Storytime - Butterflies

Toddlers

Books: The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle and Butterfly Butterfly by Petr Horacek.

Songs / Rhymes: “Good Morning”, “Hello, How Are You?”, “Open, Shut Them”, “Flutter, Flutter, Butterfly” with butterfly puppet, “Cocoon”, “I Wiggle My Fingers”, and “The More We Get Together”. 

Craft: Fluttering Butterflies. Materials: Kleenex, black pipe cleaners, and watercolor paints. The toddlers used the paints to decorate their butterflies.

Preschoolers

Books: Fly, Butterfly, Fly! by Dana Meachen Rau and Birthday for Cow by Jan Thomas (because it was my birthday!).

Songs / Rhymes: “Welcome to the Library”, “Hello, How Are You?”, “If You’re Happy and You Know It”, “Open, Shut Them”, “Cocoon”, “I Wiggle My Fingers”, and “The More We Get Together”. 

Craft: Fluttering Butterflies. Materials: Kleenex, black pipe cleaners, and watercolor paints. The preschoolers used the paints to decorate their butterflies.

Songs/Rhymes

Flutter, Flutter, Butterfly

Sung to: "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star”

Flutter, flutter, butterfly, 

Floating in the summer sky.
Floating by for all to see,
floating by so merrily.
Flutter, flutter, butterfly,
floating in the summer sky.  

--PreschoolEducation

Cocoon

You spin a cocoon

(Spin in a circle)

Then you wait inside

(Crouch down low and cover face)

And when you come out

(Link thumbs, still covering face)

You’re a butterfly!

(Lift hands fluttering into the atmosphere!)

--HCPL

Wee Read - Shake, Shake, Shake

Early Literacy Tip of the Week:

Speaking to your baby up close will help him see the movements your mouth makes in order to produce sounds.

Good Morning

Hello, How are You?

I Put My Arms up High

--Babies in the Library by Jane Marino. Lanham, MD: The Scarecrow Press, 2003.

Open Shut Them

Book One

Close to You: How Animals Bond by Kimiko Kajikawa

Shake Your Shakers

--Mother Goose on the Loose by Betsy Diamant-Cohen. New York: Neal-Schuman Publishers, Inc., 2006.

Shake Your Eggs

Shake your eggs and shake them high.

Shake your eggs and shake them low.

Shake your eggs and shake them high.

Shake your eggs around you go.

--Librarian Lisa’s Storytimes

Put Your Egg on Your Head

Sung to: “There’s a Spider on the Floor”

Use egg shakers

Put your egg on your head, on your head.

Put your egg on your head, on your head.

Put your egg on your head

Put your egg on your head.

Put your egg on your head, on your head.

continue with toes, tummy, etc.

--Librarian Lisa’s Storytimes

I Wiggle My Fingers

Book Two

Ollie by Paola Opal

Three Little Monkeys Swinging From a Tree

Three little monkeys swinging from a tree

Teasing Mr. Crocodile, “You can’t catch me!”

When along comes Mr. Crocodile annnnd SNAP!

--Traditional

Row, Row, Row Your Boat

Row, row, row your boat,

Gently down the stream.

Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,

Life is but a dream!

--Traditional

Read Together

Clap Hands by Helen Oxenbury

The More We Get Together

Storytime - Frogs

Toddler

Books: Leap Back Home to Me by Lauren Thompson and Hop Jump by Ellen Stoll Walsh

Songs / Rhymes: “Good Morning”, “Hello, How Are You?”, “Open, Shut Them”, “Little Green Frog” with frog puppet, “Five Green and Speckled Frogs” on the felt board, “I Wiggle My Fingers”, and “The More We Get Together”. 

Craft: Frog Puppets. Materials: green sheets of construction paper, red construction paper tongues, googly eyes, crayons, glue, and tape. The toddlers glued the eyes to the tops of their puppets and then glued the tongue inside its mouth. When they were done, we sang “Little Green Frog” with the puppets.

Preschool

Books: Frog by Louise Spilsbury and Froggy Goes to Camp by Jonathan London. 

Songs / Rhymes: “Welcome to the Library”, “Hello, How Are You?”, “Open, Shut Them”, “Little Green Frog” with frog puppet, “Five Green and Speckled Frogs” on the felt board, “I Wiggle My Fingers”, and “The More We Get Together”. 

Craft: Frog Puppets. Materials: green sheets of construction paper, red construction paper tongues, googly eyes, crayons, glue, and tape. The preschoolers glued the eyes to the tops of their puppets and then glued the tongue inside its mouth. When they were done, we sang “Little Green Frog” with the puppets.

Songs/Rhymes

Little Green Frog

Mmm-ahh! Went the little green frog one day.

Mmm-ahh! Went the little green frog.

