Flannel Friday-The Nuts: Sing and Dance in Your Polka-Dot Pants

One of the big events that we do at least 1 time each summer is a story time in the park.  When we do these events, it is not uncommon to have 150 people at our story time.  When we choose books, props, and flannelboards, we look for ones that we can make bigger so everyone can see them.  This summer, we did a movement story time that included The Nuts: Sing and Dance in Your Polka-Dot Pants by Eric Litwin.  Not only is it a great story, but the figures are pretty easy to make larger.  We used fun foam and puffy paint to create our figures.  As one person read the story, another danced with their nut to go along with the words.

 Hazel Nut and her dad

 Mama and Wally Nut

Grandma Nut

 

This week's Flannel Friday Round-Up is hosted by Mollie at What Happens in Storytime.

 

Flannel Friday-Pete's Back

We have a great relationship going this summer with our local Parks & Rec department (yay Julie for organizing!) and are doing a lot of neat outreach events out in the community this summer.  Next week we will be doing story time in the park.  There is a good possibility of there being 150+ people there, which means that we began to rethink how we will be sharing picture books with a large crowd.  We are pulling out puppets, props, and our newly painted Pete the Cat prop boards.

This is Pete the Cat painted on a large foam board with acrylic paints.  The buttons all have velcro so we can tell the story of Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons by Eric Litwin and have the buttons pop off.  Of course,  you need a way to see his belly button so we made a 2nd board.

While we will still be using the book to tell the story, these boards will help illustrate the actions to the crowd.

Kelly at Ms. Kelly at the Library is hosting this week's Flannel Friday round-up.

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.

   

Give Me a Break

For those who are just tuning in, back in early March, a survey popped up on Mel's desk based on a Twitter discussion.  We were curious about what all of us were doing-how many story times, how many staff, how many programs, etc.  The first set of results appeared here and discussed non-story time programming.  Today's post will focus on story time breaks.

At my library, breaks are extremely important.  Not only do they allow you to reenergize before the next story time session, but this is when I fit in professional development, weeding, special projects, and those thousand tasks that I just don't have time for during a story time week.  We run our story times in 5-6 week sessions and have a 3 week break afterwards.  This isn't exact-sometimes around the holidays, the break ends up a bit longer.  In 2014, we will have story time for 30 weeks (6 5 week sessions) and will be on break for 22 weeks.  We've tried different methods of breaking up the sessions, but this is what works for us and our community.

Below shows the results of us asking, "Do you take breaks in between sessions, or weeks off from regular weekly story times?"

Do you have a story time break?

It surprised me that the "No" category is so high.  Let's talk about possible reasons that I have heard in the past.

Story time is my favorite part of my job!
I get that.  I love story time too.  I am really excited when it starts.  It allows me to meet all of the families at a young age.  I also love coming up with new ways to promote early literacy. On the other hand, isn't there anything else that you would like to try?  My breaks are when I can pull out dance parties, toddler crafts, and iPad programming.  These are the things that don't fit in the regular schedule, but I still love to do them.

If I stop doing story time, the families won't come back.
I get it.  This is a legitimate concern, especially for smaller libraries.   We have always been lucky and breaks have figured into our schedule, but we have fiddled with lengths.  One year we had month-long breaks (one month on and one month off).  I thought our parents were going to throw a fit.  By the time you remember to come to story time again, the session is over.  We went back to three week breaks because that is how long most of our books circulate.  Also, we are able to remind parents in the last week that they are able to register for the next session in another week.

For those libraries who just aren't ready to try a break yet, why don't you do a couple of weeks of traditional story time, then a week of early literacy stations, followed by a week of toddler crafts?  Keep it at the same time, but change it up a bit.  Story times are extremely important for early literacy and libraries, but so are crafts where kids can work on fine motor skills which will prepare them to write or early literacy stations that show parents how to replicate the effort at home.

Keep in mind, though, that these are just my thoughts and opinions.  You will have to do what is best for both you and your community.  You know what you can handle on a given week and what will or will not work.

