Story Time Review

What Shape is Story Time?

This week we explored more shapes in our Story time classes. We read Mouse Shapes by Ellen Stoll Walsh, The Shape of my Heart by Mark Sperring, It Looked like Spilt Milk by Charles Green Shaw, What Shape? by Debbie McKinnon, and  I am a Blop! by Herve Tullet. Although I wanted to focus on shapes I found that a lot of these titles were also good at discussing that everything has a shape, not just what we call "shapes". It is a bunny shape or a house shape or a people shape. To help with this line of thought I used balloons and filled them with a variety of things. Salt, beans, water and corn syrup etc. They all had the same shape of a balloon but when the children held them and squished them they were very different. Some were hard some soft, some smooth and some bumpy. I loved this activity but one of our mom's in our Jr. Story time class is highly allergic to latex! Oh, I felt so badly for exposing her. She ran upstairs and took allergy meds and we had to make sure that her daughter washed her hands very well at the end of class. I usually am aware of things like peanut allergy and that is why I don't often give food to kids during our classes but this was a new and scary allergy to worry about.

We got out the Sound Shape drums and played around with different ways to play them. Fast, slow, loud, quiet, on the side, on the bottom, with your fingers, toes, elbows and head. Lots of fun and really noisy for the library. We danced along to the tune We are Rolling from the CD Smart Moves II.

For our craft we used heart shapes, stickers and markers to make some "Love Bug" valentine day cards for someone in the child's family. A lot of pieces but they were super cute when they were finished.

Next week: Valentine's Day/Love
Michele Schumann, Children's Librarian

Story Time Review

'Round & 'Round in Story Time!

Our lesson for Story time classes began this week with an activity of playing with circles. I made the circles using 1" clear tubing, some bulk sequins and a  1" piece of dowel rod to make a connector. These circles can be used in a variety of ways. We drove them like a car, we twirled them around on our arms, we held them up like picture frames around our faces and we sat inside of them. We looked inside the circle to see if we could find different shapes in the sequins. I can see a green leaf or a purple heart, can you find one too? Who knew that a simple hoop could be so much fun!  Our stories were mostly about circles although some general  shape books were also included. They were Circle Dogs by Kevin Henkes, Shapes: Circles by Esther Sarfatti, Math Everyday: Shapes around Us by Daniel Nunn, So Many Circles So Many Squares by Tana Hoban,  Dot by Patricia Intriago, and The Dot by Peter Reynolds. I liked including the Shapes Around Us book because the front of the book is completely lacking any circles. I introduced the book by asking the kids if they could find any circles. Then when they said no, I asked them what shapes they did see. It was a great way to get them really looking at the book cover! This subject can get a bit repetitious because shape themed books don't usually have a story line and tend to be mostly the same. I loved that Circle Dogs and The Dot both were real stories!

I pulled out the parachute and we played along to the song Round and Round the Village from the CD Smart Moves II by Russ InVision. I pointed out to the children that the circle of our parachute was made up of different colored triangles, it was interesting to see them recognize that shapes can be made of of other shapes put together. While we were in the circle anyway we also played the classic Ring around the Rosie game, this was a huge hit with the 2-3 year old kids and even the 5 year old kids liked it well enough to play several times. In between books, we used the CD Put your Finger in the Air by William Janiak and played the track Make a Circle to get some of our wiggles out.

For our craft we made fruit loop necklaces. Instead of stringing them onto yarn, which is always too floppy. I gave the children plastic lace. It is just stiff enough to push through the holes and it doesn't shred or fray like the yarn always does, even if you put tape on the end. Plastic lace is small too, so even tight holes in the cereal can work. Of course, I had to give them extra cereal because who can resist eating some, or even most, of the cereal before it is strung. One little girl of about 2 1/2 kept telling her mom to stop touching her cereal! Mom was trying to show her how to string it but she wasn't interested, she just wanted to eat it. One little boy said to his mom, "I want some milk with my cereal!"  I love it :) I was torn this week about a craft. I could have had them make paper chains but I realized that I have never done cereal necklaces in all the time that I have done Story time, so it was a fun new craft for us.

Our take home pages were a shape recognition sheet and a find the shapes in the picture sheet.
Next week: More Shapes!

Michele Schumann
Children's Librarian

Storytime Review

The Shape of Me & Other Stuff Story Time

This week we continued our theme of  "The Basics" with our weekly story time classes. We concentrated on learning about shapes. We read Perfect Square by Michael Hall, Mouse Shapes by Ellen Stoll Walsh and It Looked Like Spilt Milk by Charles Green Shaw with our 2 and 3 year old class. Then we added The Shape of Me and Other Stuff by Dr. Seuss, Circle Dogs by Kevin Henkes and Square Cat by Elizabeth Schoonmaker for our 3 to 5 Preschooler classes.

With our older classes we used the white board and I drew shapes as kids named some that the knew. We got typical answers like circle and square but also trapezoid and pentagon! These are some pretty smart kids :) We also drew butterfly and turtle shapes as we talked about everything having a shape. This got a little challenging to an art handicapped teacher but I managed to draw something that resembled a turtle. We took a minute to talk about things that change shape like water or bubble gum.

We used the shape drums to make a ton of noise and practice different ways to play, fast, slow, quietly, loudly etc. We also pulled out the tubing circles and played with them trying to see what parts of our body we could fit inside the circle. I love to have them place the circles on the ground and put both feet inside, a knee or elbow is fun too. My favorite, that always gets them giggling, is putting your bum inside the circle.

We played a musical chairs type game with shapes on the ground. As the children walked around the circle I played music. When the music stopped we drew a shape out of a hat and took away those shapes in the circle, soon everyone was trying to stand on the same 2 shapes. It was a lot of fun for the kids. I used the song Scat like That from the CD of the same name by Cathy Fink and Marcy Marxer.

For our craft we did a tree picture with different colored leaves. I used some small craft punches to make different shapes that the children glued on. We had flowers, hearts, stars, apples, leaves, even choo-choo train shapes.

Next week: The 5 Senses

Michele Schumann

Children's Librarian