November Story Time

 BOOKS

Books read for this November themed story time were "Thank You Sarah: The Woman Who Saved Thanksgiving" by Laurie Halse Anderson and "In November" by Cythia Rylant. The first one was a little long for the group that showed up but the parents really enjoyed it. 

Fun Fact: Our newest national holiday is Juneteenth. It was added in 2021. Before that, Martin Luther King Jr day was our newest holiday, having been added in 1983. 

MAGNET RHYME

 We Eat Turkey (tune of Frere Jacques)

We eat turkey x2
Oh so good x2
Always on Thanksgiving x2
Yum, yum, yum x2

last verse. . . 

Dinner's over x2
We are stuffed x2
What a great Thanksgiving x2
Yum, yum, yum x2

FLANNEL RHYME

4 Baby Owls Learning to Say "Who"

This rhyme comes from Storytime In The Stacks. Click here to read about the fun interactive rhyme. 

5 Kites

We did this one at the very end, after our scarf songs. In the poem, when the wind blows hard, the kids waved their scarves in the air and when the wind blows hard, they make wind noises. 

Way up high in the sky so blue
5 little kites flew and flew.
The wind blew hard and the wind blew loud
And the wind blew the yellow kite off to the clouds.

How I tied this rhyme in with the November theme was the wind. In November it may feel windier because the air is cold but March is actually said to be the windiest month. I had them guess which month was the windiest. 

SCARF SONGS

Once I Was A Seed

Once I was a seed and I was small, small, small. (hide scarf in fist)
I grew into a tree and now I'm tall, tall, tall. (pull scarf vertically out of fist)
My branches sway in the breeze so soft. (wave in air)
And when it's autumn all my leaves fall off! (toss into air)

Autumn Leaves Are Falling Down (tune of London Bridge)

Autumn leaves are falling down (flutter scarf down)
falling down, falling down
Autumn leaves are falling down
All around the town.

Additional verses . . .

The wind will blow them round and round ( make circle in air with scarf)
Take a rake and rake them up (pretend scarf is a rake)
Now let's jump into a pile (jump and throw scarf in air)

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20 MORE book dedications

 

 

Reading book dedications is one of my favorite things to do with our library books! 

Unlike my first 20 book dedications, there may be some books from the adult fiction section in this collection- not just Young Adult and Juvenile Fiction. A couple are e-book screen shots and will look different. 

If you missed the first post, My Top 20 Children and Yound Adult Book Dedications, click here!

1. Truly, Madly, Deadly by Hannah Jayne

2. Truly Devious by Maureen Johnson

 3. The Bronzed Beasts by Roshani Chokshi

 

4. Warrior of the Wild by Tricia Levenseller

5. A Lesson In Vengeance by Victoria Lee

6. The Beginning of Everything by Robyn Schneider

7.The Stone Child by David Robertson

8. Fast Pitch by Nic Stone

9. WEREling by Steve Feasey

10. Almost Adulting by Arden Rose

11.  Dead Dead Girls by Nekasa Afia

12. Black Bird, Blue Road by Sofiya Pasternack

 

13. Oh shoot. . . I didn't record the title for this book. It's one of the Brotherband Chronicle books 

 

14.Foxglove by Adalyn Grace

15.  I Don't Want To Be Big by Dev Petty

16. Plot Twist by Bethany Turner

17. Strangers Assume My Girlfriend Is My Nurse by Shane Burcaw

18. The Human Kaboom by Adam Rubin

 19. The Day The Crayons Quit by Drew Daywalt (Look for the lone single sentence in lower half)

20. The Obsession by Jessie Squanto

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Thanksgiving Storytime

Family story times are generally not my thing. Our library tried Saturday story times for a while and those never took off and those were intended for all ages. The ones I currently do are either for toddlers/babies or PreK kids. 

This holiday Thanksgiving story time was attended by both groups and elementary school kids and guys . . .  it went great!!  

