a strict diet of white food, i.e. milk, cauliflower, and vanilla icecream.  But, one day, the ghost family runs out of their special white food and mommy ghost has to go to the store.  She leaves her little ghosts with the instructions to not eat anything while she is gone.  But, those poor, hungry little ghosts just can't help themselves.  As they eat different fruits and vegetables they turn different colors to match the food.  I showed the kids the food and they told me first what it was and then what color the ghost would turn.  The last ghost ate a chocolate chip cookie and turned brown with spots!  Mommy ghost came home and fed the ghosts their special food and they returned to white.  Although, the chocolate chip ghost had to have extra milk, because milk goes so well with cookies!

Another fun book that you can use with a Halloween theme is Shake d'em Halloween bones by W. Nikola-Lisa.  This is a fun book for the older crowd and I used it for a story time that I did at my daughter's pre-school.  I give all of the kids shaker eggs before we start because it has a refrain through the song about shaking d'em Halloween bones.  They really mean dance as the story is about a Halloween party that features fairytale characters.  It is a fun book and has a great beat.  I used this one the year we did a party theme for Halloween.

There are lots of great songs for a monster or Halloween theme.  The Learning Groove has We are monsters that has the kids stomp, clap, shake, like monsters.  In addition they get to do a lot of growling.

I pulled out Andrew Gold's Monster mash and gave all the kids scarves to dance around with.  I had to direct them some with their scarves.  We waved them around over our heads, up and down, left and right, and tried to do a little 'mashing.'

Laurie Berkner has a fun song called the Monster boogie.  This is a fun song with lots of dancing while also acting like a big scary monster.  And, of course, this song ends with a big ROAR!

Instead of a craft I sent all of the kids on a ghost hunt in the library.  I got the idea from Storytime ABC's. Kay, at Storytime ABC's, came up with a cute rhyme to show that scary things are not always what they seem and demonstrated this by having a 'ghost' which was a lollipop in disguise.  So, instead of a craft all of the kids searched the library for a lollipop ghost and a pack of fruit snacks with a ghost taped to it.