Story Time Review

Happy Holidays from Story Time!

This week we held our final story time classes before Christmas and so I finally had to do Christmas stories. I decided to focus on Christmas trees. We read Christmas Tree by Wendall Minor, Suzy Goose and the Christmas Star by Petr Horacek, Dream Snow by Eric Carle, Mr. Willowby's Christmas Tree by Robert E. Barry, and Minerva Louise on Christmas Eve by Janet Morgan Stoeke. Another title I could have used but didn't have time for is 10 Trim-the-Tree'ers: A Holiday Counting Book by Janet Schulman.

I created some jingle bell props by threading a pipe cleaner through the top of a Christmas bell and twisting the ends together to make a loop. We rang  our jingle bells and sang the traditional carol then used the jingle bells to dance to the tune Jingle, Jingle, Stop by Carole Peterson on her new CD Season Sings.  We used the jingle bells with the story Suzy Goose and the Christmas Star. In the story Suzy Goose gets lost in a snow storm but finds her way again when she hears her friend the cows' bell ringing. As she followed the sound in the story I had the children ring their jingle bells to help her find her way.

I made a simple outline of a tree on green poster board and hid circles of decorative paper around our story time room. I had the children hunt for the "ornaments" and hang them on the tree with tape. This simple activity was the favorite of the week, almost as exciting as decorating a real tree.

For our craft, I had a simple outline of a tree and gave the children green paint and a plastic fork instead of a paint brush to paint it. I showed the children how to make evergreen type patterns with the fork by dipping it into the paint and pressing the fork flat against the paper. After the tree was painted we added red hot candies for some decorations.

Next week: Merry Christmas everyone! Our next session will begin on January 14th, with registration on January 7th at 10:30 a.m.

Michele Schumann
Children's Librarian