Flannel Friday-SANTA

It's time for the Flannel Friday Holiday Extravaganza!  I found a great flannelboard this week (that I did not create-it was in one of the file drawers at the new location) that goes well with one of my favorite Christmas program songs.  I like to also sing this song when Santa visits the library as we tend to have a very young audience.

S-A-N-T-A

To the tune of B-I-N-G-O

I know a man who wears big black boots. SANTA. 

I know a man who wears big black boots. SANTA.  

SANTA. SANTA. SANTA. And Santa was his name-o.

I know a man who wears a bright red suit.  *ANTA. 

I know a man who wears a bright red suit.  *ANTA. 

*ANTA. *ANTA. *ANTA. And Santa was his name-o.

I know a man who wears a fancy belt. **NTA.

I know a man who wears a fancy belt. **NTA.

**NTA. **NTA.  **NTA. And Santa was his name-o.

I know a man with a long white beard. ***TA.

I know a man with a long white beard. ***TA.

***TA. ***TA. ***TA. And Santa was his name-o.

I know a man with a sack of toys. ****A.

I know a man with a sack of toys. ****A.

****A. ****A. ****A. And Santa was his name-o.

I know a man with a hearty laugh. *****.

I know a man with a hearty laugh. *****.

*****. *****. *****. And Santa was his name-o.

(Sing "ho" instead of clapping the missing letters.)

These are the individual parts.

 

This is Santa all put together.

 

Mollie at What Happens In Storytime... is hosting this week's Holiday Extravaganza.  Stop on by for some great ideas!

 

 

Flannel Friday-Squirrels!

We are starting to prep here for our fall story times and one of our themes will be squirrels.  To add a little fun to the program, I made squirrel finger puppets for this week's Flannel Friday post.

I really like how he turned out.  Mine is made out of felt and sewn together. You could also glue the edges and use puffy paint for the details.  The pattern is included here.  I just made 2 of them, but you could make 5 if you are doing some "5 little" rhymes.  Here are some rhymes you can do with 2 squirrels:

This little squirrel said,"Let's run and play."
This little squirrel said,"Let's hunt nuts today."
This little squirrel said,"Yes, nuts are good."
This little squirrel said,"Yes, they are our best food."
This little squirrel said,"Come climb a tree." 

 I just alternate back and forth with this one since we aren't actually counting.

I also like to redo "Two Little Blackbirds" to fit my themes.

Two little squirrels sitting on a hill.

One named Fred and one named Phil.

Run away Fred.  Run away Phil.

Come back Fred.  Come back Phil.

Kay at Storytime ABC's is hosting this week's Flannel Friday round-up.  Stop on by for some great ideas! 

Story Time Prep 101

In response to Anne's great post yesterday at So Tomorrow, below is the method to my story time madness.

How We Work It
My colleague (Kara) and I do nine story times a week through most of the year at our branch.  I do 2 Music and Movements for 2-4 year olds and 2 2 year old story times.  Kara does 3 baby story times (1 0-11 month and 2 12-24 month) and 1 preschool story time (ages 3-6).  Then, we both do one school age story time together.  On an average week we run 300 people through our story times.  Instead of planning 9 separate story times, we grouped them together in ways that make sense.  For example, 2 year old and preschool story times have a lot in common.  You can use some of the same books, although you would use less for the 2 year olds.  You can also use the same flannelboards, rhymes, and poetry.  To avoid burnout, 1 of us plans an entire story time session (6 weeks or so) of preschool and 2 year old story times.  That person also plans the school age story time.  They are responsible for pulling books, making or pulling flannelboards, and finding and prepping crafts for the preschool and school age story times.  Since Music and Movement and the baby programs are totally different, I plan all of the Music and Movement programs and Kara plans all of the baby story times.  I will admit that this works for us because we complement each other well.  I don't know how this would work with a different mix of people.

My Style
I will admit that since I have been doing this for 12 years, I tend to reuse my themes and plans 1x a year.  I used to set them up in Microsoft Word and include everything I would need for a theme-books, rhymes, flannelboards (and where they are filed), crafts, poetry, songs, etc.  Ever since Melissa at Mel's Desk posted on the ALSC blog about Evernote, I have been posting my plans there.  I am loving Evernote because I can access it from any desk with Internet (even from home!).  You can also add pictures (of your crafts or flannelboards) and web links of where you found ideas.

