Story Time with the Stars!

This week we read books about stars in our classes. We read Wynken, Blynken and Nod by Eugene Field, How to Catch a Star by Oliver Jeffers, The Stars by Martha Rustad, Flashlight by Betsy James, and Star Climbing by Lou Fancher. I loved using The Stars non-fiction book in the mix. I approached it with an introduction, what you might not know about stars. As we read, it was great to stop and ask, "Did you know stars are burning?" it made for some nice discussion.  We used the book and CD When You Wish Upon a Star. The book has paintings by Eric Puybaret which illustrate the words of the song from Walt Disney's film, Pinocchio, the CD contains the song performed by Judy Collins. After we played the song we did an activity with a magic wishing wand and repeated the poem Star Light, Star Bright. Each child got to tell us their wish when the magic wand pointed to them. The best wish of the week was for a unicorn!

Another fun activity we did was play a shooting star game. I made some "stars" out of tinfoil. They were cheap and easy and the best part is  they are so light weight they can't really hurt if they hit you. Then we held up a hula hoop and the children tossed their stars through. We started out low and they rolled them through then I raised it higher and they tried again. We played several rounds until the hula hoop was up to the ceiling. I was surprised at how much the kids loved such a simple game. Some even asked if they could take their stars home. 

For our craft we made a star necklace with a simple star die cut and some yarn. We decorated the star with colored salt.  The salt is easy to make, just add a few drops of food coloring to a Ziploc baggie full salt. Mash it around until it is the color you want, adding more food coloring if you want it darker. Pour out onto a paper plate to dry overnight before using. Apply glue to your project and sprinkle, much like applying glitter. I used salt shakers from the dollar store.

 Next Week we will change our focus toward Halloween and talk about spiders!

Michele Schumann,
Children's Librarian