After our Good Morning songs, this is what we did for breakfast storytime!

RHYME: Bread and Butter, Marmalade and Jam

Bread and butter, marmalade and jam

Let's say "hello" as fast as we can.

Hello!

In this song we practice saying "hello" in different ways. Fast/slow, quiet/loud, mean/nice, high/low

Hidden Game: Find The Strawberry

Strawberry, Strawberry, let's take a look. 

Are you under the __color__ cookbook?

For this one I used pieces from our felt version of The Little Mouse, the Red Rip Strawberry and the Big Hungry Bear. At one point I had considered reading this story and/or retelling it with the felt pieces.

In Move, Play, Learn: Interactive Storytime with Music and Movement, Alyssa Jewell talks about story dramas as a good element to add into storytimes for  elementary ages. Often, our Saturday storytimes have a wide range of ages that include elementary students. 

To incorporate interactive play in this storytime, I considered reading The Little Mouse, the Red Ripe Strawberry and the Big Hungry Bear and then letting the group retell the story on their own with the felt pieces.

Let me get this out of the way by saying: In no way is this my cutest story time to date. It was a theme that I inherited and I struggled finding the right material for it. So if you're trying to create a story time around this concept, maybe this will help! 

After our good morning songs, we talked about the word, "perseverance". We practiced saying it out loud and defined it.

SONG: Try Again (Tune: If You're Happy And You Know It)

If you make a big mistake, try again x2

If you make a big mistake, take a breath and show your strength

If you make a big mistake, try again

This was the only strongly themed song of the time. 

BOOK: Muncha! Muncha! Muncha! by Candace Fleming

When it came time to pick out my main book, there were several that were considered but none of them were it. You know? This one wasn't it either but it's a cute story, nonetheless. Others considered were the 2 far right titles in the graphic. 

MUSIC SONG: Jump, Jump by Joanie Leeds

Because this was such a long book I knew I wanted to have a dance song directly following this book. 

To seat the kids down and get them ready for my next bit (talking about Walt Disney) we has a sitting rhyme.

RHYME: Point to a window

Point to a window

Point to a door

Point to the ceiling

Point to the floor. 

Between this rhyme and our next rhyme, I took a moment to talk about Walt Disney and a few of his failures. The main fact I shared with the kids was that he was once fired from  newspaper because he "lacked creativity", he had no imagination. This idea was tied back to the theme because he persevered and kept drawing/creating and if he had given up, where would Disney be now? 

Since Walt Disney created Mickey Mouse, I felt like I could include the next rhyme . . . 

RHYME: Little Clapping Mouse

Except for this rhyme, I swapped 2 words and instead of being a clapping mouse, we sang about a tapping mouse and passed out rhythm sticks.Here are the words. Each asterisk * signals a tap with the sticks.

Behind the tree * *

And under the house * *

There lived a teeny * *

Tiny mouse * *

She loved to sing * *

She loved to clap * *

But most of all * *

She loved to tap * *

She tapped all night * *

She tapped all day * *

She tapped to frighten * *

The cat away * * * * * * * * * * * (lots of taps, meow)

BOOK: Leo the Late Bloomer by Robert Kraus

Then we ended with another music song because I felt like this was lacking in interactive elements.  

MUSIC SONG: If You're Happy and You Know It by Pancake Manor

Initially, I wasn't fond of this song but it's quickly become one of my go-to favorites to throw in if I need something on a moments notice.

 

This story time focused on wind but in all honesty, our group didn't get around to all the things I had planned on. The group that came to this program were mainly 2's and 3's. Anyway, here's the run-down of my Wind Story Time. . . 

BOOK: DUCK! by Meg McKinlay

After our Good Morning songs, we read "DUCK!" by Meg McKinlay. In this book, it's a quiet afternoon on the farm except for Duck, who is running around yelling at all the animals, "DUCK!" The other animals explain to Duck that they are different animals and to stop calling them ducks. What
Duck is really doing is telling them to duck (get out of the way) - as a play on the 2 different meanings of the word "duck". 

What's happening though, is a storm is coming, which is why it was included. 

After our book, we played "Feel The Music" by Jack Hartmann, which has nothing to do at all with the theme - just getting our bodies moving.

