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