It' a Witchy Morning!

We had all sorts of  "different" characters attend Story Hour this morning, including:  princess, a mermaid, a pumpkin person, a policeman [with a whistle that got our attention!], a dog, a little fuzzy duck and a big witch! 

After putting away the toys and the usual sign-in we headed upstairs to see what the weather was like today. The children were very careful not to trip or step on someone's costume. It was quickly decided that although the sun seemed to be trying to peek through the sky was mostly cloudy with a slight wind.

Once we were back downstairs we settled in for our first book, Two Little Witches: A Halloween Counting Story by Harriet Ziefert. First we discussed what each of the children planned to be as they go trick-or-treating tomorrow evening. As we read the story we found lots of interesting things to notice in the pictures. Some of the children we unsure about the witches and whether or not they were "real", so we talked about "pretend" for a bit. The children soon picked up on the repetition of the story and also counted all the costumed characters with me on every page. At the end it was fun to see all the children home safe and looking out of their house windows. Someone also noticed that the last little witch left her broom outside.

At the craft table we had a very cutting and gluing intensive project that involved both adults and children, as we created our very own paper plate witches to take home. Everyone worked very hard and added their own special touch to their witch by putting the mouth, teeth, and eyes on differently and adding their own hand traces as hair.  

Look at all of us with our cute witches!

When our project was finished there was just enough time to hear a silly book titled Hubble Bubble, Granny Trouble by Tracey Corderoy. It was all about a little girl whose granny is really a silly witch. The girl tries to change her but then finds out she likes her better the way she was.

When we finished the book we took time to eat a yummy cookie that the Big Witch gave us and then Maddie gave each of the children a bag of treats to take home. The children also had a couple cute Halloween coloring sheets for "homework".

Please remember that next week Story Hour is cancelled. We will meet next on November 13 and hear about a cow that goes "oink".  Have a great Halloween!

Monkeying Around!

After signing in this morning we went outside to see what the weather was like. The children were very quick to recognize that it was cloudy with no sun shining through and chilly. When we went inside they made sure I put up the cloudy plate along with the windy one. 

We quickly reviewed some of the things we've already studied and then moved right into the reading of our first book: Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed by Eileen Christelow. Most of the children were familiar with the story and could tell me what was coming next, but greatly enjoyed doing this. We discussed how naughty these monkeys were and some of the children added comments about things they do/or don't do that are naughty. 

At the craft table Mitzi gave each child a printout of the monkeys in the book and they practiced their scissor skills as each did some of the cutting. The adults were allowed to help as the paper was a heavier stock and  little hands and kid scissors didn't always work well. The monkeys were then glued to craft sticks so everyone had five puppets. 

Upon returning to the reading rug we used our puppets to act out the story. Using the felt board, Mitzi showed us which monkey fell off the bed and the children had to find their matching monkey and make him/her fall off the bed [their legs were used as beds]. All the children did an excellent job retelling the story. They were especially good at scolding like the doctor.

It was then back to the table to play a monkey memory game. I showed the children ten different pairs of cards. As each was shown the children talked about what the monkey was doing. Then the cards were mixed and placed face down in rows on the table. I was so pleased with how great they were about taking turns turning over the cards and how well they applauded each time a person found a match. 

We ended the morning by getting a couple pieces of candy for being such good sports and playing a monkey toss game where we threw bean bag type bananas into the mouths of three monkeys. Again the sportsmanship was wonderful!

In addition to incorporating past skills we also worked on identifying like objects and developing fine motor skills through cutting; as well as counting to five which most children could do quite well.

Next week: children may come in a costume or partial costume, as long as they can move about freely [we will not use paint or anything that should harm them].  Also remember that Story Hour will be cancelled on November 6 so Mitzi may attend the Wisconsin Library Association Conference with our director.

Circles and Round Things

We began our morning by signing in with a sticker on our evergreen tree [after playtime, of course]. Then we went out side to see what today's weather was like. It was mostly cloudy, but the sun was working hard to shine through. When we came back in we went through our weather plates and chose the proper one to represent today's weather.

Then we reviewed our theme of stars from last week and sang "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" and took a last look at the stars on the ceiling.

Next we moved right into the reading of our first book If You Give a Pig a Pancake by Laura Numeroff . Two of the children knew the book quite well and could tell what was going to happen next.

 Everyone enjoyed the story, even though we thought the pig was messy and didn't use good manners all the time. When we came to the part where the pig decides to dance we stopped and used our Action Box so we could do some movement as well.

After we finished reading the book we talked about the shape of a pancake. The children all knew it was a circle so I showed them the circle drawn on the chalkboard and the word "circle" inside it. We then went to the craft table to do some circle paintings by dipping styrofoam cups into a thin puddle of paint on a paper plate.

Didn't these turn out cute? And don't you like our "smiling" faces as we posed with our artwork?

Then we sat back down to talk about "round". First I had a squishy ball to demonstrate round and we talked about how it's different from a circle which is flat. The children were able to name many things that is round and then we looked through half of the book, Round is a Pancake by Joan Sullivan Baranski, and found lots more items in the pictures that were round or circular than what the story mentioned. If the children want to read all of that book they will need to check it out at the library as we stopped in the middle and went to the craft table to make a paper plate circle collage.

