We're Going on a Bear Hunt Play to Learn

I love to put together new themes for our Play to Learn program, but have been lacking time lately.  That's why I am super excited to show off our new one on We're Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen.  This title is extra special as it is also one of our 100 Books to Read Before Kindergarten. 

If you are unfamiliar with our Play to Learn program, it is a station-based early literacy program where children and parents can interact together.  It is not librarian-driven.  While I create the stations and set everything up, I am not in front of the room reading the story or telling people what to do.  They can spend as long or as little as they want at a particular station.  Each station has a sign that explains the activity and why that activity is important to early literacy.  By running this type of program, we hope to give parents the tools to take home and use with their children.

We register 20 kids, ages 2-4, for each session of Play to Learn and we open the room up for one hour.  If it is a really popular program, we will register additional kids and start them 30 minutes into the program.  We want each parent and child to be able to spend time at each station and you can't do that in a crowded room. 

Station 1: Make a Nametag
I used an AccuCut die to cut brown bears to use as nametags.  The kids then can then write their name on it. To help those kids who are not quite ready to write their name, I type out all of the first names in list form so they can see the letters.  At this station, as you may have guessed, we are working on the writing skill.

Station 2: Read the Book
Since we are a library, I feel that the book is the most important part of the program.  I pull just about every copy from all of our locations that I can get and we put them out for parents to read to their child.   At this station children are practicing reading, which encourages them to learn how to read on their own.  By sharing reading with their child, parents are helping them to develop vocabulary and comprehension, nurturing a love of reading, and motivating their child to want to learn to read.

Station 3: Flannelboard
Now that the kids (and parents!) have read the story, they can retell it in their own words at the flannelboard. 

Station 4: Make a Book

I couldn't think of anything clever to come up with on my own so I went online. Making Learning Fun has a printable book.  I think it is important for the kids to make and take home some type of book in this program.

Station 5: Make a Teddy Bear Puppet

I used die cut shapes, sticker eyes, crayons, glue dots, and craft sticks to make teddy bear puppets.  To make things easier on the kid, the glue dots were attached to the craft sticks ahead of time.

I also provided the words to The Bear Went Over the Mountain for kids to sing and act out with their puppets.  Since songs slow down language, the children can hear the different sounds in words and learn new words.

Station 6: Make a Map

I put out various parts so kids could create their own maps. I included crayons and these awesome mini stampers.

After the kids created their maps, we talked about what they added.  Plus, it was always fun screaming when we got to the bear.

Station 7: B is for Bear

I drew a bear cave on our giant whiteboard.  Then I created various pictures (some start with B and some do not) and added magnet tape to the back.  Kids were asked to add the B pictures to the cave. 

Flannel Friday-We're Going on a Bear Hunt

This week's submission is We're Going on a Bear Hunt, which I needed for one of our Play to Learn programs.  To make it really easily, there is a pattern at Making Learning Fun.

This week's round-up is hosted by Kim at Literary Commentary.  

If you want to know more about Flannel Friday:

• Check out the official Flannel Friday blog that includes schedules and other important information.
• Search for images and links on our Pinterest page.
• Discuss story time stuff (and other ys stuff) on the Flannel Friday Facebook page.
• Follow #flannelstorytime on Twitter.

Go Away, Big Green Monster! Play to Learn

This morning I got to try out our brand new theme for our popular Play to Learn program here at CMPL.  It was based on the popular children's book, Go Away, Big Green Monster! by Ed Emberley.  The theme is one that I have been wanting to try for awhile and it was very successful!

 If you are unfamiliar with our Play to Learn program, it is a station-based early literacy program where children and parents can interact together.  It is not librarian-driven.  While I create the stations and set everything up, I am not in front of the room reading the story or telling people what to do.  They can spend as long or as little as they want at a particular station.  Each station has a sign that explains the activity and why that activity is important to early literacy.  By running this type of program, we hope to give parents the tools to take home and use with their children.

We register 20 kids, ages 2-4, for each session of Play to Learn and we open the room up for one hour.  If it is a really popular program, we will register additional kids and start them 30 minutes into the program.  We want each parent and child to be able to spend time at each station and you can't do that in a crowded room. 

