Me Caveman

Recently I ran across some picture books featuring cavemen that I thought were fun and so, a story time about cavemen!  I actually called our theme Me featuring the letter M because both book titles start with the word Me.

I decided to give Sparky a little rest this week and instead we had Animal from the Muppets here to introduce our theme.  Usually, at the end of story time, Sparky collects the kids name tags by eating them.  But, this week is the last week of the session so the kids get to take the name tags home.  Animal told the kids that Sparky was on vacation, looking for some name tags to eat!

Our first book was Me want pet by Tammi Sauer.  Cave boy wants a pet so he goes searching high and low and all over for one.  Each potential pet he brings home poses some kind of issue, so he has to keep looking.  I really like the dialog in this book.  Lots of 'cave talk' for cave boy and his family.  I love the part where the grandma is talking about one pet and says 'he no potty-trained.'  This is a cute story and led to a discussion of what types of pets the kids have at home.

The second book we read was Jeremy Tankard's Me Hungry!  In this book, you guessed it, the cave boy is hungry.  But, mom and dad are too busy, so he goes off hunting.  He finds some unsuitable foods before running across a big friend who happens to be hungry too.  They work together and are rewarded with a snack.  This one has really short text, but as I am reading I ask the kids if each item would be good for him to eat.

Our last story was more of a puppet show.  Animal came back and demanded 'me want cookie!'  Instead we tried to give him some fruits and vegetables, but he spit them all out.  The kids LOVED this.  Each item that I put in Animal's mouth was spit back out with a 'BLEHHHH' and then he shook his head and said 'mmm-umm, mmm-umm, Me want cookie!'  After spitting out an assortment of fruits and vegetables, Animal looked at me and very nicely said 'me want cookie pleeeease?'  So, since he asked so nicely we let him have a cookie, but wouldn't you know it, he chewed it happily for a minute before spitting it out and demanding 'me want pizza!'  Sadly, there was no pizza to be had, so he went off to take a nap.  I had wanted to use Cookie Monster for this one, but we did not have a Cookie Monster puppet.  My dad had 2 Animal puppets, and I figured that he looks kind of like a caveman, so that fit right in.  You can see more pictures from Animal's appearance here.

Our songs we not really related to cavemen (if there are any out there, let me know).  My co-worker noted dinosaurs lived with the cavemen, so we sang Laurie Berkner's We are the dinosaurs.  Two kids informed me that this was their favorite song.  It is fun to end with a loud 'ROAR!!!'

The Imagination Movers have a song called Shakable you.  We used our shaker eggs as we shook our arms, legs, head, hips, and then jumped around like crazy.  This is a very upbeat song.

It did rain a few days this week so that fit with Carole Peterson's Singing in the rain.  The great part about this version is that there are actions between each verse.  You add a new one each round and then say 'ooo-ga chuck-a, ooo-ga chuck-a' which sounds kind of caveman-like.  Each time we sang the singing in the rain part we put our hands in the air and waved them.

Our craft was rather simple this week.  We planted grass seed in a cup that was decorated like a face.  Each kid got some eye stickers and markers to decorate the cup.  The plan is that the grass seed will grow up to look like green hair.

Beep Beep Vroom Vroom

Last week's story time was a LOT of fun.  I aim for fun every week, but last week seemed more so.  It probably helped that there was a little more activity, so all of those wiggly little boys were more engaged.  Plus, our theme was Go, go, go, featuring the letter G along with planes, trains, and automobiles and there was a song that involved screaming.  So, not only were those wiggly little boys more engaged, they were excited to see what was coming next!

Our format was a little different, which made me nervous, but ended up working out well.  Generally, my story time format is as follows:
Hello songs (we do one a capella and one with the ipod)
Sparky introduces the letter of the day and our theme
Read book 1
Song on the ipod
Open shut them fingerplay
Read book 2
Song on ipod using scarves, shakers, etc.
Open the book fingerplay
Flannel board story
Song on the ipod
Explain craft
Goodbye song

This format tends to work really well for me, but last week I found a really great idea that worked better if I switched the flannel story and Book 2.  It worked out well because the second book was rather interactive, but I will get to that in a minute.

