We made Gerald's favorite food, quiche.

I'll do a real write-up for this one later. For now, here are some songs for water story time!
 

SONGS

Little Raindrops Falling Down (Tune: London Bridge Is Falling Down)

Little raindrops falling down, (Falling wiggling fingers)
Falling down, falling down.
Little raindrops falling down,
Falling to the ground.

2nd verse - Bigger raindrops (pat legs or ground with hands)
3rd verse - Giant raindrops (stomp feet on ground)
4th verse - Fast raindrops (wiggle fingers and sign quickly)
5th verse - Slow raindrops (wiggle fingers and sing slowly) 
6th verse - Teeny Tiny raindrops (fingers only and sing in high-pitched voice)

  Row, Row, Row Your Boat

Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream,
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream.

Row, row, row your boat, gently up the creek,
If you see a little mouse, don't forget to squeak!

Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream,
If you see a crocodile, don't forget to scream!

Row, row, row your boat, gently to the shore,
If you see a lion, don’t forget to roar!

Row, row, row your boat, gently down the river,
If you see a polar bear, don't forget to shiver!

Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream,
If you see a butterfly, don't forget to smile!

B-O-O-T-S by Laurie Berkner

Not my favorite but this is a good themed one to stomp around to!

 This post contains 2 separate Eric Carle inspired crafts. The first is a Little Cloud parfait, based on "Little Cloud". The second is a paper craft based on Mr. Carle's art technique and "The Very Hungry Caterpillar". 

Little Cloud Parfait

In this series, we focus on an author and then I do a short demonstration on a book related snack to go along with this book.

It was inspired by this recipe from My Food And Family. 

Here's the link to our Youtube Video for this program. Keep in mind, we're no professionals when it comes to filming or being in front of the camera! 

If you'd like a copy of my script, message me or comment below and I'll be happy to share the information I collected! 😀

The Very Hungry Caterpillar Collage

This craft was supposed to mimic Eric Carle's art technique however, I did take a few artistic liberties to make this more library-friendly, of course.

For his collages, he uses acrylic paint over tissue paper. Then, he cuts out shapes and uses those shapes in his collages to make an image.

Ours was slightly different. 

Namely, instead of paint, we used oil pastels. This was because painting the tissue paper took a while to dry and I wasn't particularly excited to bring out paints in our story hour room while planning. 

Supplies for this were: 

• Half sheet of construction paper
• Tissue Paper
• Double sided Paper
• Liquid glue
• Tissue paper scraps cut into small squares
• Oil Pastels
• Scissors

Hardest part of the prep was sticking the tissue paper to the double sided paper without getting any wrinkles. 

The purpose for this, and why I'd recommend it, is that doing this adds stability to the tissue paper. Tissue paper is SO flimsy, without it, cutting and coloring it is very difficult, especially for the kiddos.

If memory serves, this is what I bought from Hobby Lobby to use for my double sided sheets. 

This is an example of what it looks like. Once the kids colored the tissue side and cut their caterpillar shapes out, it was just like putting a sticker down on a piece of paper! 

But that's all I've got! Happy planning!!

 

The bulk are waiting in the story hour room to be used for a book talk. After that, they'll be added to the display.

The 3D flowers that were used in this display were recycled from my 2019 Black History Month Bulletin Board that was set up in the Children's Department. 

 This was filled with notable African American's throughout history. 

Feel free to use the backgrounds or sign I made in your own displays! 

Click here for my JF and YA African American authors list!

It was simple to design and create the pieces for but it did take some time. Browsing shelves for the great first-liners was fun though. 

I chose to spotlight 30 different books that were in the collection. A few are newer, more obscure titles that your library might not have. Others are popular or classics that kids might recognize and have fun with.

CONSTRUCTION

Each first line was printed on it's own half-sheet of paper. 

These were printed off onto colored cardstock paper and cut in half. What do I call them? ... flaps?

I wanted mine to be colorful so I used an assortment of colored paper. Once they were cut, I arranged them in the order I wanted and stuck a little number to the top of each. 

If several kids are at the board, looking at the first lines, then having them numbered helps. 

So each half-sheet was each creased an inch from the top using a ruler and stapled to the board at the very top.

This is so kids can lift the flap to see which book goes along with the first line!

Here are links to the pieces I made:

Click here for the first lines flaps I created.

Click here for the answer inserts that go behind the flaps.

Click here for the answer sheet of what line goes with what book.
 

 As an extra....

I made worksheets that could be taken home or completed here that were for matching the first line to the book. 

Obviously, I couldn't add all 30 lines to a front and back worksheet, so it's just 20 of the more popular titles. If printed front and back, it's 10 lines on the front and 10 lines on the back.

