Story Time Review

This week for our Story time classes we explored stories with dogs and cats. We read No Dogs Allowed! by Anne Davis, Widget by Lyn Rossiter McFarland, Woof:: A Love Story by Sarah Weeks, The Cat that Went Woof! by Martyn Beardsley, How to be a Good Cat by Gail Page, and Hondo and Fabian by Peter McCarty. Each of these stories features at least one cat and one dog. We sang along with the Wiggleworms CD to When cats get up in the morning and the children made the animal sounds as each verse was sung. I used puppets to show what animal came next in the song. We sang Old Macdonald, again with the puppets. We sang Mary had a Little Lamb then used the puppets to change the words. A child would come to the front and select the puppet then we would use their name and animal to sing the song. For example, Johnny had a dinosaur , a dinosaur, a dinosaur , Johnny had a dinosaur and it could roar real loud.  

We had a magic coloring changing cat, that would change every time we recited a poem and clapped our hands. The poem is: I'm Scat the Cat, I'm sassy and I'm fat, I can change color just like that! This low-tech idea is just a manila envelope with a cutout of a cat then laminated over to make the cat portion see-through. I filled the envelope with several colors of paper and would pull out the top sheet as the children clapped their hands at the end of the poem. One two year old was so delighted that she kept bouncing up and down on her mother's lap each time the cat changed. Of course, the single 6 year old that I have pointed out that he could see my fingers when I reached in to pull out a paper. Oh what cynics they become!

We made a cat/dog puppet by coloring one cat face and one dog face picture and attaching them back-to-back to a Popsicle stick. I didn't take the time to cut them out like I usually do but let them cut their own. I took a bit longer but was good practice for cutting.

Next Week: Polar Bears

Michele Schumann

Children's Librarian