Pigs, Pigs, Pigs!

In spite of the rather dreary spring morning, four children came to Story Hour. We started with the usual routine and the children could tell me it was Spring and had the weather "spot on" for this morning. We skipped our usual Wiggle Song and went right into a book about real pigs. Bryce brought a cute little, soft,  pink pig for us to look at. Thanks for sharing, Bryce!

Animals on the Farm Pigs by Wendy Strobel Dieker. 

From this book we learned that pigs can be pink and other colors too. They also have strong snouts [with nostrils] that help them snort and dig. Pigs like mud because it helps keep them cool. If you want to know about pigs' floppy ears and curly tails just look for this book.

Then we went to the craft table to paint our paper plate pig faces. The children are getting quite good at handling a brush and paint, but it was good that we had a tub of soapy water for clean-up! While they dried we learned and sang a pig song to the tune of "The Wheels on the Bus", but in this version the "Pigs on the farm go, oink, oink, oink; all the day long". In the following verses they go "Snort, snort, snort" and "Roll in the mud". Everyone seemed to enjoy the song.

Next I read the book Happy Pig Day by Mo Willems. 

Happy Pig Day by Mo Willems

In the story Pig is so happy to be celebrating "PIG DAY!", but his friend, Gerald the Elephant, becomes very sad because he is not a pig and doesn't look like one!  You need to check out this cute book to see how the story ends. It was a good book that even tied in to our piggy song, so we ended up singing a verse of that again.

Then we went back to the table and finished putting our pink pigs together. We used lots of cutting and gluing skills this morning, and we had to practice patience as we held things in place while the glue set.

Our guest, Ellie, happily shows off her finished pig [which has the piggy song glued to its backside.

Children's Librarian
Mitzi Manthey

Spring Is Coming!

Story Hour began in the usual manner, and we were happy to have our new member Victor join us this morning. The children are now getting to know each other a bit and are beginning to share toys during playtime. We are still working on left and right in our Wiggle Song.

At the weather board we finally got to take down Winter and put up Spring! One of my little girls quickly informed me that it is still cold! We discussed how seasons change slowly, but that we can watch for some changes. So we sat on our carpet and I shared pictures of baby animals that may soon be born and we discussed their names. Our morning laugh came when I asked for the name of a baby cow and received a chorus of "moos". We then learned a new word... calf! They also had trouble recognizing the calf as it was a reddish color. I guess we still have a lot of those black and white Holsteins in Wisconsin! The other animal baby that was unfamiliar was a colt. We will do more with baby animals in late April.

Instead of one book, we read parts of books this morning:

Our first one was First Comes Spring by Anne Rockwell. 

We only read the first 6 pages, but pages 5-6 had a great picture of activities that take place in spring and I had the children tell me about things they noticed were happening. They couldn't figure out what Mamma Bear was doing to the windows. Oh, how I wish I didn't know that Spring meant washing windows! But they did remember the rainbow in the sky from last week's discussion because someone thought it had a treasure with it!

Spring Thaw by Steven Schnur

Then we discussed some of the pictures from a beautifully illustrated book titled Spring Thaw by Steven Schnur. There were melting puddles, a raccoon coming out of his winter sleep, baby lambs cuddled up together while sleeping and a wonderful picture of a warm, golden sunset.

Next we went to our snowman board and discussed how the snowmen were now going to melt and what would be left if they did that. This was a rather difficult topic for the children, but once we got started they could pick out things that would be on the ground [a couple still kept thinking the snowballs would be there, probably because there is still snow on the ground around us].

Our project for the day was to create our own "melted snowman". I provided the children with a "puddle" and as they told me [sometimes with hints] what might be left we glued the pieces to the puddle. I am so pleased to notice how much better the children are getting at using the glue sticks. Most of them now do very well on their own.

Lauren and Sadie were happy to show you how their melted snowmen turned out.

Spring Snowman a story adapted by Jill Barnes and written and illustrated by Fusako Ishinabe

The morning ended with my telling them the basic story of Spring Snowman a story adapted by Jill Barnes and written and illustrated by Fusako Ishinabe. It is about a cute little snowman and his six animal friends who plan to tell him all about Spring, but can't find him. They finally discover that a patch of flowers in the shape of a snowman has grown where he used to stand.

If you come to Story Hour next week, and I hope you will join us, please bring anything with you that is pig related [pictures, a toy pig, a pig book, etc.]

