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.

💚💛💜