After coming up with (or reusing) a theme, I start off by looking for new or different books.  I will search our catalog, check my Pinterest account to see what I have pinned on that theme, and check what I have tagged in my Feedly account.  If you get stuck, the first place I would recommend checking is Storytime Katie's list of themes.  It is an awesome list!

Once I have my list of books for a theme/session, I pull the ones that we have at our location and put the rest of them on hold.  I try to start pulling books at least 2 weeks before a story time session begins as we have three locations and often duplicate themes.

After I have pulled my books, I raid my giant file cabinet to look for flannelboards, rhymes, and songs that I have stored.  As you can possibly see, I have a large collection.  It has gotten to the point where I add in Evernote where I have filed my various flannelboards and rhymes so I can find them again.

Our Story Times

On the morning of story time, we load everything we will need for the morning up on our cart and take it back to our meeting room.  Some mornings have three story times.  There is also one day where we have only a 15 minute break in between programs so everything needed is taken back to the meeting room first thing.

We use nametags for attendance.  These are put out in alphabetical order on tables.  As you can see above, we have three separate programs going this morning so there are three separate tables.  When we collect nametags back at the end of the program, we add mini stickers to them.

As you can see above, we don't have a separate story time room.  We run all of our programs in our meeting room that we share with the public.  The room can seat up to 100 chairs or 50 tables and chairs.  This gets a little icky when we have a 9:15 story time and the group the previous evening needed 100 chairs.  This means we have to add in furniture take-down to our morning duties in addition to setting up for story time.  We also have a lot of multi-children families.  It is not unreasonable to expect that we need space for 10 strollers in addition to seating for parents, siblings, and story time kids.

With a room this size, we ran into another issue.  Having an open room for a bunch of 2 year olds is asking them to run around.  There are no boundaries.  We solved this by purchasing a carpet from Demco where they sit.  Because of the natural rectangle outline, many of the parents will sit along the edge, either with their children or by themselves.  This also gives us a boundary for when older siblings attend the program.  We can tell them that they can participate, but they have to stay off of the carpet. 

For our programs, we register 15 babies or 25 in the other groups.  Part of this is due to what we can realistically handle and the other is due to the entourage.  It is not unreasonable to expect that in a 25 child 2 year old story time that there will be 60 people plus 10 strollers.

Above is our actual space where we do story time.  Personally, I am a big fan of having counters since we have so many young children coming through.  It allows me to set up, while being high enough that little hands can't grab things.

While setting up, I will go through our stack of story time books.  Since Kara and I work well together, I can trust in the books that she has chosen.  What I am looking for are 2-3 books without tons of words on a page for my 2 year olds.

Our big stack gets whittled down to what I am going to use for that particular program.  The rest of the books go back on the cart for the next program.  I like to prop the books up, because my kiddos are fond of guessing games (plus, they need really obvious clues).  We look at the books and guess what our theme will be for the week.  You may be able to see our cd player peeking out from behind the books.  While I prefer using my work iPod for programs, if we have a lot of programs in a morning, I will use a burned cd with all of our story time songs on it.

The other nice thing about counters is that you can set up your flannelboards ahead of time!  As you can see above, I have two flannelboards ready to go.  There are also folders of more flannelboards underneath in case I get desperate or we are having a super wiggly day.  While we have a story time easel, I don't pull it out all of the time.  I use it when I have flannelboards with lots of parts or when the kiddos are going to participate.  Otherwise, I will spend the whole 30-minute story time with kids petting the board.  I like my handheld boards also because we sit in a rectangle.  It allows me to move the board around the room so everyone can see.

I sit at the front of the room, right in front of the counter (kind of on the R square if you can see it above).  With the little kids, I do a better job if I am at their height.  It allows me to give them a better experience than if I am looming above them.  (As a side note, this also puts me right in front of the space under the sink.  I am able to catch the kids if they decide to dive under.  Yes, that has happened.) 