The first book that we read was Toot, toot, beep, beep by Emma Garcia.  This is the second of her books that I have used this session and they are great for story time.  The illustrations are big, bold, and bright and the text is simple and involves making fun noises.  This book features a variety of cars making noise as they drive through the city.  On each page I would tell the kids what kind of car it was and they would tell me what color the car was.

The flannel story that I did was a twist on Bill Martin's Brown bear, brown bear, what do you see?  I found the idea at ValleyStorytime.  I simply made a variety of transportation modes from craft foam.  I used clip art to get the shapes as my vehicular drawing skills are rather lacking.  Then, I would put one at a time up and the kids would tell me what it was as well as what color it was.  Then, say it was the red bus, we would say 'red bus, red bus, what do you see?'  I would take down the bus and put up something else.  I ended with a yellow race car (it got left out of the picture) so that to end the story I could say 'I see a yellow race car speeding past me!'  Then I drove the race car away behind the story time cart so that everyone would know that the story was over.  You can see more pictures at my post here.

Our last book was In the driver's seat by Max Haynes.  I found this great idea over at Storytiming and knew it was too fun to pass up.  I made up some steering wheels using paper plates and a steering wheel coloring page.  I used the coloring page so that the kids could color it as part of their craft.  As we read  the book they 'drove' with their steering wheels.  I added a few more actions that went along with the book, such as bouncing up and down over mountain roads, plugging our noses as we plunged into a lake, swimming out of the lake, etc.  The kids really enjoyed this and loved that they got to keep the steering wheel.


Before reading the last book we sang one of my favorite songs.  Several years ago I saw a post on PUBYAC with the song:
Row, row, row your boat
Gently down the stream.
If you see an alligator,
Don't forget to scream!

(Not sure who to give credit to here, I have seen it many times since.  If you know I can add that in.)

We sing this once to learn the words and practice screaming in case we see any alligators.  Then, as we sing I pull various puppets out and scream like crazy at each one that is not an alligator.  The kids all laugh and correct me (though by the 2nd or 3rd round they are screaming right along with me at the monkey puppet).  They would probably do this for the entire half hour of story time, but after about 6 random animal puppets I bring out the alligator.  I do not scream as he climbs up on top of my head.  Then, I sit calmly as the kids go nuts pointing to the alligator on my head.  After a minute I look up and scream, then the alligator whispers in my ear that he is really friendly and just wants to read a story with us, so, of course, we let him.

We also sang To stop the train by Peter and Ellen Allard.  This is a song that repeats the same few lines and gets faster and faster.  It has a good 'train' sound so we cycle our arms like the wheels of a train and go faster and faster along with the music.  We also pull on a cord and say 'toot-toot.'  (**I should note that this song gets stuck in my head every time I think about it.  It kept me from sleeping one night last week!  I guess it is just that catchy!**)

Scott Besaw has a version of the Wheels on the bus that is fun.  I gave all of the kids scarves for this one that we hold as we do the motions.  This has the typical motions like the doors, driver, wipers, babies, but also includes the muffler so all of the kids get to stick out their tongues and make a pfffttt sound which is always fun.

I put Ralph Covert's Driving in my car right after reading In the driver's seat.  This way all of the kids had steering wheels to use as we sang about driving our cars all the way to Minneapolis.  This song is a little long, so we did the verses that has a car horn, windshield wipers, and a muffler (more pfffttt sounds) and then we stopped the song.

Our craft, in addition to coloring the steering wheels, was a train conductors hat.  I found the craft here at Danielle's Place.  The kids colored it and then (with parental help) assembled it with glue sticks and double sided tape.  I was worried they might be a little challenging for the parents, but most had no trouble and they turned out great!