Station 1: Make a Nametag
I used an AccuCut die to cut various shapes in green to use as nametags.  The kids then can choose their shape and write their name on it. To help those kids who are not quite ready to write their name, I type out all of the first names in list form so they can see the letters.  At this station, as you may have guessed, we are working on the writing skill.

Station 2: Read the Book
Since we are a library, I feel that the book is the most important part of the program.  I pull just about every copy from all of our locations that I can get and we put them out for parents to read to their child.   At this station children are practicing reading, which encourages them to learn how to read on their own.  By sharing reading with their child, parents are helping them to develop vocabulary and comprehension, nurturing a love of reading, and motivating their child to want to learn to read.

Station 3: Flannelboard & Puppet
Now that the kids (and parents!) have read the story, they can retell it in their own words at the flannelboard or with the puppet. 

My flannelboard for Flannel Friday this week.

Storytelling puppet from Lakeshore Learning.

Station 4: Clothespin Color Wheels

This station was a giant hit!  Directions about how I built it are located here.  I like it for an early literacy activity because the words match the colors.  For example, red is red.  This provides instant reinforcement that letters have meaning.  Also, by pinching the clothespins, kids are working on their fine motor skills.  This gets them ready to write.

Station 5: Make a Book

I couldn't think of anything clever to come up with on my own so I went online.  DLTK has a printable book called "My Body" which fits this story since it is all about body parts.  I think it is important for the kids to make and take home some type of book in this program.

Station 6: M Monsters

I found this great idea on Pinterest and made my own patterns for it.  It is based on the letter M, which is also for monster.  As kids worked, they started making connections to other words that begin with "M", such as mom, Michael, and Micah.  While I made an example, kids came up with some great ideas for their own monsters.  One turned his "M" on its side so it would have a body.  Another ended up with A LOT of teeth.  There is no right way to make something like this.  To make your own, you will need a letter M and body parts.  

The Wrap-Up

Personally, I was surprised with how many people were unfamiliar with this book.  I loved being able to share it with them.  The kids were enjoying it so much that I don't think there were any single readings-I heard the same families reading it 4 or 5 times.  The cake circle color wheels were a giant hit.  They were so much so that I had to tell parents where to buy them to make their own.  The flannelboard and puppet followed by a close second in popularity.  It was fun to see the kids take face parts off of the flannelboard, while saying "And don't come back!"  As an added bonus, our associate director came to the program to take pictures (which was a surprise to me) and I got to show off why we do what we do.  I think it gave her a whole new appreciation!

 

Go Away, Big Green Monster

I have been working on all things Go Away, Big Green Monster this week for our early literacy program.  Obviously, I needed a flannelboard for Flannel Friday too!

Like many people before me, I used the pattern on Kidzclub to make my flannelboard.  I printed it out and copied it again at 129% to make a bigger pattern (and to fill the board).  Just like in the story, the pieces are removable.

  
For some extra flannel fun, this is going to remain in our Activity Room for the next couple of weeks for kids to play with.  In addition to the original pieces, I cut out some extra shapes so he can be in the style of Mr. Potato Head.

I don't know why, but this is my "cool" monster.

Here's another monster with all of the extra shapes.

This week's Flannel Friday round-up is being hosted by Meg at Miss Meg's Storytime.  As always, for more information about Flannel Friday, check out the official blog or our Pinterest page.

Color Wheels

I am preparing for a program tomorrow based on Go Away, Big Green Monster and made these neat color wheels that I would like to share.  

To Make Your Own:
I started with 6-inch cake circles.  I bought a pack of 10 at Michaels for under $5.

Each cake circle was divided into 6 sections.  I used a ruler and a black Sharpie to make my lines.

I wanted some bright color spots for each section so I visited my local Home Depot and picked up some paint samples.  I am a big fan of Behr paint samples for my crafts.  I used my 1-inch hole punch to punch circles out of the paint samples.

I glued the circles onto my cake circle.  I used rainbow order, rather than that of a traditional color wheel.

I bought clothespins and used a colored Sharpie to color the ends to match my circles and to write the color name on each clothespin.

This will go out for the kids to play with tomorrow at our program.  They will match the colored clothespin with the colored space on the cake circle.