Children's Librarian,

Mitzi Manthey

Leprechauns and Shamrocks!

After playtime we started the morning with our Wiggle Song using our left and right feet and arms. The children did much better this week. Then we moved over to the weather board and they also knew today's weather. One asked "Why is it still winter?", and everyone seemed to want to know the answer to that!

Instead of starting with a book today, I talked about symbols of St. Pat's Day. We had a large leprechaun hanging on our chalkboard that the children thought was a "clown". I told them a few things about tricky leprechauns and we talked about rainbows, pots of gold and shamrocks. 

Next we put together a four piece leprechaun puzzle and glued it to a sheet of yellow paper. Then we flipped the sheet over [a new concept for most of the children] and used 3 hearts to create a shamrock on the back.

Now it was time for a story! We read Good Luck! A St. Patrick's Day Story by Joan Holub. 

 

The children enjoyed following the chase for the green ant and guessing if he'd ever get caught. The clues along the way allowed us to again discuss St. Pat's Day symbols. The children also had fun finding other things that they recognized in the pictures.

We then got to play St. Pat's Bingo! A good game for recognition of the symbols we'd been discussing and learning to recognize a completed straight row and shout, "BINGO!".  There were also lots of prizes that were won.

As I turned to walk away from the table I noticed that a leprechaun must have visited while we were busy and he put a treasure box at the end of our rainbow. When I opened it there was no gold, but there were foil-wrapped chocolate coins to for everyone. What a "sweet" end to the morning!

It's All About Feet!

March is Dr. Seuss' birthday month.  So in honor of Dr. Seuss the Cat in the Hat paid us a visit today. The children and adults enjoyed some playtime before we started Story Hour. I even got asked to play for a few minutes! I am so proud of the way everyone picks up and puts away the toys when the bells jingle.

We began by talking about March's winter weather. The kids tried to trick me and tell me it was snowing outside, but then they giggled and decided it was sunny, but cold and still winter.

I had a lot of Dr. Seuss books on display and some of the children recognized them as ones they have at home or have "read".

We read:

The Foot Book by Dr. Seuss

The Cat in the Hat [better known as Mitzi] read Dr. Seuss' The Foot Book. We had so much to share as we read the book. We talked about the many colors of feet in the book. We worked on the concept of left and right. This was sort of tough; so it's a good one to keep talking about at home. We counted feet and found one page had 24 feet! We found out feet go many places and come in many different sizes and shapes. We also did some actions to go with the book as it was read such as kicking high, lifting our left leg, and stomping our right foot.

Our first activity was to select a colored paper and trace and cut out a left foot and label it with an "L", then we did the same with a right foot using different color of paper. We then took those feet and our adult helped us match our feet to them on the floor.

After a bit of practice we did the Wiggle Song using our left and right feet.

We ended our morning with a foot worksheet. I would ask the children to point to a certain foot on the sheet and then find its match. I would then ask them to color those two with a specific color. The children did very well at choosing red, blue, green, orange and purple, and I gave them a brown crayon for the final pairing of the horse feet.

Everyone left with a reminder to practice left foot and right foot, and they took home a sheet to color featuring the Cat in the Hat. Lots of polite "thank you's" and even a couple hugs ended the hour.

Snowmen!

Another fun morning at Story Hour!  After playtime we began with some warm-up movements where we pretended to be big, fat snowmen lumbering about, jumping and melting. Then we moved to the weather board and discussed today's weather. I could tell the children have been doing this with the adults as they were quite familiar with this topic today. I also showed a variety of tiny snowmen that I had brought to Story Hour, and then 3 very large ones.  We also discussed what snowmen wear.

We read two books today:

Snow Friends by M. Christina Butler and Tina McNaughton 

It is about a little bear who wakes up and is all alone so he starts to build a snowman friend. Otter and rabbit join him and they become good friends. There is a surprise at the end also. This is a great book to check out at our library and read (or reread) to your child.  The kids loved touching the snowman (he was sparkly!).

Snowmen at Night by Caralyn Buehner. 

After our craft I talked us through this second book.  It is a funny story about snowmen who come alive after dark and all the things they do. The book also reminded us that if our snowman is a bit crooked in the morning it just might be that he got that way from doing what snowmen do at night.

After hearing the story of the sparkly snowman the children were provided supplies to make their own little sparkly snowman that was like the one in the book.  They even had googly eyes.

