Toddler Time

Mrs. Swan brought her favorite book to read today! She used to read it over and over to her children when they were little.  The Monster at the End of This Book written by Jon Stone is a great book to discuss speech bubbles, large animated print and to draw the children in to help turn the pages!

Music is so much fun!  Look at "J" and "R" keeping the beat to the Christmas music!  We switched up our instruments many times, played them soft & loud, high & low, sitting & moving around the room. These boys have rhythm!

Our final story was The Night Before Christmas by Clement C. Moore. This is another favorite in the Swan family. It's the traditional story but with mice as the characters. 

We do not have any story times set for January!

Continue to watch the Pardeeville Library website!

 

Happy Holidays!

 

PRESCHOOL PAGES

Our book today was, There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Bell! written by Lucille Colandro and Jared Lee

We talked about rhyming words and I tried to get the boys to add in the predictable text.  "J" was very good at adding some of the words.  "B" told me that the lady was 'bad' because she was eating stuff.  We read the original story, I know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly  that our first book was based off of. "J" liked this book and wants to take it home.

"B" liked our music time!  We played instruments to Christmas songs.  We switched up what we played to create different songs.  Our friend, Bob joined our band as well!  "B" didn't think the sandpaper blocks made music. "J" chose to play them for one of our songs. We played loud, quiet and compared sounds.

Our end activity was playing with play dough! The boys (and adults) had fun cutting shapes out of the play dough.  "J" of course liked the dinosaurs. "B" learned how to use cookie cutters and how to roll the play dough into a snake!

We do not have any story times set for January!

Continue to watch the Pardeeville Library website!

Happy Holidays!

Toddler Time

Wednesday, December 9th

"J" and his grandpa were my only friends today. We sang a few Christmas songs (Must be Santa, Rudolph & Jingle Bells).  We used bells and maracas to make music while we sang.  

Our book today was Santa's New Suit by Laura Rader. We talked about the letter s, the color red, emotions by looking at the character's faces and speech bubbles. "J" was very involved in the story!

Playdough fun!!!! We cut out pretend cookies with many different sizes and shapes. "J" even got creative and made a round "dinosaur" with plates on it so T-Rex couldn't eat it.  This boy LOVES dinosaurs!!!  

Mom, this star cookie on the right is for you! (Don't worry Dad, he made one for you too!"


Next week is our last story hour in 2015.Watch the library website for the 2016 dates! 

12/8/2015

Toddler Time

We started our day right at our craft table. "J" and his grandma worked together to add tiny stickers for ornaments and spreading glue with q-tips to shake glitter on. (great fine motor activities).

 Our book today was Christmas Tree by Wendell & Florence Minor.  This book gave us the opportunity to see many different Christmas trees in many different places in the world.

We used the Ipad today to see and sing the old favorite, Oh Christmas Tree. We also had story cards about getting a Christmas tree, to put in order.  "J" listened and watched very intently when I told the story and put them in order. I then mixed them up and "J" correctly put them in order.  With prompting he could tell me what was happening in the story on each card. Fantastic!

Next week is our last story hour of 2015! 

Check the library website for the 2016 dates! 

Toddler Time

We only had one toddler friend today but we sure had fun! We played with the animals before starting story hour. 

Our first book was Thank You Thanksgiving by David Milgrim. 

The little girl in the book took us on a walk to the store and back, saying "thank you" for the many things she sees along the way. 

Then it was music and dance time! We got out the bells and shook, danced and sang with the music! My friend "A" really has rhythm and likes music!

The dinosaurs came to visit one last time as we say goodbye to DiNovember! We read the book Dinosaurs by Fiona Watt and Rachel Wells.  It is a texture book so we had a hands-on reading experience.

Mrs. Swan brought homemade playdough to experience today. "A" was a little concerned about touching it and how it felt on his hands. He mostly enjoyed putting the horses in the playdough. 

Happy Thanksgiving!

There will not be story time on December 2nd.  I will see you again on Tuesday, December 8th!

 

Preschool Pages

Happy Thanksgiving!

Our book today was Bear Says Thanks by Karma Wilson & Jane Chapman. This was a great book to teach the joy of giving, gathering, friendship and gratitude! We said "thanks" every time that Bear said it.  We really worked hard to stick our tongue out as we began the word (th). We learned that den, cave and lair all have the same meaning. We each shared a little of what our Thanksgiving may be like.

Of course every Thanksgiving needs a child - made turkey craft to decorate the refrigerator. We worked step by step together to follow directions as we constructed our turkeys. Both boys were very proud of their turkey and were excited to take them home! 

Our poem for the day was: Gobble! Gobble! by Lynn Beaird

A turkey is a funny bird,

His head goes wobble, wobble!

He knows just one funny word,

Gobble, gobble, gobble!

There will not be story time on December 1st.  I will see you again on Tuesday, December 8th!