Mmm-ahh! Went the little green frog one day.

And the frog went mmm-mmm-ahh!

-- PreschoolEducation.com

Five Green and Speckled Frogs

Five green and speckled frogs

Sitting on a speckled log

Eating some most delicious bugs.

Yum yum!

One jumped into the pool

Where it was nice and cool.

Now there are four green speckled frogs.

--Traditional

Wee Read - Just Us Chickens

Early Literacy Tip of the Week:

Clapping to rhymes and singing allows children to hear that words are made up of smaller parts. This will help them sound out words when they learn to read. --Library Bonanza

Good Morning

Hello, How are You?

Rooster Crows

--from Babies in the Library by Jane Marino. Lanham, MD: The Scarecrow Press, 2003.

Open Shut Them

Book One

Chicky Chicky Chook Chook by Cathy MacLennan

I Went to the Farm One Day

I went to the farm one day.

I saw a hen across the way.

And what do you think the hen did say?

Cluck, cluck, cluck!

I went to the farm one day.

I saw a chick across the way.

And what do you think the chick did say?

Cheep, cheep, cheep!

I went to the farm one day.

I saw a rooster across the way.

And what do you think the rooster did say?

Cockadoodledoo!

--modified from Mother Goose on the Loose by Betsy Diamant-Cohen. New York: Neal-Schuman Publishers, Inc., 2006.

Cluck Cluck, Red Hen

Use a chicken puppet and two plastic eggs

Sung to: "Baa Baa, Black Sheep”

Cluck, cluck, red hen, have you any eggs?

Yes, sir, yes, sir, as many as my legs: 1,2

--Storytime Source Page

I Wiggle My Fingers

Book Two

Hurry! Hurry! by Eve Bunting

Shake Your Egg With Me

Sung to: “London Bridge”

use shaker eggs

Can you shake your egg with me,

Shake your egg along with me

It’s as easy as can be

Now put it on your knee!

Repeat with head, tummy, etc.

--Nancy Stewart

We Shake Our Shakers Together

-- Mother Goose on the Loose by Betsy Diamant-Cohen. New York: Neal-Schuman Publishers, Inc., 2006.

An Egg is On My Nose

Sung to: “The Farmer in the Dell”

Use egg shakers

An egg is on my nose,

an egg is on my nose,

Heigh-ho, the derry-o,

an egg is on my nose.

(Repeat using other body parts)

--Storytime Source Page

Read Together

Five Little Chicks by Nancy Tafuri

The More We Get Together

Storytime - Ahhhhh! Spiders!

Toddler

Books 

The Very Busy Spider by Eric Carle and The Itsy Bitsy Spider by Lorianne Siomades.

Songs / Rhymes: “Good Morning”, “Hello, How Are You?”, “Open, Shut Them”, “There’s a Spider on the Floor” with spider puppet, “One Elephant Went Out to Play” on the felt board, “I Wiggle My Fingers”, “The Great Big Spider”, and “The More We Get Together”.

Craft: Hand Print Spiders. Materials: black construction paper hand prints, purple paper, googly eyes, crayons, glue, and tape. The toddlers glued the thumbs of their hand prints together to make a spider. They glued eyes onto their spiders and then colored them in.

Preschool

Books: The Very Busy Spider by Eric Carle and I Love Bugs by Emma Dodd. The preschoolers helped me read Carle’s book by supplying the sounds of the animals.

Songs / Rhymes: “Welcome to the Library”, “Hello, How Are You?”, “The Great Big Spider”, “Open, Shut Them”, “There’s a Spider on the Floor” with spider puppet, “I Wiggle My Fingers”, and “The More We Get Together”.

Special Activity: The preschoolers shared with me what they knew about spiders. They knew that spiders make webs, have eight legs, and eat flies and other bugs. They even knew that spiders trap flies in their sticky webs!

Craft: Spider Webs. Materials: black construction paper, construction paper crayons, glue, and glitter. The preschoolers drew their webs onto the construction paper using the crayons, then went over the lines with glue. I added white glitter to their papers when they were finished.

Songs/Rhymes

There’s a Spider on the Floor (with spider puppet)

--Raffi

One Elephant Went Out to Play

One Elephant went out to play

Upon a spider’s web one day

He had such enormous fun

He called another elephant to come.

(HEY, ELEPHANT!)

Two elephants went out to play

Upon a spider’s web one day

They had such enormous fun,

They called another elephant to come…

--Miss Mary Liberry

The Great Big Spider

--from Lapsit Services for the Very Young II by Linda L. Ernst. New York: Neal-Schuman Publishers, Inc, 2001.

*I do this version instead of itsy bitsy because, as Ernst suggests in her book, it's easier for the smaller children to do gross motor movements than the fine motor skills involved in the finger play.