Here's why I like this:

• I used ordinary materials to make something fun for kids to play with.  It didn't cost a lot of money and is easy to recreate at home.  Whenever I pull something like this out, the light bulbs in the parents' heads start flashing.
• Clothespins are good for practicing fine motor skills.  By exercising their hands, kids are getting strong enough to write.  It really comes back to early literacy.
• Colors are great to work on word recognition.  The colored writing on the clothespins gives kids a really big clue as to what the word is.  The more they see it, the better they will recognize it.  It is instant reinforcement of what words mean.

Where is the Green Sheep, Take 2

This morning I put on my first Play to Learn program at the new library.  The actual program was the same as I did in August and blogged about here.  Today was more a lesson in logistics (and some showing off on my part).

I moved from putting the program on in a meeting room that seats 100 to having a dedicated children's activity room that seats 24.  (Isn't it pretty?)  I like having the dedicated children's program room, but we had to bump down the program limit to 20 kids.  We also had 4 strollers being pushed around the room with siblings inside so we couldn't ask parents to leave the strollers outside.  This meant that we had to have space enough for those strollers to move around the room.

I put out 2 flannelboards, which are usually stored in our story time room.  The glitch here is that the story time room is on the exact opposite side of the department from the activity room.

Above is another thing that I love.  We have a stuffed couch and chair, along with an end table, in the activity room.  This is the perfect setting for parents to share books with their children!

One end of the room holds three giant magnet walls.  My early literacy juices are running with these.

Plus, we have child-sized tables and benches.  While these are great for kids, the benches are sturdy enough for adults too.

While I liked my old building, I am loving the new one.  There is a lot of untapped potential here as I get settled in. 

Where is the Green Sheep? Play to Learn

I am really excited about this Play to Learn based on Where is the Green Sheep? by Mem Fox because it really made me go out and find early literacy ideas that would fit the program.  There are not a lot of activities online for Where is the Green Sheep?, but there is a lot that you can do with the book from an early literacy perspective.  This made it a good addition to our Play to Learn program.

If you are unfamiliar with our Play to Learn program, it is a station-based early literacy program where children and parents can interact together.  It is not librarian-driven.  While I create the stations and set everything up, I am not in front of the room reading the story or telling people what to do.  They can spend as long or as little as they want at a particular station.  Each station has a sign that explains the activity and why that activity is important to early literacy.  By running this type of program, we hope to give parents the tools to take home and use with their children.

We register 25 kids, ages 2-4, for each session of Play to Learn and we open the room up for one hour.  If it is a really popular program, we will register additional kids and start them 30 minutes into the program.  We want each parent and child to be able to spend time at each station and you can't do that in a crowded room.

Station 1: Make a Nametag
We used an AccuCut die to cut sheep in various colors to use as nametags.  The kids then can choose their sheep and write their name on it. To help those kids who are not quite ready to write their name, I type out all of the first names in list form so they can see the letters.  We also have brown craft paper down on the table so parents can practice writing with their child.  At this station, as you may have guessed, we are working on the writing skill.

Station 2: Read the Book
Since we are a library, I feel that the book is the most important part of the program.  I pull just about every copy from all of our locations that I can get and we put them out for parents to read to their child.   At this station children are practicing reading, which encourages them to learn how to read on their own.  By sharing reading with their child, parents are helping them to develop vocabulary and comprehension, nurturing a love of reading, and motivating their child to want to learn to read.

As an added bonus, I had the green sheep from MerryMakers out for the kids to play with.  The younger children especially liked this.  Its wool is really soft so this added a sensory aspect to our play.

Station 3: Mary Has a Little Lamb Flannelboard
I always put stations 2 and 3 together because they have a lot in common.  Many of our attendees are used to seeing books and flannelboards at story time when they are sitting on our story time carpet.  Normally I will do flannel parts to the story, but there were 29 separate parts for Where is the Green Sheep?  That is too many for me to keep track of and for little people to be able to tell the story.  Instead, I found this great flannelboard that I made for Flannel Friday a couple of weeks ago.  I made four sets so multiple kids could do it at once as the flannelboard tends to be one of the most popular stations.