At the end of story time, all of the kids clean up.  This means that they put their shakers and nametags back in the box that I put on the floor.  Then they all get a stamp.  It is the same every week, even though I have a bunch of stamps from when Kidstamps was still in business.  The week I thought I would use Spot instead of Clifford, I thought we were going to have mutiny.  I use washable blue ink.  I have tried other colors, including red, but they just don't show up on kids' hands.

After the program, the shakers and cd player go back in the cupboards under the counter.  The stamps and cds go in one of the drawers.  At the end of all of the programs for the day, we roll up the carpet and are ready for groups to use the room.

Any questions???

Flannel Friday-In the Boat with Me

I love it when I find a flannelboard with a lot of pieces so there are enough for most/all of the kids.  This rhyme and pattern is in The Best of Totline Flannelboards and is called "In the Boat with Me".  In addition to having a lot of pieces, it is also a countdown rhyme so you get to practice your numbers.

The first line of the rhyme is:

Five little sea stars who lived in the sea,

Jumped right into the boat with me.

The rhyme continues with crabs, fish, sharks, and a whale.

Amy at Catch the Possibilities is hosting the Flannel Friday round-up this week.

 

Flannel Friday-5 Frogs

A couple of years ago, we had a fantastic intern named Lynn.  Before she left us, she made us a bunch of flannelboards.  These five frogs are one of those that she made.  I love it when other people make me flannelboards, because they tend to do things in a totally different way than I would.  This gives me variety and sparks my imagination in other ways.

Personally, I never would have thought to make my frogs out of circles.  I now wonder how many other animals I can make out of simple shapes!

The base circle (dark green) is made out of a stiff felt to give the frog some stability.  The other parts are all cut out of normal felt.  He has velcro on the back to help hold him to the board due to his weight.

You can use these frogs for a many frog rhymes/songs, including Five Little Speckled Frogs or Five Little Frogs.  This would also make a good craft for preschoolers out of construction paper and you can send them home with a copy of the rhyme.

Kathryn is hosting her first ever Flannel Friday round-up this week at Fun with Friends at Storytime!  Stop by and check it out.

Flannel Friday-Little Red Bug

It's time for Flannel Friday!  Here is a great rhyme to incorporate into your summer story times.

Little red bug, oh so cute,

Here's a black spot for your suit.

Now you go and have some fun,

With your spot, your very first one.

It's so nice to own a few,

So enjoy these lovely two.

We are very please to see,

How nice you look wearing all three.

You might feel that you need more,

So we'll happily give you four.

 

  Heaven, heaven, sakes alive,

 Look at you, you're wearing five!

This is an easy flannelboard to make as it is all circles.  You will need a large red one for the body, a medium black one for the head, and 5 little ones for the spots.  I added googly eyes because the kiddos tend to be fascinated by them.

This week's Flannel Friday Round-Up is hosted by Lisa at Story Time with the Library Lady.

 

Flannel Friday-Crazy Critters

I was going through my files this week and found one of the first flannelboards that I ever did.  The pattern and directions are included in A Storytime Year by Susan Dailey, which is a great resource to have on your professional reference shelf.  My kiddos love games in story time, which is one reason why this is great.  It has been used so many times that I think that I need to color/copy the pieces again and laminate them.

 Here are all of the animals mixed up (except the monkey).

 Here are the animals with the correct parts.

If you make this game yourself, it helps if you use a different color for every animal.  It helps the kids if they are putting the parts together.  It also helps you if you are quickly grabbing parts during story time.  I like to use this during animal or silly story times.  It also works well as an early literacy station if you have a flannelboard out in your library.  To add some literacy to the game, we talk about what each animal is called and what noise it makes when they are put together.  You can also talk about what noises you think that the mixed up animals would make.

I am hosting the round-up this week at Libraryland.  Have a great weekend!