Action Rhyme: I See The Wind

I see the wind when the leaves dance by (dance hands around)

I see the wind when the clothes wave "HI!" (wave hand)

I see the wind when the trees bend low (bend arms down)

I see the wind when the flags all blow (wave arms)

I see the wind when the when the kites fly high (raise arms high)

I see the wind when the clouds float by (wave hands gently)

I see the wind when it blows my hair (lift hair with hands)

I see the wind most everywhere! (hold hands out, palms up)

Felt Activity: 5 Kites

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 color kite off to the clouds. 

For this one, the kids made sound effects. When the "wind blew hard", they waved their arms like something blowing in the wind and when the "wind blew loud" they went "WHOOOSH". 

Action Song: 10 Little Flowers

1 little, 2 little, 3 little flowers. 4 little, 5 little, 6 little flowers. 7 little, 8 little, 9 little flowers. 10 little flowers in the spring. 

Give them rain and lots of sunshine. Give them rain and lots of sunshine. Give them rain and lots of sunshine so they grow up tall. 

Actions for this song in the first verse were just counting on fingers. For the 2nd verse, we made rain with our fingers fluttering down and then sunshine was making a ball with our arms and holding it above our head. 

Flannel Board Story: The Mouse and the Winds by Arnold Lobel

My felt pieces were copied from Storytime Shenanigans. And because we didn't have a copy of the story, I watched Lolly Hopwood's read-aloud on Youtube and wrote down the story. 

And in case you need the words, here's what I had written down. 

I don't know if it's verbatim from the story.

Then, because it's April (hello, National Poetry Month!) we ended with a poem. 

And aside from filler rhymes and songs, that's it.

Heroes of History is an afterschool story time that we've been trying out this school year. It is aimed at elementary ages and focuses on either a historical event or someone from history. 

This is what we did for Edwin Binney, the man behind the Crayola crayon.

BOOKS

For our narrative non-fiction book, we read "The Crayon Man: The True Story of the Inventor of Crayola Crayons" by Natasha Biebow. 

We also read, "The Day the Crayons Quit" by Drew Daywalt. 

For this story, I had made puppets out of card stock with words laminated onto the backside. 

Instead of reading the book, we divided up the Crayon puppets and each took turns reading our parts as we flipped through the book.

This is something I would do again in a heartbeat with other picture books written in letter forms! 

SONG

Because this program is attended by older kids, I've been gravitating towards camp songs to sing and dance to instead of traditional storytime songs. However, finding songs that fit is often a struggle. 

We sang, "Hi, My Name Is Joe" in this program but instead of working in a button factory, Joe worked in a crayon factory.

ACTIVITY
To end with, we played a guessing game. Over the years, Crayola crayons have had SO MANY names for their different colors. The premise of this game was to guess which names were NOT official Crayola names. 

In this easily printable game, I have 36 cards, each showing a color and its name but 9 display fake Crayola names. 

All the colors were laid out and the fake cards had a stamp on the back. If someone drew a fake color card, they'd know instantly.

These cards were printed on white card stock (for the real colors, the cards is the actual color of the crayon). Here's my PDF for you to print your own.

Since it's probably undreadable, check out the page where I found this fantastic list of current crayola colors! Just clicky clicky.

 

   

While I tend to stay away from bulletin boards with expiration dates, after Christmas, I wasn't ready for the department to revert back to its non-holiday self. 

This board only took a few hours to prepare. It did take a good deal of cutting. (My hearts are comprised of 4 different colors: white, red, pink and light pink.)

. . .

And then I put all my pieces on the board and it took even MORE cutting. 

 Here's why . . .

My background paper was 18 inches too short for my board! 

No way my border could hide that much.

Urgh, why did I have paper in my closet that couldn't cover the entire area? Who knows. 

After realizing the problem, I took down my pink background paper and moved it towards the center so I had bulletin board showing on either side that needed to be covered- it was dark blue. 

To hide the dark blue, I stuck a different color than my hearts over the blue and then piled hearts on top of that.

See? 

Looks intentional, right?

Either way, super proud of myself for pulling that idea out of thin air so squirrel that away for yourself. 

A close up of my pop-tart 😊

 

To make the action bubbles, I cut out the shape on colored cardstock and then cut out a smaller version of the shape on regular printer paper. 

The smaller white shape was glued on top of the larger shape. 

There were 3 different shapes I used: 1 bubble cloud and 2 zig-zag-starbursty shapes. 

Here's a messy template for the 2 different sized starburst shapes. 

