The Learning Curve

If you've searched for ideas on the internet about outlining your own Lost & Found theme storytime, you might have run across this Storytime In The Stacks post. Check out the link - I used her "Talk: Faces/Feelings" part (more on that below).

Here's my outline:

Good Morning Song

I Wake Up My Hands With A Clap, Clap , Clap

Read: The Backup Bunny by Abigail Raynor
Before reading, the group was encouraged to pay attention to Max's emotions. After the book, we would share and name a few of those different emotions.

Faces & Feelings Chat
This was my bit inspired by Storytime in the Stacks.

For this, I printed off 7 different emotions to put on the magnet board and identified them. In the book we read, Max loses his beloved stuffed bunny so we talked about how when we lose important things, we feel a lot of different ways/emotions.

These are the pictures I used. Taken from google.

If You're Happy & You Know It
Playing on the emotions, we made angry face, bit our nails and pretended to be worried, pouted and made frustrated groans.

Read: Daisy Gets Lost by Chris Raschka
Still practicing our skills at reading expressions and body language, we read this wordless picture book out loud!

Magnet Game: Little Cat, Little Cat, Where Are You?

Little cat, little cat, where are you?
Are you hiding behind the blue hat?

This magnet game uses different colored hats with a magnet glued on the back and 1 paper magnetic cat hidden behind one. We called for the cat to be found and I invited one kid up at a time to choose a hat to remove. This time, every hat had an animal hidden behind it but there was only 1 cat.

. . . I will try to get a picture of this!

Scarf Song: Little Bo Peep
To pull the kiddos back to storytime we brought out the scarves and sang about Little Bo Peep who lost her sheep.

Dance Like Snowflakes
This is a song I only recently learnt! Tune is Frere Jacques and goes like this:

Dance like snowflakes x2 (wave hands in front of face)
In the air x2 (wave hands above head)
Whirling, twirling snowflakes x2 (wave hands and spin around)
Falling down x2 (wave hands while bending knees to sitting position)

This is making a regular appearance at most of my winter storytimes, which is something new I have been doing.

Anyway, Happy story telling!

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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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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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