Story Time Review

Hide & Seek @ the Library

This week for Story Time I didn't want to get into Christmas stories just yet, so I chose the topic of Hide & Seek instead. I had recently added 2 books about animals hiding to the collection and decided I wanted to use them for our classes. The first one is Hiding Phil by Eric Barclay, the other is How to Hide a Lion by Helen Stevens. We also read Where is Bear? by Leslea Newman, Spot's Birthday by Eric Hill, Moongame by Frank Asch and The Adventures of Max and Pinky Best Buds by Maxwell Eaton III. Even our youngest children were familiar with playing the classic hide and seek game. We talked about where they like to hide and how much fun it is when someone is looking for you and can't find you. We talked about how hard it would to be hide something big like an elephant or a lion, like in our stories.

I did tie into the Christmas season with a flannel board activity of Where is Santa?. I printed off some clip art of gifts, pre-cut and laminated them. As I called a child up they decided which present they thought Santa was hiding under and then we looked. If they were wrong the words, "Not Here!" appeared. We played until they found the gift that Santa was hiding under. Using the same presents from this activity we also did another group activity. On the back of each present I had written instructions on something we could do, like jump 10 times or hop on one foot 5 times. After the flannel board activity I placed the presents into a basket and they were ready to go when we wanted to do the actions activity.

We also played a game of Hide the Elf. I colored and laminated a simple picture of an elf before class, then when it was time to play, I blind folded 2 children and hid the elf face while they counted to 10. When the children were unblindfolded, they looked together to find the elf.  We played enough times that everyone that wanted a turn was able to find the elf.

Using the same elf picture, we created a peek-a-boo elf craft. The children colored the elf face and glued it to the back of a paper plate. We added a red elf hat and a green elf collar made from construction paper. I gave each child, 2 die-cut hands and they attached them to the sides with brass brads. Then the elf could play peek-a-boo when the children turned their hands.

Next week: Cookies, with a Christmas tie-in
Michele Schumann
Children's Librarian