TEMPLATE FOR COLORED CARDSTOCK 💚 PRINT 3 

 TEMPLATE FOR WHITE PRINTER PAPER 💚 PRINT 2

If you have teen volunteers, this would be a good project for them to work on! 

But hope this helps inspire you or helps you find a direction for your bulletin board. 

 One of the crafts we set out for Black History Month was this 28 Days of Black History booklet. It was loosely inspired by Tanya G Marshall's resources to go along with 28 Days: Moments In Black History That Changed the World by Charles R. Smith Jr. 

This is mainly biographical but does include one page for the Tuskegee Airmen. 

I wanted to have an assortment of figures and pulled from different books we have in the library about prominent African American figures from history and contemporary. 

 

Here's a list of who is included:

• Jesse Owens
• Harriet Tubman
• Bessie Coleman
• Barrack Obama
• Shirley Chisholm
• Madam CJ Walker
• Muhammad Ali
• Simone Biles
• Rosa Parks
• Jason Reynolds
• Michael Jordan
• Katherine Johnson
• Thurgood Marshall
• Tuskegee Airmen
• Angela Davis
• Mae Jemison
• Martin Luther King Jr. 
• Misty Copeland
• John Lewis
• Leah Chase (this is the woman who inspired Disney's Princess and the Frog)
  
• Frederick Douglass
• Ruby Bridges
• Charles Henry Turner
• Serena Williams
• George Washington Carver
• Jackie Robinson
• Maya Angelou
• Bass Reeves

Each booklet takes about 8 (?) pages to print so it does involve using up some paper. 

Assembly: Once printed off, each page was cut along the dotted line, put in chronological order and stapled into a booklet.

If this is something you're interested in, here's the link to the PDF.

Click HERE for the LINK but keep reading for some tidbits about printing . . . 

Tidbit #1: If you can, print (1) front and back and (2) flip on the short edge

Tidbit #2: This is only relevant if you want to save paper. There will be an odd number of pages in the assembled booklet so to save paper, I made pages 15 & 16 of the PDF identical. Here's a visual to explain better what I want to say . . .

If possible, I would suggest setting a custom print of 1-14 for the exact number of booklets you need. Because PDF pages 15 & 16 will give you 2 identical booklet pages, print off half the number you need for those pages.

 

 While not all of these picture books were published in 2021, they are newer titles (published within the last 5 years or so) and are stand-out books based on artwork, humor, theme or general story. Here are my favorites of 2021 in no particular order!

 

BOOK:

In this one, we read the narrative non-fiction book, "Teddy: The Remarkable Tale of a President, a Cartoonist, a Toymaker and a Bear" by James Sage.This book is about how Theodore Roosevelt's refusal to shoot a captured bear led to a comic and how that comic led to a husband/wife pair creating Teddy Bears.

Honestly, this book probably falls in my top 20 books to read out loud just because it has several characters in it and also a New York accent to include. 

Songs:

We sang 2 different bear songs . . . 

If You're A Bear and You Know It

If you're a panda bear and you know it clap your paws...

If you're a polar bear and you know it show your teeth...

If you're a grizzly bear and you know it growl real loud...

If you're a black bear and you know it eat some berries... 

and then we sang

Let's Go On A Bear Hunt.

Lets go on a bear hunt

We're going to catch a big one

With Big green eyes

and a fuzzy tail

Oh lookie, -

And for this one we did. . . 

There's a gate . . .  gotta go through it

There's a rock . . . gotta climb over it

There's a river . . .  gotta swim across it

There's a log . . . gotta crawl under it

There's a cave . . . gotta go in it. 

And of course, that's where we find our bear and reverse the actions in the song all the way home.

Here's something neat

One thing I'm not sure I ever noticed or anyone else ever shared with me, it's entirely possible that without Theodore Roosevelt refusing to shoot that black bear, we would not have Winnie the Pooh.

Roosevelt's hunting trip happened in 1902 when he was invited by the Govenor of Mississippi to come hunt black bears on a trip. Winnie the Pooh wasn't published until 1926. The bear who inspired Winnie the Pooh, was bought by Harry Colebourn in August 1914 and that December was when Winnie went to live at the London Zoo. Sometime after that is when A.A.Milne and his son, Christopher Robin visited and named his teddy bear after Winnie, the beat at the zoo.

But it was the story about Theodore Roosevelt who inspired stuffed teddy bears and in the years following 1902, the toys became super popular.

So, it's just a thought.