Bryce and Aleah proudly show off their snowmen pictures. Bryce also has a funny snowman on his shirt!

Lauren was also willing to allow her snowman to have his picture taken.

The morning ended with a snowball fight (with the little cloth snowballs that we used once before) and lots of laughs and giggles. As the children left they were each given a bag of snowmen marshmallows.

Mitzi Manthey

All About Teeth!

In spite of the somewhat inclement weather and the late start of the schools we had five regulars and one guest attend story hour this morning.

Many toys were brought out and the adults had a few minutes to visit before we began our hour with our wiggle song. 

After the song we changed our routine and turned our attention to Morgan, our guest from Pardeeville Family Dentistry. She gave us all a pair of pink gloves and a nose/mouth mask with pink flowers to put on so we know what it looks like when we go to the dentist.

Morgan brought Roo, a plush kangaroo along and each child got to brush Roo's teeth while learning to brush in circular motions. We learned that we should brush in the morning and just before going to bed. We also learned that until we can tie our shoes alone we need to have an adult help us brush so we are sure to get all 20 teeth very clean.

After that Morgan brought out a cute monster board and we talked about foods that are good or bad for our teeth.

The children took turns putting good foods in the monster's mouth. A couple of foods that were tricky were fruit juices and milk (especially chocolate milk) which are to be drank with meals and not by themselves. Water is the best thing to drink between meals.

 

 
After Morgan finished we read two books:

 

Brush Your Teeth Please by Leslie McGuire

Brush Your Teeth Please was a pop-up book with different animals and the children got to take turns brushing the animals' teeth.  

 

The Missing Tooth by Mary Packard

The Missing Tooth helped us learn that about the time we start school our teeth will start to fall out so new ones may grow in their place. This seemed to be news to most of the children. In the story a little girl is disappointed because her friend's are losing teeth and she isn't. When one of her teeth finally comes out she loses it, but then finds it when she gets ready for bed. One of the children wanted to know "why she couldn't put it back in her mouth" and that gave all the adults a good chuckle.
Our morning ended with each child receiving a "goody bag" from the dental office with a toothbrush, bubble gum flavored toothpaste, a letter for parents and several activity sheets for the children. 

They were also given a very colorful book titled Four Seasons for Little People by Dr. Jerry Ballard.

 

Valentines!

Story Hour this morning was all about valentines, love, the color red and the number 2.

The morning began with most of the children arriving early [doors open at 9:45] and enjoying some social playtime until 10:05. We then started our morning with our "wiggle song" and the children are beginning to sing along with the actions.

After that we discussed the weather for today. We decided today was cold, snowy and cloudy with no sun showing in the sky. This would be a good topic to discuss on the way to story hour each Thursday.

We had a little difficulty with the color red, but finally decided that the two hearts and Mitzi's sweater were red things. We learned that valentines represent love and then learned hand signs to show "I love you" and practiced doing them with our adult. The most difficult part of this was understanding "you", so this is another topic to work on with your child.

We read two books [click the link to find it on LINKcat and check it out for yourself]:

Valentine Mice! by Bethany Roberts. 

Happy Valentine's Day, Mouse! by Laura Numeroff.

As we listened to the story we talked about the silly mice in Valentine Mice! who threw their valentines in the air, slipping and sliding on ice, and how sad the mice felt when one of them was missing [but happy when they found him later]. We acted out words like skip, hop, looking high and low and calling for someone who's lost, and being happy and shouting "Yay!", when he's found. We also found a red cardinal, red mittens, and red valentines in the book.

Happy Valentine's Day, Mouse! was about a cute mouse who makes and gives valentines to all his friends; then they surprise him by coming to his house with valentine cookies. Mitzi then gave each of the children a valentine cookie in a sandwich bag, so they could take it home for after lunch [or some couldn't wait and ate theirs right away].

Our activity was to make a "love tree" to hang up at home or give to someone we love. We did this by having our adult trace our arm and hand on a sheet of brown paper and then cut it out. We then learned to use a glue stick in a circular motion and glued the tree to a sturdy white paper. We then had plates of punched hearts that we could glue onto and around the tree like leaves.

Next week we will have a guest who will talk to us about teeth and their care.

In two weeks when we have a snowman theme I would like the children to bring one or two pictures of a snowman. It may be one they helped make, one where they are making a snowman, or just a picture of one they like. Please encourage them to be ready to talk about their picture, if possible.