Flannel Friday-Pete's Big Lunch

If you follow my blog, you will know that Pete the Cat is one of my favorite book characters.  It is like Christmas for me when a new Pete the Cat book comes out.  This week we tried out Pete's Big Lunch, one of the new I Can Read books by HarperCollins.  What I like about it, other than the silliness, is that you are building something.  This translates really well over to a flannelboard.  Plus, in the case of Mrs. Lisa lost her voice this week, the kids were able to tell the story as we stacked the pieces up.

If you have missed this book, Pete is making a sandwich.  He just uses some unlikely ingredients.  As you can see, Pete uses a whole loaf of bread, a fish, a tomato, mayo, an apple, crackers (by this time the kids are giggling), a pickle, swiss cheese, an egg, 2 hot dogs, a banana, a can of beans, and three scoops of ice cream (by now you have lots of laughter).

All of the pieces for this flannelboard are cut out of felt with puffy painted details.

This week's Flannel Friday Round-Up is hosted by Storytime Katie.  For all things Flannel Friday, check out the official blog.  Also, make sure you stop by the Flannel Friday Pinterest page for an excellent flannelboard resource.  

Next week's round-up will be hosted here at Libraryland.  If you will be going out of town for the holiday weekend (in the U.S.), the placeholder will be up by Wednesday (a little early this week).

Flannel Friday-Cleaning Up

It's Friday so that means it is time for some Flannel Friday fun.  This week in our Music & Movement program, we did stories about Cleaning Up.  While the stories are great, it is hard to find rhymes and flannelboards that work.  Below are two that we used.

This is not an original idea for me.  Unfortunately, I do not have the citation of where it came from (Anybody???  If you know it, I will add it in.  I think it is one of the recent ALA books.)  It is called "Where Does It Go?  The parts are all clip art, but I took pictures of things around my house for the refrigerator, the closet, and the toy box.  The goal is to match all of the items to where they belong.  We start off by looking at the refrigerator, the closet, and the toy box and talking about what goes in each.  Then I hold up each clip art item and ask where it should go.  Sometimes I am silly and say things like, "Should the chocolate milk go in the toy box" or "Should the shirt go in the refrigerator?"  The kids thing this is hilarious and you will get a lot of "No's" and laughter.  As this is a flannelboard game, it encourages participation so know your group if you use this.  It is one of those situations of "If you ask them a question, they WILL answer (and tell you their whole life story)."  The trick to this one is to find items that the kids will recognize.

 For our refrigerator, I cut out an apple, swiss cheese, and chocolate milk.

Our closet has a shirt and tennis shoes.

 Our toy box has a teddy bear and some blocks.

The second flannelboard is Five Little Toys.  All of the pieces are different and I used clip art for each.  You can do this as an action rhyme or add in the clip art.  Mine is done on a handheld magnetboard.

Five little toys on the bedroom floor.

(Hold up 5 fingers.)

I'm not playing with them anymore.

(Shake head, no)

I picked one up and put it away.

(Pantomime picking up toy.)

I'll play with it another day.

(Nod head, yes)

Repeat with four, three, two and one.

I love to use counting up or down rhymes with toddlers.  After each verse, we count all of the items that are left.  With the older groups, you can just ask "How many toys are left?"  It adds something extra into the rhyme and makes them feel like they are participating.

This week's Flannel Friday round-up is hosted by Amanda at Trails & Tales.  For all things Flannel Friday, check out the official blog.  Are you planning a story time?  Check out the Flannel Friday Pinterest page for ideas!

Why We Use Nametags

This is one of those subjects where everybody will have a different option.  Some librarians don't use any nametags for programs, while some have parents write their child's names on a label when they arrive.  For me, it goes back to my personal rules of children's programming:

1. Know your audience.
2. Know what you can handle (this includes how many kids).
3. Know what you are trying to accomplish.

How it all started for us:
We started using nametags in Fall 2008 because we had to start registration for all of our programs.  At our location, we hold story time in a large meeting room with a maximum capacity of 100 people.  We were getting 60 kids, plus siblings and parents for some of our story times.  It was chaos-we didn't have enough props for all of the kids (shakers, scarves, etc.) and the room was too loud for the kids to hear the stories.  This was not a meaningful experience for anyone (me included).

