Storytime Review

Warning: Naked Mole Rats in Story Time!

A new session of our popular Preschool and Toddler Storytime classes began this week. Our first lesson was about clothes and getting dressed. We started out with a matching game where I would hold up a color and the children would look at their clothes and see if they could find that color. Some children had on lots of colors and some had only a few. One little girl had only one color on, can you guess which color she was wearing from head to toe? Pink, of course, and I hadn't even made a pink star to hold up!

Our stories this week included for the younger class Bear Gets Dressed by Harriet Hiefert, Under My Hood I have a Hat by Karla Kuskin, and  Black Dog gets Dressed by Lizi Boyd. Our older class read The Jacket I Wear in the Snow by Shirley Nietzel, Thomas' Snowsuit by Robert Munsch and Naked Mole Rat gets Dressed by Mo Willems.

We played a game with a clothes line that I strung up on the bulletin board. I had laminated pictures of different items of clothing and cut them out. I put these in a basket along with some pictures of items that you would never wear like a cat or a window. The children took turns drawing out a picture and deciding if it was something you could wear. Then we would either discard it or hang it on the clothes line. My favorite item was the picture of the space suit. The children had to think that one through a bit but most decided that it was something that you would wear, especially if you were in space! We sang and giggled alone with the song I Like my Hat from the Stinky Cake CD by Carole Peterson.

I used the die cut machine to cut out paper dolls and we pasted on hats and coats and colored in some pants and shoes. A couple of glue on eyes and the doll was complete. In one of the classes we talked about the concept of being naked because of the "naked" mole rats. One little girl from this class said, "Oh, I am so glad that my doll isn't naked any more!" We did discuss the advantages of wearing clothes so hopefully none of them decide to go home and be like a naked mole rat.

Next week: Houses and Homes
Michele, Children's Librarian