I must add, that the story ideas mentioned were both posted to Flannel Friday, there are so many great ideas posted there!  Check out the Pinterest page by clicking the Flannel Friday button to the right if you are not familiar with Flannel Friday!

Flannel Friday: Things that Go

This week our story time theme was Things that go.  It was a really fun theme and hopefully I will get the rest of our story time posted soon, (it is up and you can read about the entire story time here!) but for now, here is our flannel story.  I got this idea from another Flannel Friday post that I saw at ValleyStorytime.  
The story is like Bill Martin's Brown Bear, Brown Bear, what do you see?  So, I had various modes of transportation in an array of colors.  I would have the kids tell me what it was and what color it was.  Then we would all say (if it was a red bus) 'Red bus, red bus, what do you see?'  I put up only one item at a time, so I would then switch the items and they would tell me what the new one was.  I ended with a yellow race car and said 'I see a yellow car racing past me!' and then 'zoomed' the whole flannel board away to hide behind my story time cart.

There is a yellow race car that did not make the picture as I left it behind at work.  I made all of my vehicles out of craft foam.  I did use clip art as templates for these as my car drawing skills are not so great.

The blimp was a favorite as we live near the Blimp hanger and see it flying around often.

And now for a quick lesson...save your templates!  Luckily I did because I brought this one home and it was just too tempting for a crazy little guy.  He managed to grab these and ripped apart my blue truck.  (Perhaps that is an advantage to flannel over foam?)  I may just tape it back together, but I did save all the pictures that  I used in a file, so I can re-make any if needed.  If I can re-use templates that I have printed out I keep them in a large manila envelope with the finished pieces.

Oh yeah, and keep them away from ornery little car enthusiasts!

You can find this week's round up with Kay Leigh at Story Time ABC's, past round ups with Anne at Sotomorrow, and all posts compiled on Pinterest by clicking the Flannel Friday link on the right.

Flannel Friday: Birthday Cake

 This week's story time was all about birthdays!  We celebrated my puppet Sparky's birthday.  Despite what his hat says he was turning 2.  My flannel this week was inspired by Storytime Katie, although I ended up making my own rhyme so the kids could 'blow' out the candles.

We had a cake and we 'lit' the candles, counting them as we went.  Then our rhyme went:
5 candles on a birthday cake.
If we blow one out, how many does that make.

Then, all of this kids would blow as hard as they could and I would pull off one flame.  Then, we re-counted the flames and repeated with 4, 3, 2, and 1 candles.

My grand plan was that I would have fishing wire attached to the flames and I could pull them of invisibly.  But, I made a mistake and glued the wire on coming out of the bottom of the flame instead of the top, making them harder to stick on and disguise.  So, not having much time for a re-do, I just cut the wire and did it by hand.

Also during story time we 'baked' a cake using the foam baking ingredients I used for a cookie baking story time last fall.  Sparky dropped the ingredients in and stirred them around (the kids added to the stirring motion) and then put them in the oven.  When story time was done, Sparky gave everyone a cupcake!  Somehow, it never fails that if I serve food at story time the parents tell me how great the program was (which is odd as I always expect that they will be annoyed I gave their children sugar).

The round-up this week is hosted by Cate at Storytiming.com.  A list of past round-ups can be found at Sotomorrow and all contributions will be pinned to the Pinterest page, found by clicking the Flannel Friday button to the right. 

Happy Birthday Sparky!

 This week at story time we celebrated Sparky's birthday.  (Actually, it was my birthday, but I decided to share it with Sparky and avoid all of the 'How old is Miss Sarah' questions.)  So our letter of the day was B for Birthday.

We began by talking about how old everyone turned on their birthday.  I had planned to talk about what month their birthday was in, but they had enough trouble telling me how old they are, so I skipped that one.  But, we talked about how on your birthday you have cake and blow out candles, open presents, and sometimes have a party and play games.