Hopefully it's not TOO easy!

Click here for a link to the worksheet printable.

And that's all I have! Happy bulletin boarding!

The idea of this video was to focus on a children's book author and then I would demonstrate how to make a quick and easy snack to go along with the series. 

This handsome lug got to come with me to the library. Of course we brought a few of his toys and played fetch in the children's department. 

 One reason Clifford was among the first authors we focused on is because, most children and adults would easily recognize Clifford the Big Dog. He’s become one of the more famous storybook characters, like the Cat in the Hat or Curious George. 

Readers are drawn to his lovable and gentle personality but he’s so big, Clifford just naturally gets into trouble sometimes. These books are funny but filled with good ideas and values that we want to pass along to young readers such as kindness, helpfulness and thankfulness.

Easy Dog Treat Recipe

This recipe comes from MissMollySays.com. It uses peanut butter, oatmeal and banana's for a pet friends dog treat recipe. Click her for the link. 

And actually, I chose this recipe to use for this online program because I had used it previously, here at the library!

For that program, I had brought in all the supplies to make and bake the treats. Kids were given the

Some were bagged and put in a doggie book display

For the last two years, our Young Adult bulletin board has had a stationary spotlight display.

 Truth time. 

 I hadn't planned to do a tutorial of this so the pictures aren't as explanatory as I'd like. 

Books themes are characters who are imposters or pretending to be something they're not,  who-dun-it's, murder mystery types and mistaken identity. 

Here's my simplest method of making characters stand up for book displays.

 What's a Presidential Election if there's no run-off between literary characters at the library?

For a virtual Columbus Day program, the Christopher Columbus stand-ups were made for a re-telling of Columbus's discovery of the Americas.

They include, the Santa Maria, Columbus, Portugal and Spain. As an activity for the kiddos, I made printable copies for them to take home and complete. 

Johnny Appleseed was supposed to get a biographical retelling with fun props, similar to the Columbus Day story .... However, that didn't happen due to timing issues. 

So this post is more of a dump of undeveloped ideas and intentions that you might can work with and build on. 

Characters and visuals made from construction paper were going to be used in the storytelling process, much like in the Columbus Day storytime and a script was written using library materials. 

Here's a copy of my write-up!

Books I used to write this up were.... 

Johnny Appleseed by Marianne Johnston

Who Was Johnny Appleseed by Joan Holub

Johnny Appleseed by Patricia Demuth

Johnny Appleseed: The Story of a Legend by Will Moses

This was a poem/ action rhyme that I wrote. 

My thought for actions was tossing a pretend bag over your shoulder, putting on a hat, walking in place, and pretending to rest then shaking your finger "no". 

Again, severely under-developed, but I wanted to share, nonetheless so my efforts wouldn't be wasted. Y'all get it 😃

 Cleaning up and reorganizing My Documents and my USB and stumbled across this YA display from last September when everyone wanted to storm Area 51.

Notice the prime spots go to one of my favorite YA series, The Xenith Trilogy Chani Lynn Feener. 

Two new alien books that have come out in 2020 are It Came From the Sky by Chelsea Sedoti and Sia Martinez and the Moonlight Beginning of Everything by Raquel Vasquez Gilliland.

This is an English fairy tale about an old woman who can't get her new pig to go over a stile. It's getting late, she's in a rush to get home before dark and asks the other animals for help. The way she asks for help is by getting each animal or object to be unkind to the other. For example, she wants the stick to beat the dog because the dog won't bite the pig to make him go over the stile. 

It gets to the point where she wants the cat to get the rat because rat won't gnaw the rope. Rope won't lasso the farmer and the farmer won't punish Ox. She wants Ox to drink water because the water won't quench the fire. Fire won't burn the stick and stick won't beat the dog, who won't bite the pig. In the end, the cat asks her to do a favor and it all works out. 

Originally I found this story on Project Gutenberg in a book called "Boys and Girls Bookshelf" published in 1920. It's full of old rhymes, stories and songs. 

Click HERE for my pdf. It includes the original text from the "Boys and Girls Bookshelf" and my rewrite. 

Click HERE for the pdf of my characters. These were pulled off google images for the most part. The stile and stick were free-handed so no template on those. 

Here's my giant disclaimer: This has been my first flannel story to create from scratch. The characters were made with construction paper, laminated and felt was glued to the backs so they would attach to the flannel board.

They're a little heavy though and don't hold very securely to the board. I'm sure there's a better way to do them with paper, but I don't know what that is. 

Happy storytelling!  

I'd forgotten how fun Bingo sheets were to make until this summer. Click the links for Buffy Bingo and Pokemon Bingo!