This station works on the singing skill as we are encouraging the parents and children to sing our rhyme as they put the sheep on the board.  Singing slows down language so kids can hear the parts of words and encourages listening skills.  This helps them to learn new words and information.

Station 4: Pom Pom Sorting
This station was the winner of the day.  I bought 4 mini tongs from a party supply store, along with plastic dessert plates.  Then I found a package of 1 inch multicolored pom poms at Michaels.  I colored and laminated some sheep to match the pom poms and glued them onto the plates.  The goal of this station is for the kids to pick up pom poms with the tongs and move them to the correct colored sheep plate.

This is the full station set up for 4 kids.

This is what one of the plates looks like.

There are a lot of positive benefits associated with this type of activity.  First, by using the tongs and moving the pom poms, kids are working on their fine motor skills.  This helps to make their hands strong enough to hold pencils and write letters, which is an important component of early literacy.  By coloring the sheep and writing the color name out in that color, kids are learning that words have meaning (or comprehension).  Green written as green shows what that word means.  I like using colors for this type of activity as the kids will get hints from the color to see what the word actually means.  We are reinforcing this idea with the colored sheep and pom poms.

Station 5: Which Sheep Go Together?

I used the sheep pieces from the Kidzclub flannelboard and glued each onto a card telling what it is.  For example, next to the picture of the brave sheep, I wrote out "brave sheep".  I used 12 of the most obvious pairs so we didn't have too many for the kids to match.  If you are familiar with Where is the Green Sheep? you will know that some of the sheep go together (moon and star), while some are opposites (near and far).  Our goal at this station is to work on the talking skill as they decide which cards go together.  Children learn about language as they talk and listen to others.  Because we have a lot of metal doors, we attached magnet tape to the back of each card for them to pair them on the wall.

These are opposites.

These are both vehicles.

Station 6: Make a Book

I used clip art sheep to make a concept book for kids to color and assemble.  With this type of activity, we are working on fine motor skills again.  This works to strengthen hands so kids will be able to write.  Comprehension is also being practiced as the pictures match the words.  Here are some of the pages from our book:

The title page is important.  It helps the parents/child to remember what we were practicing at this program when they sit down to read their book at home.  It also allows us space to practice writing our names.

One sheep and many sheep are opposites.

Big sheep and little sheep are opposites too.

The green sheep and the blue sheep are both colored sheep.  To give a hint as to how to color, I typed out the color word in that color.

This page adds in some of the writing skill as we write out our colors.

Station 7: Sheep Color Craft

The pattern and idea for this craft came from The Mailbox Preschool (February 2009 edition).

I precut "wool" in various colors.  The kids glued their wool onto the paper, then added a head and legs with crayon.  We wrote what color each of our sheep were in the top blank and what the sheep was doing in the bottom blank.  I had a list of color words written out for the kids to follow.  If you do an activity such as this where you write out words for young children, write at least one set in all capital letters.  Young children tend to learn their capital letters first and their lowercase letters as they go to school. This activity practices multiple skills, including writing, reading, and comprehension.

Wrap-Up

You know you have a success when kids are still working and playing 75 minutes after the program started.  The pom pom sorting game was the most popular and often had kids waiting to play.  They were all pretty good at taking turns at this station.  The coloring book took the longest to work on.  Luckily, I set up 16 spaces for the kids to work so this was our largest station.

Flannel Friday-Mary Had a Little Lamb

I am working on an early literacy program in a couple of weeks based on Where is the Green Sheep? by Mem Fox.  Unfortunately, coming up with flannel parts for the whole story is cumbersome as there are 27 pieces if you illustrate the entire story.  With my early literacy programs I like to put out multiple sets of a flannelboard story or rhyme for the kids to play with by themselves or with their parents.  Luckily, I found this flannelboard on LibrErin's blog, who found it on Recipe for Reading. 

Mary has a little green lamb, little green lamb,  little green lamb.

Mary has a little green lamb whose fleece is green as grass.

For the next verse, you will need another colored sheep and something to compare that color too.  For example, red as strawberries or yellow as the sun.

