Story Time Review

Funny faces were popping up in Story Time classes this week. We read Let's Make Faces by Hanoch Piven, Find a Face by Francois  Roberts, Go Away Big Green Monster by Ed Emberly, Can You Make a Scary Face? by Jan Thomas, Masks by Lola Schaefer and Daddy's Scratchy Face by Edith Kunhardt. I had also pulled Here a Face, There a Face by Arlene Alda, but we didn't have time to use it.

Since I wanted to tie our lesson into the season we did a fun activity with a card board pumpkin decoration. I pre-cut shapes out out black card stock in the shapes you might find on a Jack-o-lantern face. Then we had fun arranging the shapes to make different faces. Some were happy, some were scary and some were silly. Some we even added mustaches.

We used the CD Toddlerific by Georgiana Stewart and played along with the track Funny Faces. Then we used the flannel board and a picture of the moon to sing the classic song Aiken Drum. We added pictures of spaghetti, broccoli, fried eggs, pizza and  banana to create the features. Then we mixed them up just to see what he would look like with things rearranged.

After reading the book Masks we talked about why you might want to hide your face sometimes. For Halloween or for playing pretend so you can be something else like a fairy or a pirate. For our craft we made a mask with a simple die cut mask shape cut from black card stock and some feathers, beads, pom poms, sequins and buttons.

Our take home pages included a page of a monster mask to color and cut out, and a page where the children would add expressions from Happy to Sad or Sleepy to different pumpkins.

My favorite quote of the week came from a little boy who said to his mom as they were leaving, "That was fun!" Whoo Hoo! I love it when they have a great time at the library.

Next Week: Magic

Michele Schumann
Children's Librarian