Our first book was Little Mouse and the big cupcake by Thomas Taylor.  This is a cute story about a little mouse who finds a cupcake that is so big that he cannot carry it home.  When friends come by he asks for their help carrying it, but it is too big for all of them.  But, they do ask to try the cupcake and being very good at sharing little mouse lets everyone take a bite.  Before long the cupcake is the perfect size for a mouse and everyone has had a nice lesson about sharing.

Before we read our second book Sparky came out and announced that he wanted to make some cake.  So, he got out a bowl and we put ingredients for a cake into it and Sparky mixed it up.  Last fall I had done a cookie story time, so I already had foam ingredients for the cake.  Sparky put it in the oven to cook while we read some more books.

The second book we read was Jan Thomas' A birthday for Cow!  I had a hard time telling if the kids liked this book or not.  The parents had some chuckles, so someone enjoyed it.  In the story, pig and mouse want to make a birthday cake for cow.  Duck tries to help, but keeps trying to sneak a turnip in wherever he can.  Despite duck's efforts, cow and mouse get a cake baked and decorated.  When cow comes along, he is really excited to get .... A TURNIP!!

This week's flannel story was blowing out candles on a birthday cake.  I got inspiration for it from Storytime Katie.  Since blowing out candles is the best part of a cake I made up a rhyme so that the kids could do that.  First, we lit the candles on the cake, counting as we went. 

 Then we said:
5 candles on a birthday cake.
If we blow one out, how many will that make?

Then all of the kids would blow and I pulled off one flame and we counted the flames that were left.  We repeated the rhyme with 4, 3, 2, and 1 candles until they were all 'blown out.'

We had fun singing Carole Peterson's Stinky cake song.  This song is all about baking a really stinky cake.  I gave all the kids scarves to wave in front of their noses as we added dirty socks, moldy fish, baby diapers, and a stinky skunk into the cake.  I had all of these items on hand so I would drop them into the bowl as we sang about them.  I was rather surprised by how many kids said that they would eat the cake.

Carole Peterson was busy during story time because we also did two more of here songs.  Tommy Thumb is up is a fingerplay song that I have used many times.  It is a good sitting song and is much like Where is Thumbkin.  I like that in Carole's version the kids use thumb, pointer fingers, pinkie fingers, and all the fingers; leaving off the tricky middle fingers.  We ended with B-Bananas which is a chant where the kids act like a banana, peel it, eat it, go bananas, then repeat.

Just for fun we also sang Clap your hands from the album Wiggleworms love you.  This is an active song where the kids clap, stomp, wave, and brush their teeth.

Sparky's cupcakes finished up just as story time was ending, so our craft for the day was icing cupcakes.  To make things easier I pre-portioned the icing and gave kids a craft stick to spread it with.  Then they took turns adding some sprinkles.  Most ate all of the cupcake before going, but I did have some baggies on hand for those who wanted to finish the cupcake later.

Flannel Friday: Tools

This week our story time theme was tools, so I borrowed a song that Meghan at Busy Crating Mommy posted a few months back.  She had a whole tool belt and a few more tools than I made, but it was a fun song.  I used clip art for the shapes of my tools and they are made from craft foam.  My version was a tad different, instead of singing that MacDonald had a toolbelt, he just had some tools.  I put one tool up at a time so the kids could name it.  We talked about its sound or action, then we sang:

Old MacDonald had some tools, E-I-E-I-O.
And with those tools he had a hammer, E-I-E-I-O.
With a bang, bang, here and a bang, bang, there.
Here a bang, there a bang, everywhere a bang, bang,
Old MacDonald had some tools, E-I-E-I-O.

We repeated with:
A saw that went see-saw
A wrench that turn-turned
A screwdriver that would twist-twist
Pliers that pinch-pinch
And a drill that went ZZZZ-ZZZZ

Songs like this are great because I can always cut them down if the kids lose interest.  Plus, since it is a tune they know, all the kids and parents sing along!

