It's a Jungle, Sometimes!

"M" was here this morning and we had  "C" with us as a visiting guest. Both girls and adults joined in with the opening song and when I asked if they were ready to have some fun I received a very enthusiastic, "YES!". So we got started right away with our first book, We're Going on a Lion Hunt by David Axtell.

Before reading we talked about lions and what the girls knew about them [fierce, with big, sharp teeth; not friendly; have a mane- which lead to talking about that as only on a male lion. We all agreed that we wouldn't want to go on a hunt for a lion. So we also talk about how kids pretend to do things or even dream they have done things. As this book is based on repetition it allowed the girls to join in much of the time.

We added actions to show going "over, under, around and through" all the different places in the story.

I think we were very relieved to know the girls got home safe with that big, male lion following... but then they were in bed so maybe they dreamed the whole adventure.

I then informed the girls that we were going to "paint with forks" [which caused some giggles and crazy looks]. The girls also thought it was interesting that I mixed some yellow paint with the brown and we talked about how that made the brown a lighter color. They were very ready to then pick up a fork and paint the lion's mane.

We created his face on a separate circle so we could glue it over the one with the painted mane. They really turned out as cute lions, not fierce ones.

While that project continued to dry we returned to the Story Hour rug for our second book, If You're Happy and You Know It by James Warhola.

This book is written to a tune familiar to so many. It is about being happy and clapping your hands, so again everyone joined in. We would look at the page, determine what sound or action to make, and then do the song. The girls really enjoyed some of the actions, especially jumping, crawling, scratching out fur, and roaring. 

As we read the book the girls noticed some of the animals were on our Story Hour rug, so when we finished reading we looked at all the animals on the last two pages and searched to see how many were part of the alphabet rug. Surprisingly, there were quite a few, and that also gave us a chance to talk about letters that went with the animals.

At the craft table the children watched me mix black and white paint and they soon recognized the color grey. I asked them what big animal was grey, and after the response of "rhinoceros",  I got "elephant". [The book featured an elephant all the way through, that is why I chose an elephant for our project.] I started by painting my palm and fingers, then pressing them to a white sheet of paper. Next we did an adult and the girl who came with her.

While our handprint elephants dried I had the girls work on an animal sheet with patterns where they had to select the animal that would next appear in the pattern. Then I gave them a sheet of animal "front halves" and they had cut out pictures of the "back halves" and they had to put them together. Both girls did and excellent job of getting these two sheets correctly completed.

We also named all the animals on the front-to-back sheet. Then the girls could take them home to play with them some more.

We ended the morning by using a Sharpie to draw an eye, tail hairs, and toenails on our elephants and then I gave them each a bag of animal crackers to go with our theme.

Happy Easter, everyone!  Join us next week when our theme will be "feathered friends".

Children's Librarian,
Mitzi