Story Time Review

Vrooooooooooom! Into Story Time

This week for story time we got into digging with construction vehicles. We read Dig by Andrea Zimmerman, Curious George and the Dump Truck by H. A. Rey, Dig Dogs Dig: A Construction Tail by James Horvath. Other titles that I considered using but did not have time for were Bulldozers Dig a Pond by Stacey Gabel, Tonka Power Reading Construction Action by Victoria Hickle, and Goodnight Construction Site by Sherri D. Rinker. One boy who is obviously really enthusiastic about trucks kept jumping up out of his seat and coming to the front to touch each picture of a truck and declaring, "I would drive that truck!"

We sang I'm a Little Dump Truck and did a couple of finger rhymes from the CSLP summer reading manual including Tall Buildings in our Town and Tractor Tractor. We sang a version of Little Old Wagon but changed the words to Little Old Dump Truck using a prop made from a manila envelope which I had cut the shape of a dump truck out of and then laminated the top side of the envelope. I then filled the envelope with different colored papers and as we sang each verse we changed the color of the truck by saying a magic word and I would dramatically pull out the first sheet to reveal the next color.  And for some variety we did the chant Hi, my name is Joe and I work in a button factory. Silly and good for getting out lots of wiggles. I used the recorded version of this one that is on the CD Wiggles Jiggles and Giggles by Stephen Fite.

Using a simple outline of a truck we made a truck that could "dump" using a brass brad to connect the truck part to the dumper part. The kids colored the truck any color that they liked including quite a few rainbow striped trucks and lots of pink ones too.


Next Week: Underground Critters
Michele Schumann, Children's Librarian

Story Time Review

Let the digging begin! Our summer Story time will be all based on the 2013 Collaborative Summer Library Program theme Dig into Reading. This week we started with a lesson about dirt & mud.

To begin our day we played with play dough. Then to transition into our reading we did an experiment with some regular garden dirt and a large jar of water. We talked about what dirt is made of, what can be found in dirt (grass, leaves, rocks, bugs etc.) then we added some of the dirt to the clean jar of water and shook it up. We talked about how the particles of dirt were suspended in the water but since they are heavier than water would fall to the bottom. So we sat that aside and read Mud Puddle by Robert Munsch, Little Blue Truck by Alice Schertle, Pigs in the Mud in the Middle of the Rud by Lynn Plourde and Duck in the Truck by Jez Alborough. Two of these stories featured trucks getting stuck in the mud so we talked about roads that are made of dirt. In one class this led to the side topic of driving a Jeep in Moab, which is where I just came back from vacation and several children had been there at some point or another...anyway once we got back on topic we checked our jar of water and found that a lot of the dirt had indeed settled out. We could see some sand and pebbles at the bottom (actually quite a bit since the dirt came from my garden and it is located where my children's sandbox used to be) a fine layer of dark brown silt and some floating organic matter. I have to admit that I swept up some dead ants from the patio so I could add some bugs just for interest. After all it is just plain cool to see ants floating in your science experiment.

We played a game of  Ring around the Puddle, using a brown blanket as our "puddle" we would all jump in at the end of the rhyme. "Ring around the puddle, pocket full of mud oh!, squish squash, squish squash, we all jump in!" We did a finger rhyme/ flannel board activity using the 5 little monkeys format, but used 5 little piggies rolling in the mud, along came Mr. farmer and put one in the tub!

We then made a craft using the little blue truck story as our inspiration. I had printed a simple outline of a truck onto card stock. The children colored the truck blue, added an eye (the truck in the story has eyes), and then we used a mixture of brown washable paint, flour and water to make mud paint. Some trucks were covered top to bottom with "mud" others just had muddy wheels and some made muddy roads under the truck. They turned out very cute and it was a nice simple craft.

Next week: Gardens/Plants & Seeds
Michele Schumann
Children's Librarian

Story Time Review

Mooooooooo that's who!

We have come to the end of the year for our Story Time classes. I will spend the month of May prepping for our upcoming summer activities themed Dig into Reading! @ your library! For our final week we talked and read about cows. I read How to Speak Moo by Deborah Fajerman, The Cow that Clucked by Denise Fleming, The Cow that Laid an Egg by Andy Cutbill and Stop that Cow! by Mairi Mackinson, Is Everyone Ready for Fun? by Jan Thomas, and Meow said the Cow by Emma Dodd.

We used some photos of items that are made from milk to discuss how useful cows are. We sang two fun songs this week one is Hand on my Head from the Wee Sing Silly Songs CD and the other is Pig on Her Head from the CD Best of the Laurie Berkner Band. I used puppets for this one and we sang about each child, so for example we same about Camden has a monkey on his head, Macey has a duck on her head and Rylee has an elephant on his head etc.

We played a game of "pin the spot on the cow" and then we made some cute cow masks with my die-cut mask as the base and added cow ears, horns and a nose. We drew on some cow spots also.

Our next session will be in June. Summer registration is June 4th at 10:30 a.m. Hope to see everyone there!

Michele Schumann
Children's Librarian