For our next set of sessions, we started registration.  We told all of the parents ahead of time.  Those who had attended one of our 60+ kid sessions understood the reasoning behind registration.  After all, we were after the best possible experience for their children.  Since this was the first time that we started registration, we didn't enforce it.  We wanted to see if it worked and to get people used to the whole registration process.  We made it as easy as possible-we use the Evanced Events calendar so people can register in person, over the phone, or on their own computer.

The next step:
If you have registration, you need a way to keep attendance.  Otherwise, why would people bother to register?  Are the people attending who should?  Our events calendar automatically sends reminder emails.  If people don't attend for 2 or more weeks, we contact them to see if they are still interested in the program.  Do you have a lot of people sneaking in?  We had a lot of this in the beginning.  By using nametags that all look alike, we were able to easily identify those people who snuck into programs.  Then we could explain our registration policy after the program and hand them a calendar of events. 

The issues:
No matter what you do, there will always be issues.  Our biggest problem was that nonresidents would fill all of the spaces in the first 30 minutes of registration.  This made our residents, who are taxpayers (and basically pay my salary), upset.  Our solution for this is to offer priority registration for our residents 2 weeks ahead of time.  We open up all of our program registrations 1 week ahead of time for everyone.

In addition, all of your librarians (or people who deal with the public) should be on the same page and have the same answers.  If someone isn't registered for a program, will you let them in?  If you have a mom telling their child that the mean librarian will not let them in, will you stand firm?

Our nametags:
We are fortunate enough to have an AccuCut die cutting machine at our Main Library with some basic dies.  We are also close to our local Intermediate School District who has a wide assortment of dies.  Each session gets a set of die cut nametags in a specific shape and color (for example-green frogs, red apples, white sheep, etc.).  We have a 3M Heat Free Laminator in the building and all of the shapes are run through the laminator and cut out.  For our 2 year old, preschool, and school age sessions, we string the nametags with yarn.  For the baby sessions, we use packing tape on the back of the nametag for the parents to stick to the baby's back (or the adult's front).

Since we do take attendance, we use stickers on the nametags to mark who attends each week.  The kids love the stickers!

For us, premade nametags work.  It may not be the same for you.  At our location, we run 9 story times a week, 8 of which are in the mornings.  With a 30-minute program, we have under 30 minutes in between programs to get people out, reset the room, and let people start coming in.  This is where knowing what you can handle comes into play.

For one-time programs (pretty much everything other than story time), we use Avery 5163 labels.  They are large enough that you can add some clip art to fit your program and type in the child's name, but small enough that they will still fit on a child's shirt.

The early literacy connection:
I like to be in the program room 5-10 minutes ahead of time because the kids who get there early love to talk.  Here are some of the fun things that you can talk about using their nametags:

• What does your nametag say?  Mine says something different.  It says Mrs. Lisa.  Do you see any of the same letters?
• What shape is your nametag?  What does a frog say?
• What color is your nametag?  What is your favorite color?  Do you see anything green around the room?

Talking is an important skill for young children because it builds vocabulary.  Plus, if you do it you will be modeling the behavior for the parents.  Hopefully they will pick up on it and do it at home. 
 
Random nametag fun:

• Kids love taking their nametags home after the last class in a session.  I have heard of kids playing story time at home and making their stuffed animals wear the nametags.  I have also had kids come back with their nametags from every session throughout a year around their neck (just like fancy necklaces).
• Last week in our 2 year old story time session, the kids were using their cow nametags to talk to each other.  None of them used words-I just heard a lot of mooing.  

Story Time Swap: Crazy Traffic Light

I was trying to come up with a new idea for this story time swap when I downloaded the April issue of Children's Programming Monthly from ALA.  On page 10 is Rob Reid's poem called "The Crazy Traffic Light".  While I like to try to add poetry to my story times, poets make it really easy for me if they add in some sort of actions or sounds to help entertain the children.  That will move it to the top of my "Must Use" list.