 

Here's the readers digest version:

1. Storytime welcome song

2. Baby/toddler welcome song

3. BOOK - "Celebrating Holidays: Thanksgiving"

4. SONG: We Eat Turkey

5. BEAN BAG SONG: There's A Turkey On My Head

6. SONG: If You're Ready For A Story Clap Your Hands

7. BOOK - "Bear Says Thanks" by Karma Wilson

8. SCARF SONG: Autumn Leaves Are Falling Down

9. Closing song (Skinnamarink)

 

Of course, there were a couple spontaneous re-focusing/attention-getting rhymes but that was it. Simple, sweet and it lasted over 30 minutes.

Now for a better run-down of some songs. 

SONG: We Eat Turkey  (tune: Frere Jacques)

We eat turkey x2
Oh so good x2
Always on Thanksgiving x2
Yum, yum, yum x2

last verse. . . 

Dinner's over x2
We are stuffed x2
What a great Thanksgiving x2
Yum, yum, yum x2

The story time group has been singing this one since Halloween so they knew it well. For this song, I printed off 7 foods that are popular for Thanksgiving dinner. They are magnetic. The way we would sing this song is . . .  the paper foods would be mixed into a hat. We would take turns letting kids grab a food from the hat, identify it out loud, put it on the board and then we'd sing a verse about it. 

BEAN BAG SONG: There's A Turkey On My Head

There's a turkey in the air, in the air x2
There's a turkey in the air, now he's flying in my hair
There's a turkey in the air, in the air

There's a turkey on my leg on my leg x2
There's a turkey on my leg and he is pretty big
There's a turkey on my leg, on my leg

There's a turkey on my hand, on my hand x2
There's a turkey on my hand but now he is my friend
There's a turkey on my hand, on my hand

We pretended that bean bags were turkeys and balanced them on our heads, legs and hands. This was a monthly song (a version of it) for the baby group 2 months ago so it helped that that group knew this one well.

SCARF SONG: Autumn Leaves Are Falling Down (tune: London Bridge)

Autumn leaves are falling down (throw scarf in air and flutter down)
Falling down, falling down
Autumn leaves are falling down
All around the town.

The wind will blow them round and round (twirl scarf in circular motion)
Round and round, round and round
The wind will blow them round and round
All around the town.

Take a rake and rake them up (pretend to use scarf as a rake)
Rake them up, rake them up
Take a rake and rake them up
All around the town.

Now let's jump into the pile (throw in air and jump)
Into the pile, into the pile
Now let's jump into the pile
All around the town. 

One of the unmentioned things we did was practice our turkey gobbling. I used an ipad and we watched 2 youtube videos of turkeys in the wild making gobble sounds. 

Story time was followed by a turkey scavenger hunt.

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Turkey Scavenger Hunt

 Use these free printable files to create your own Turkey Scavenger Hunt. The turkey images used were found using a quick google search. 

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Dracula and Vampire Halloween Printables

 Yall. I am SO disappointed. 

I forgot to take pictures of my tabletop activities for Halloween!!!

Interactive Bulletin Board

The concept for this was: To prevent a vampire from rising, an old slavic tradition was to plant a rosebush over the grave. 

Kids colored roses, cut them out and placed them in the pocket for me to staple onto the board.

UN-PHOTOGRAPHED ACTIVITY

Dracula's Coffin 

This was a cardboard coffin with a bat slit cut out. The object of this activity was to write something that scares you and put it inside the coffin. 

Dracula's Castle Coloring Page

The idea for this came from Pinterest but required me to make my own template. This is what I came up with. Dracula is an image I found on google, the others are shapes made in Publisher. 

Here is a slightly different haunted castle.

Unfortunately there are no pictures of what this castle is supposed to look like but here is what you do . . . 

1. Color it
2. Cut it out
3. Fold along the vertical lines
4. Arrange the folds so the castle stands up on its own. 

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