Mice Eat Cookies???

For yesterdays' Stories for Young Children* we read A Dog's Life by Caroline Sherman and If You Give A Mouse A Cookie by Laura Joffe Numeroff. We also created our own mouse with our favorite cookie and glass of milk. Everyone loved their mouse so much that they decided to take them home. But if you would like to learn how to make your own this is where you'll find the instructions.

Hope to see you in one of our story times in the near future! ;o)

*Stories for Young Children is held every Wednesday at 11:00 am. This program is for children birth to 5 years with an adult caregiver. The program includes stories, books, finger plays, nursery rhymes, and songs that promote language development, vocabulary building, and comprehension. Attendance is limited.

And the Cow Says, What?

Mooo! Farm animals was the subject of yesterday's Stories for Young Children.* We read Dog's Noisy Day: A Story to Read Aloud by Emma Dodd and Let's Go Visiting by Sue Williams. Afterward, we created sheep out of a paper plate, construction paper, and some cotton balls. Everyone loved their creation so much that they decided to take their sheep home! So here's mine:

 If you would like to know how to create your own cotton ball sheep, you can find the instructions here.

Oh! By the way, we still have Chameleon Colors from last week on display if you haven't had the chance to stop by. ;o)


*Stories for Young Children is held every Wednesday at 11:00 am. This program is for children birth to 5 years with an adult caregiver. The program includes stories, books, finger plays, nursery rhymes, and songs that promote language development, vocabulary building, and comprehension. Attendance is limited.

Chameleon Colors

Last weeks' Stories for Young Children* we read Leon the Chameleon by Mélanie Watt and Lemons Are Not Red by Laura Vaccaro Seeger. After the stories and the songs, we made our own multicolored chameleons!

Don't forget to stop by and take a look! :o)

*Stories for Young Children is held every Wednesday at 11:00 am. This program is for children birth to 5 years with an adult caregiver. The program includes stories, books, finger plays, nursery rhymes, and songs that promote language development, vocabulary building, and comprehension. Attendance is limited.

Check Us Out!

While you're checking out our Stories for Young Children Display, make sure to take a look at some of our others. You'll see them to your left and right as soon as you enter the second set of doors.

We have our Spring Display

 Barbie is up next.

















And last, our Fox Display.












And as always, the books you see in our displays are available for check out. If you have any suggestions for future displays, let us know in the comments below! ;o)

The VERY Hungry Caterpillar

Last weeks' Stories for Young Children* was all about gardening and what you can find in garden. We read Bumpety Bump! by Pat Hutchins and The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. Afterward, we made our own caterpillars. Stop by to take a look!

See you soon! ;o)

*Stories for Young Children is held every Wednesday at 11:00 am. This program is for children birth to 5 years with an adult caregiver. The program includes stories, books, finger plays, nursery rhymes, and songs that promote language development, vocabulary building, and comprehension. Attendance is limited.

Recommended Reading

We all know that Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney is one of the hottest series around but what if *gasp* they're all checked out! Or they've already read all of the current titles. Well, here are a few titles that may strike your young readers fancy if they enjoy Diary of a Wimpy Kid:

Riot Brothers by Amato, Mary

Knights of the Lunch Table by Cammuso, Frank

Flat Stanley by Greenhut, Josh

Popularity Papers by Ignatow, Amy

Nathan Abercrombie by Lubar, David

Confessions of a Former Bully by Ludwig, Trudy

Amelia by Moss, Marissa

Geek Chic by Palatini, Margie

Big Nate by Peirce, Lincoln

Dork Diaries by Russell, Rachel

Julian Rodriguez by Stadler, Alexander

Little Wolf by Whybrow, Ian

Not-So-Angry Birds

Wednesday, April 3rd, we held our Stories for Young Children* program with Ms. Angela and the topic for that day was Birds! We read Birds by Kevin Henkes and Little White Duck by Walt Whippo. Afterward we "feathered" our own birds.

Our feathered creations will stay in our display until next week.

*Stories for Young Children is held every Wednesday at 11:00 am. This program is for children birth to 5 years with an adult caregiver. The program includes stories, books, finger plays, nursery rhymes, and songs that promote language development, vocabulary building, and comprehension. Attendance is limited.