For this program, I made 4 sets of 6 sheep.  The pattern is available at Making Learning Fun.  While the other blogs used googly eyes, I used puffy paint as my kids like to pick the eyes off of whatever pieces I let them play with.  Instead of felt, I used fun foam because I liked the vibrant colors for the pieces.  For each set, I have the song typed out, similar to how it is above.  For activities where kids are doing it themselves, I like to type the color names in that color font.  It is a way to reinforce that word.  If kids see "green" typed as green, the colored green font gives them a hint to what the word is.

This week's Flannel Friday round-up is hosted by Future Librarian Superhero.  Stop by to check out the great ideas!

Color Zoo Play to Learn

This week's Play to Learn program was another collaborative (credit will be given below).  Color Zoo by Lois Ehlert is one of those early childhood classic books that every child should read.  Between the shapes and colors, there is a lot of good stuff here.  The hard part comes when you are brainstorming ideas to go along with the book.  Below is what we came up with.

Station 1-Make Nametags
Instead of staff making nametags, we have the children and/or their parents make them for this program.  We put out a fun shape, some yarn or tape, and child pencils.  In addition, I write out all of the children's names so they can trace them from a list.  A colleague (Deb) had a sheet of nametags with the cute borders and shapes so I only had to copy, cut, and punch them out.

Station 2-Read the Book
I pulled out all of the copies of Color Zoo that I could find for this station.  To add some additional fun, I pulled out 3 pizza box flannelboards.  Each box contained 1/3 of the story (otherwise, there were just too many parts in one box).  

The kids liked to make the animals in the book out of felt shapes.  Then, they began to experiment and make their own creatures.  This was good for their imagination.

To give a little more shape practice, I also pulled out my large flannelboard and my copy of Baa, Baa, Shape Sheep from Making Learning Fun.

Station 3-Make Shape Puppets
I found this idea on Pinterest and thought it would work perfectly.  I cut out a wide variety of shapes with our AccuCut dies.  I scattered them across the table, along with glue sticks and crayons, although I did try to put one large shape at everyone's place to get them started.  To make the popsicle stick easily stick to the shapes, we used a glue dot on the end. (This I could prepare ahead of time, leaving the backing on one side of the glue dot and attaching it to the stick.)  I will admit, I am not super creative when it comes to things like puppets (as seen below), but the kids came up with some great things.  I had one who folded a triangle in half to make a beak.  Another decided that their puppet needed a body and kept building.

Station 4-Button Sorting Station
I love when you can reuse a great station!  This one we had purchased from Lakeshore Learning for our Pete the Cat Play to Learn program.  The buttons have a wide variety of shapes and colors that you can sort on various labelled mats.

How does button sorting promote early literacy?  With our button sorting station, the mats each had a characteristic printed across the top, such as triangles or purple.  The goal of the station is to add buttons with that characteristic to the mat.  This reinforces the comprehension skill.  The child is seeing the word and learning that it has meaning.  Then they are using that meaning as they work at the station.  A secondary skill here is the sorting skill that promotes early childhood math.

Station 5-Shapes
This was, by far, the most popular station.  We purchased the Color & Shapes Activity Mats through Lakeshore Learning as we expect this set to get heavy traffic.  You could also make some using colored paper and laminating them.  Set-up was easy as I just scattered them across the floor.  On our sign, I gave a list of directions to get them started, such as "Jump on the red star."  They had no problems once they got going.  In fact, most of them took their puppets (from station 3) and would hold them as they jumped to the different shapes.  In addition to the gross motor skills that they kids were working on, they did a lot of talking as they played on the shapes.  We found green squares, orange stars, etc.  Colors and shapes are a great way to practice talking with kids as they can see "red" at the same time you are talking about red. 

While it wasn't expected, the kids also worked on the early childhood skill of sorting as they liked to move the shapes around by shape or color.  Luckily the shapes are a little heavy so they weren't dragged all around the room.

 
Station 6-Make a Book
I love to include a book activity in all of our Play to Learn programs.  Since our focus is early literacy, the children can work on their book in the program, then take it home and read it with their family.  This book was created by Deb again.  I like it because there is a lot of shape tracing.  The shapes are all labelled so kids can see the words that match the shapes.  Some of the pages had a picture made out of shapes, such as a sailboat, and the kids counted the triangles.