If you are unfamiliar with the poem, you can read it here.  It is also in Children's Programming Monthly (vol. 3, no. 8 or April 2013) and in Family Storytime: Twenty-Four Creative Programs for All Ages by Rob Reid.  I came up with a pattern which you can download here.  Otherwise, it is just a bunch of circles in different colored felt on a gold rectangle.

red, yellow, and green

pink, purple, and orange

brown, white, and blue



This week's round-up is hosted by Loons and Quines @ Librarytime.  For all things Flannel Friday, check out the Flannel Friday blog.  

Flannel Friday-Five Senses

This week we talked about the five senses in our Music and Movement program and I thought that I would share our two flannelboards from that session.  The pieces aren't fancy-just clip art.  The fun parts are the rhymes!

Two little eyes to look around.

Two little ears to hear each sound.

One little nose to smell what's sweet.

One little mouth that likes to eat.

Two little hands to touch and play.

My five senses help me all day!

 

I don't remember where this second rhyme originally came from, but it appears a lot in early childhood programming books.  You can sing it to the tune of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star", but I like to just say it.  We play it as a game where the kids shout out the answers when I get to the underlined words.

 

If a bird you want to hear,

You have to listen with your ear.

 

If you want to dig in the sand,

Hold the shovel in your hand.

 

To see an airplane as it flies,

You must open up your eyes.

 

To sniff a violet or a rose,

You sniff the fragrance through your nose.

 

 When you walk across the street,

You use two things you call your feet.

 

East and west and north and south,

To eat or talk you use your mouth.

This week's Flannel Friday Round-Up is hosted by Andrea at Roving Fiddlehead Kidlit.  For more information about Flannel Friday, check out the official blog.  If you are looking for flannel ideas, make sure you check out the Flannel Friday Pinterest page.

Flannel Friday-If You Give a Mouse a Cookie

I don't know how I have missed creating this flannelboard before when I use If You Give a Mouse a Cookie by Laura Numeroff all the time.  It is the theme of our next Play to Learn early literacy program, which I will be doing at another location.  Since I will be traveling, I want a flannelboard that will be portable and that multiple kids can use at one time.  It's time for another pizza box flannelboard!

If you haven't used If You Give a Mouse a Cookie before, it is a great example of a circular story.  I made the pieces small enough so I could fit multiple on top of a 10-inch pizza box.  My goal is for the kids to see if this happens, then this will happen (or that the mouse and the cookie are both on the board at the same time.)  I couldn't find any patterns so I drew my own (warning-parts are not to scale, but I am okay with that).  The pieces are all cut out of felt and details are done with puffy paint.  For the mirror, I added silver glitter glue

I added in a little early literacy by writing the color names on the crayons.

I was running behind on writing this post this week so the paint on my flannel pieces is still wet.  The story book couldn't be moved, but I took a picture of it anyways.  To make it look like an actual book, I tried to draw Pigeon with blue puffy paint (it kind of looks like a cross between Pigeon and a blue dog to me.)

Miss Courtney Meets Bobo is hosting this week's Flannel Friday round-up.  For all things Flannel Friday, check out the blog.  If you are planning upcoming story times, check out the Flannel Friday Pinterest page.

Storytime Swap

Thanks to Storytime ABC's, it is time for another Storytime Swap!  Kay put all of our names in a hat and matched us up to a partner who we will trade "treasures" with just in time for summer.  I gave my partner, Amanda, a list of possible choices and she chose:

Yep, Pete the Cat is back again!  He seems to appear here a lot since he is my favorite children's character.  You may remember him from here, here, or here.  Since I have done Pete the Cat before, I figured I should add to him so you have something new to look at.  Amanda had asked if I could cut some extra felt shoes since we have a die cut machine and this got me thinking.  

Pete now has numbers to match his 4 groovy buttons.  Now we can work on early math skills by counting the buttons and matching the amount to the number.  You can use all 5 numbers on the board or do something like this:

Amanda had asked for additional colored shoes for Pete so her kids could match them up.   Here's what I came up with:

If you don't want to use your feltboard, you can pull out your clothesline and do something like this:

Finally, since you have the shoes and you have the numbers, you can do some additional counting like this:

This week's Flannel Friday round-up is hosted by Lucy at In the Children's Room.