Y is for...

yak, and for yuck, and for you
    For yap, and for yard,
     And for yam and yip too.
     For yoga, for yogurt,
     for yodel, and yoke.

     We have two y's in yo-yo

     And that's not a joke.

     Y is in yank.

     Y is in yarn.

     Y is in yonder,

     But isn't in barn.

     Y is in yip

     And also yokefellow,

     Yummy and yurt

     And, best of all, yellow!

We hope you enjoy our hastily written poem!  We read about all things yellow during today's storytime:  a very special yellow fruit in Beautiful Bananas (Elizabeth Laird/Liz Pichon), a adorable yellow animal in Hoppity Skip Little Chick (Jo Brown), and something not only yellow, but also round, in Louella and the Yellow Balloon  (Molly Coxe).  [We couldn't find a pic of that last one!]

   

For our art project, we made one of the most important yellow things of all:

the sun!!!!

Storytime Time was Eggs-cellent This Morning

We had 45 kids and parents in storytime this morning!  That is so awesome!!!!  (There we go with the exclamation points again!)  We had such a crowd it was hard to take pictures of the kids individual crafts, but you'll see some samples in our next post.

Our favorite egg story was EGG-napped! by Marisa Montes and illustrated by Marsha Winborn.


We also had fun pretending to be birds in an egg.

I'm a Little Birdie
[tune of "I'm a Little Teapot]
I'm a little birdie
ready to hatch,
(squat down as if
inside an egg)
pecking my shell--
scratch, scratch, scratch!
(pretend to peck shell
with hand)
When I crack it open,
Out I'll leap,
(jump up)
Fluffing my feathers--
Cheep, cheep, cheep!
(fold arms like wings
and flap them)

U is for...

U, u, u! What begins with u? Unicorn, ukelele, and umbrella too!

Before the preschool storytime crew made these watercolor masterpieces, we shared several stories and songs about rain and umbrellas.

Our favorite umbrella-themed book was:

Our favorite umbrella-themed song was:

We Put Our Umbrellas Up

[tune of "Looby Loo"]
We put our umbrellas up.
Arch arms overhead.
We close our umbrellas down.
Lower arms to side.
We give our umbrellas A shake, shake, shake
Shake hands.
And turn them all around.
Roll hands.

R is for....

rabbits, a.k.a. bunnies!

Last Wednesday, we sparked up our spring spirit with these books:

Of course, no rabbit storytime can be done without a little hopping.

Rabbits, Rabbits

[tune: Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star]

Rabbits, rabbits hop, hop, hop.

Rabbits, rabbits stop, stop, stop.

Twitch your ears and twitch your nose.

Twitch your tail and twitch your toes.

Rabbits, rabbits hop, hop, hop.

Rabbits, rabbits stop, stop, stop.

And one must also do a little jumping:

Funny Little Bunny

Start out standing

Funny little bunny

Sat on a stump,

Squat down

Flicked his floppy little ears,

Put a hand on each side

Of head and flop

And then gave a jump!

Jump up.

Our art project will come as no surpise, though it was hard to photograph such busily bouncing bunnies...er...rabbits...

J is for Jungle and Going Green

Last week, we learned about jungles and the letter J during preschool storytime.  Our favorite book was Snarlyhissopus by Alan MacDonald and illustrated by Louise Voce.

We also read Keith's Baker's Who is the Beast?  It is a jungle-themed storytime must have!

 

After loads of reading and singing and having fun, we finished things off by making a jungle vine necklace.  The trick to dying the noodles is putting a few drops of food coloring in a half cup or so of rubbing alcohol and stirring the noodles frequently to coat.  It's best to let them dry overnight.

This week, in honor of St. Patrick's day we read green stories, our favorite being Mem Fox's Where is the Green Sheep? 

We made lace-up shamrocks for our craft...of course!  We added a few sequins for a bit of sparkle.

F is for...

Frog!

These are two of our favorite frog books along with the frog puppet we made today during preschool storytime.

I is for Insect!

This week we read about insects during preschool storytime. 

Our favorite stories were The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle

and The Very Greedy Bee by Steve Smallman (illustrated by Jack Tickle).

 

We had fun painting butterflies afterwords.  We painted one wing, smashed the two wings together, and, voila, we had the same pattern on both sides.