Our DiNovember biggest fan!!!! (and his Grandma)

Toddler Time

We had two new friends today, "E" and "A"! We are so glad they joined us and hope they continue to come each week! "R" came back after missing a couple of weeks. "J" and "L" were also part of our group of 5. Our ages ranged from 20 months to age 3.  Some of our friends were joiners today and some were watchers.  I welcome both!  

Dinovember continued with a focus on shapes today. Although we read about  many shapes I only introduced three (circle, triangle and square) to focus on.  

We began with a shape walk. We had squares, triangles and circles on the floor that we walked on when the music was playing. When the music stopped, we stopped. I then asked, "Who is standing on the ___?" while holding up that shape. I think we all had fun moving and checking which shape we landed on.  We also practiced saying the name of the shape we were standing on.   

Our books today were, Shape by Shape by Susan McDonald
and, Dinosaur Shapes by Paul Stickland. We had fun matching the shapes we were holding or had played with on the magnetic whiteboard to the shapes we saw in each book.

Preschool Pages

Dinovember continues in our story hour!  Our dinosaur book was, Dini Dinosaur  by Karen Beaumont.  We had fun with the repetitious text... "Scrub-a-dub-dub".  Since Mama dinosaur checked Dini from head to toe to make sure he was clean, we got up and did the actions to the song, Head and Shoulders, Knees and Toes.

Music, music, music! The bells and rhythm sticks were moving to the beat!  All three of my little friends had FABULOUS rhythm! (so did the adults)

Last we rotated through three dinosaur games: memory, dominoes & numbers.

 These games were a little hard for my friends but the exposure to the concepts of game playing, taking turns, following directions and staying on task was the main purpose. Plus it was quality time with their grandparents!

Our final book was Dinosaur! by Peter Sis. It's a wordless book so my little friends helped tell the story!

Toddler Time

Dirty, dirty dinosaurs invaded our story time today!  My friend "J", his grandpa and I had a blast playing in the mud with the dinosaurs!

First we read the book, I'm a Dirty Dinosaur by Janeen Brian & Ann James.  We took the time during our story to locates the letters, S, M, T, O, W & P.  We also made many predictions before we turned to the next page.

Then it got MUDDY!!! We took our dinosaurs and got them dirty just like in the book!  The fun of our mud was that it was chocolate pudding mud. My friend "J" wasn't too eager to get dirty but once "papa" and I joined in his fears eased a little.

He was quite surprised when I told him he could lick his fingers!  

Just like in the book, our dinosaurs needed to be washed! "J" seemed to like the water play more than the mud.  

"J's" favorite part of the day seemed to be when we read the book, Hello Dinosaur, by Dwell Studio. We read it three times!  Each page we turned he excitedly made the connections between the dinosaurs we played with and the dinosaurs in the book.  He is such a clever boy! His favorite is the triceratops!

PRESCHOOL PAGES

DiNovember is still our theme.  We had three friends today.  We read the story, Dazzle the Dinosaur by Marcus Pfister and Alison James.  It was a longer book so we read it in two parts. 

In between, we got up to get our bodies moving. First we did the Dino-Pokey a couple of times.  Then we put on music and made our body dance.  We moved our dancing feet, dancing hands, just our hips, sliding feet and whole body!

Our activity today was centered around the categories of numbers vs. letters. Differentiating between letters and numbers is an early literacy skill. Each child took turns bringing me a letter or number.  Sometimes they were asked for specific ones, other times they were asked to just bring me a letter or number.    We ended the activity with sorting them into groups to put them away.  

We ended our time with the rest of our story and found out how Dazzle and her friend found a new home for their families.

Toddler Time 11/4/15

The dinosaurs have come to Toddler Time too! 

 

It was a small group of two young friends and three adults. It is so special that the grandmas and grandpas are bringing the little ones to story time!  Thank you!!!

 

 We started with our opening song then read the book Dinosaur Colors by Paul Stickland.It was fun to talk about all of the different colored dinosaurs. We also used the picture cues to help us determine if the dinosaur was a plant or meat eater.  Both of my friends saw some colors that they knew and learned some new ones.

 

Then we did the Dino-Pokey!!! This is so much fun! Both friends learned it yesterday in Preschool Pages and had the technique of the claws, feet and tail!

 

My Dinosaur Book by Karen Carr was a book that had "J" and "L" up off their bottoms, hands pointing and conversations happening!! We saw dinosaurs with features such as; bills,  bony plates, tough armor, large horns and short arms!  We could have talked about the photos in this book for hours.

 

Our dinotivities for today required play time with the grandparents.  We did a capital and lowercase D d sort. Naming the letter and the sound as often as possible. Both friends did very well with the sort and had a great time with their adults!

Our other activity was a dinosaur memory game.  We had to learn to flip ONLY two cards over at a time AND to take turns! A lot of great conversations between the grandparents and children were happening while they were playing together!

I wonder what dinosaur books and activities we will see next week?