The collages were made by following directions. I had a bag with red, blue and yellow circles in it and lots of punched circles of these colors in different sizes spread on the table. I also had punched out different patterned circles and had them on the end of the table. If I drew a colored circle out of my bag the children had to chose one of that color in the size of their choice and glue it onto their plate. If I drew out a white circle they could go to the end of the table and chose a patterned circle and glue it on.

The plates soon became full enough that the circles had to overlap. The collages turned out very cute also and will make some nice wall art at home.

We ended our morning by eating some "round treats" [donut holes], taking home our artwork, and a couple "homework" sheets: one to trace circles and color them in red on a tree and the other to cut out circles and make a teddy bear head.

The children were very cooperative and worked hard as usual.

Next week we will have a monkey theme for Story Hour. On Thursday, November 6th Story Hour will be cancelled so Mitzi may attend the Wisconsin Library Association's annual conference to learn some new things!

Stars and Songs

This morning only two children and their moms were able to attend our session, but we had a good time together. After playtime we started the morning by learning about weather. Mitzi showed us some paper plates with drawings of weather symbols for thunderstorms, bright sunshine, and partly cloudy/sunny. Then we headed outside to see what the weather was like and the bright sun nearly blinded us!  We did notice some clouds lower in the sky, but they were not near the sun. Inside we chose the "sunny" plate for our weather today.

We talked about the star on the board and the word "star" below it that starts with the letter "s". Then over to the craft table to apply paint to our star wand. As the children finished painting Mitzi sprinkled some "magic stardust" onto the stars to make them sparkle. Then we counted the points on two different stars and found out they each had five points.

It was time for some movement and we again used our Action Box and moved to dance, hop, crawl, bend and jump!

It was then time to sit down and read our only book for today: Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star illustrated by Annie Kubler.We sang the song first and then found that the book showed us stars shining on different people and animals all over the world. The kids could identify many of the animals in the book, and we learned a few new ones. When we finished we sang the rhyme again. Then back to the table to paint the other side of our star wand and get some "magic dust" on it.

After this we looked up at the ceiling where there was a cluster of stars and learned a new song about twinkling stars that we sang to the tune of "London Bridge is Falling Down" and waved our magic star wands as we sang.  When we seemed to know the song fairly well we went into the hallway with our mom and when we came back in and sat down Mitzi turned out the lights and the stars on the ceiling glowed. We sang our two songs to the stars.

Our final activities were to make a starry sky by placing a paper over stars that were taped to the table and doing a crayon rubbing. We also got out a treasure chest and found red, yellow and blue stars inside. We practiced sorting these by color and into piles of large, medium and small. Both children did a great job with these two activities.

Our morning ended with us eating stars! Mitzi cut these out of cheese for us and had some crackers to go with them if we chose. We also got to take home our wands, star rubbings and a star printout with our second song printed on it

Today's lesson further developed the skills from last week and added categorizing small, medium and large as well as colors.

Time to Share!

After the usual playtime and putting away the toys we began our morning around the theme of sharing. We sat down and read the first story in the book Dot and Dash Learn to Share by Emma Dodd.

As the characters are all animals, some of the children found it funny that they could pick up toys and play with them, especially the giraffe. We talked about how we feel when others won't share with us.

The children were exceptionally wiggly this morning, so I got out my "movement box" and we tossed the box and then did whatever movement was stated by the word on top. Each child had a turn tossing the box [sometimes more than once if the same word kept coming up] and everyone joined in moving to the word. It brought out some giggles, lots of movement, and we were more ready to sit when Story Hour continued.

It was now time to read our second book, Llama Llama Time to Share by Anna Dewdney.

 In this story a llama and a gnu fight over a doll and tear off the arm. We stopped where the mother llama sewed on the arm and gave the kids, and the doll, a time out.

At this point we looked at the book Happy by Mies Van Hout which has pictures of fish expressing emotions. This was a challenge for the children. They mostly seemed to know "happy, sad and mad". We worked on a few others by giving hints to what the feeling should be, but it was still a struggle. We will continue to work on emotions in other sessions.

Next it was over to the craft table where I gave the children a sheet that said, "When no one will share with me I feel ____________."  The children then drew, or just colored the way they felt when that happened and we filled in the blank with the word they told us. Again, that familiar feeling, mad, was most often used.

I then talked about how sharing sometimes means sharing space and we played a game called "Sharks in the Water" where the children had to swim around an island until the music stopped and then quickly get on the island before the sharks got them. Each time the island got a bit smaller and we had to crowd together to allow everyone to share the space. Some of the moms even played sharks out to get us if we didn't get on the island!

Back to the carpet! We sat down and finished our llama story. We were happy to know that Nelly Gnu and Llama Llama figured out a way to cooperate and ended the day by sharing, becoming friends, and looking forward to playing together again some day.

I ended the morning by pairing up the students and giving each a sealed brown bag. They were then told that when they opened the bag they would need to share whatever they had that was different with their partner. Although some had to be assisted in seeing the differences, all did a very fine job of sharing the items and they were then able to eat the things they shared or they could take them home.

Some of the skills that were being developed in today's lessons were: Large muscle movement, sharing, recognizing feelings, cooperation, listening, following directions, and predicting.

Next week's lesson will be based around stars and the book/song, Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.

Children's Librarian,
Mitzi Manthey