Story Time Review

Animals Underground

Our 6th and final week of our summer Story Time classes was focused on critters that live underground. Moles, shews, ants, armadillos, groundhogs, foxes, cicadas and many many more. We began with a poster activity that I found online here. The poster had pictures of different burrowing animals. Before class I covered each animal up with a piece of brown construction paper. I read a description of the animal and asked the children to try and guess what it was. We then removed the paper and looked to see if we guessed correctly. Many of our children did not know armadillo or cicada so it was fun to introduce new animals to them.

We read Animals Under our Feet by Sindy McKay, Mole had Everything by Jamison Odme,What a Treasure! by Jane Hillenbrand and Underground by Denise Fleming. I also told the story of Mr. Wiggle and Ms. Waggle as was found in the CSLP Dig into Reading manual on page 121. This fun story is told with your two fists and a finger for each character. The children could follow along and do the actions with me as I told the story.

We danced to the song Ants in Your Pants from the Wild & Woolly Wiggle Songs CD by Johnette Downing. (I found a slightly different version by another artist online here.) This song is great for getting out the wiggles. Our favorite parts of the song are snails on you nails, and a bear in your hair.

We created a mole in a hole during our craft time. This craft was from the CSLP manual (page 82). I also saw a great version on Pinterest as well. It is basically a circle of brown construction paper with wiggle eyes and a Popsicle stick glued on. Then we covered a paper cup with green construction paper, fringed the top to make grass and added some die cut flowers to decorate. Then the mole could climb down in his hole and by using the stick which was sticking through a slit in the bottom of the cup, jump up through the top again.

Our next session of Story time will begin after Peach Days in September. Registration is on September 3rd.

Michele Schumann
Children's Librarian