I would present a topic using this book and then had pages marked that linked to it in the following books that are all books from a series titled All Nature's Children: Cats by Maggie Da Silva, Lions by Elizabeth MacLeod, and Tigers by Bill Ivy [sorry, images not available for two of the books].
As we were talking/reading about cats our guest arrived. He was brought in by my husband in a carrier. His name is Jax. He's my "sweet boy" and he was exactly that throughout Story Hour, as he allowed me to show his retractable claws, his eyes changing in darkness and reflecting light, and his teeth.
He also showed us how cats check everything out through smell and he allowed everyone to touch him at times. He even "talked" to me a couple times and that reinforced more cat communication. He showed us he was very comfortable with us by rubbing on us and rolling around on our rug. He also liked the curtain in the play corner.
"M" noticed that Jax wasn't eating his food. We decided he was too excited by all the new things to explore.
At the craft table the children selected brown, grey or orange paper to create a stand-up cat with toothpick whiskers. As you can see, they turned out to be just as cute as real kittens.
As Jax created so much interest, and the children had a lot to add to our topic today, we ran out of time to read our fiction book. The children were given cat-themed take-home sheets which
included the letter "C", pictures of cat eyes, a little rhyme and a cute story about cats with some words linked to pictures to help the children with word identification. And the final item of the morning was to allow the children to select a Beanie Baby cat [from my daughter's former collection] as their very own. It was so wonderful to see them hug and cherish that animal!
There is no Story Hour next week, April 23, but the following week, April 30, the theme is "Creepy Crawlies". I hope you will join us.
Children's Librarian,
Mitzi
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