Shark Week
Our final week for the winter session is finally here! This makes me so happy since that means that spring in coming. It also makes me sad because I have enjoyed the children and their parents so much. This week we ended our session with the theme of Sharks. We read The Three Little Fish and the Big Bad Shark by Ken Geist, Shark in the Park by Phil Roxbee, I'm a Shark by Bob Shea, Sharks by Valerie Weber, Gilbert in the Deep by Jane Clark, Shark vs. Train by Chris Barton, and Surprising Sharks by Nicola Davies.We played a feed the shark game in which the children fed pretend fishes (bouncy balls) to a shark mouth that I had made from a shoe box by adding a mouth shaped opening surrounded by some awesome sharp looking teeth. We sang Down in the Deep Blue Sea to the tune of "Shoo Fly" and had some pictures of other sea creatures so we could sing about jelly fish, submarines, octopuses, sea turtles and whales, in addition of sharks of course.
Tweaking the old finger rhyme 5 monkeys and Mr. Crocodile we did 5 Little fishes swimming in the sea, teasing Mr. Sharky, can't catch me, can't catch me, along came Mr. Sharky, quiet as can be, snap! he ate that fish right out of the sea.
Since I happen to have a small wading pool in the closet I pulled it out and we played a game with it and a shark finger puppet from IKEA. I stood in the empty pool with the children around the edge. Then I called out "Little Fishes! Come swim in the sea!" then the children stuck their hands inside the pool. I used the shark puppet to try and "bite" them. If the shark got them then it was their turn to be the shark.
We made an easy shark by using a blue cutout of a fish then added a fin on top and a paper plate cut around the edge with triangle teeth. We added eyes and even a little fish in the sharks mouth. When they were finished they looked pretty scary I guess. One little girl wouldn't touch hers once the mouth was on. I don't like sharks she said.
We will have registration for our next session on March 12th! Hope to see everyone there :)
Michele Schumann,
Children's Librarian