You can see my full story time here.  This week's round-up is hosted by  Library Quine at Loons and Quines @ Librarytime.  Links to past round-ups are with Anne at Sotomorrow, you can click the link to the right to see all posts on Pinterest, or you can check out the Facebook group.

Tap, tap, tap, with your hammer

This week's exciting story time theme was tools.  I have noticed that having a 2 year old boy at home has influenced my story time choices some.  We have a few more 'boy' themes this spring.  Although, there were quite a few girls who also knew the names of tools, so it wasn't only for the boys.  Our letter of the day was T for Tools and after naming some 'T' words like tongue, toes, and turtles; Sparky pulled out a hammer to get us thinking about tools.

Our first book was Demolition by Sally Sutton.  When I asked if they knew what demolition meant they were no answers.  But, when I told them it was like building a block tower and knocking it down they all got it.  And that it what this book is all about.  There is lots of heavy machinery that knocks down a building, grinds up and recycles the materials, and then builds a new play ground.  This book has colorful, large illustrations and descriptive, rhyming text.

The second book that we read was Tap, tap, bang, bang by Emma Garcia.  This book is all about tools and the sounds they make.  As I read this book I would make motions like I was using the particular tools, such as the saw, drill, wrench, etc.  Many of the kids did this along with me and that kept them really really interested in the book.  There are lots of 'noises' in this book that can be fun to make (like the drill) and the cartoon tools are big, bold, and bright.

Our last book was Philemon Sturges' I love tools!  This book also talks about the different tools that are used in the construction of a bird house.  It has very simple, rhyming text as the little boy describes what each tool can do.

We had several tool related songs and rhymes this week.  We did a fingerplay that I found at Mel's Desk called 5 little nails.  Mel actually made hers into a prop that is cool, but we used our fingers and did the rhyme (my version was slightly different than Mel's):

5 little nails, standing straight and steady.
Here comes the carpenter, with a hammer ready,
Bang, bang, bang!

We counted out nails between each round and repeated with 4, 3, 2, and 1 nails.

I made a flannel board for a song that I found called Old MacDonald had a tool belt.  I first saw this posted by Meghan at Busy Crafting Mommy.  My version is shorter, and less beautiful than Meghan's, but the kids didn't know the difference and enjoyed it.
We sang:

Old MacDonald had some tools, E-I-E-I-O.
And with those tools he had a hammer, E-I-E-I-O.
With a bang, bang, here and a bang, bang, there.
Here a bang, there a bang, everywhere a bang, bang,
Old MacDonald had some tools, E-I-E-I-O.

We repeated with:
A saw that went see-saw
A wrench that turn-turned
A screwdriver that would twist-twist
Pliers that pinch-pinch
And a drill that went ZZZZ-ZZZZ

We also sang Carole Peterson's I can hammer.  This song starts with the kids using one hammer and each round adds a hand, both feet, and their head.

Raffi has a song called Bumping up and down that is a fun tool-ish song.  First you bump up and down in the wagon, but it breaks, so we bumped up and down tilted to the side.  Then we fixed the wagon with a hammer so we could bump up and down again, but it breaks and we tilt the other way.  We fix it again with some pliers so that we can bump up and down one last time.

It had nothing to do with tools, but for fun we got out the scarves and sang Johnette Downing's Shake your scarves.  I love this song and the kids really enjoy the scarves.  You shakes the scarves up, down, around, on knees, with different hands, on your back, all over.  It is fun and mildly therapeutic.

Our craft for the day was a hammer shaker.  I took empty toilet paper tubes, put a little corn inside and covered the ends.  Each kid had some white paper to color and wrap around the tube and a hammer for each side of the tube.  They really seemed to enjoy these hammers.  It was a little more prep than I tend to do, (good busy work if you have teen volunteers) but I think they turned out well.