Flannel Friday: Gingerbread Friends

HAPPY 

FLANNEL

FRIDAY!

I hope you are all having a wonderful day! 

This has been a busy week but it has also been an especially fun one, too!

We have had lots of new visitors ~ of the tiny tots and preschoolers types ~ at our library all week long. They have been so adorable that it has inspired me to start a new #hashtag on Twitter in honor of them. 

If you are one Twitter, just look for me ~ @StorytimeFun ~ or for #LibraryCuties. 

If you aren't on Twitter yet, I highly recommend that you try it out. You will find lots of ideas and interesting conversations for #Librarians and for others who work with young children (#ECE) including young parents. :o)

Oh, and we also have our own #FlannelFriday hashtag, too. (Bet you wondered where I was going with all this Twitter talk, huh? I also bet you didn't think it had anything to do with felt and Flannel Friday but ~ it did!!!)

So... 
come join in on all of the fun Twitter conversations!

Okay, let's get on with this week's Flannel Friday contribution:

We have been having an exciting time with Nursery Rhymes and Fairytales at my Library for the past few weeks. Last night was our culminating program. 

It was our Mother Goose Pajama Party featuring our very own version of the Gingerbread Boy! Yum! Yum!

I was inspired to do our new version by a resource book that I have had sitting on my desk for quite some time. It is such a wonderful book that I think all Storytime presenters (teachers, childcare providers, and parents) should at least take a peek inside its covers. 

This wonderful book is:

FingerTales

written by Joan Hilyer Phelps

As I was searching for Gingerbread Men ideas and Cookie ideas, I scanned the contents page and found BOTH! 

JACKPOT!

Combining the two topics, I came up with this version of the Gingerbread Boy (full written script available on request):

There was a little old lady and a little old man...

Don't you love the way the oven door opens and allows our Gingerbread Boy to look like he is popping out? I had fun tweaking the pattern to make that work. :o)

The Gingerbread Boy hopped out of the oven and ran...

The Gingerbread Boy ran by a black and white Cow
 chewing on grass in the green pasture...

The Gingerbread Boy ran by a brown Horse
munching on hay near the old red barn...

The Gingerbread Boy ran by a pink Pig
snuffling at its empty trough...

The Gingerbread Boy ran by a white Dog
by the kitchen door sniffing for food...

The Gingerbread Boy ran by a gray cat
in the flowerbed searching for a mouse...

And, as the story goes, none of them could catch the Gingerbread Boy as he ran past them calling, "Run, run, as fast as you can. You can't catch me. I'm the Gingerbread Man!"

Soon, the Gingerbread Boy saw a:

Fox coming across a field. 
The Fox began to run after him...

The Gingerbread Boy ran faster and faster until he came to a river and...

since the Gingerbread Boy could not swim, the Fox offered to...

Take the Gingerbread Boy across the river on his tail.

But when the water got deeper, the Fox suggested that:

The Gingerbread Boy climb onto his back
so he wouldn't fall off.

As the Fox swam further across the river, the water rose higher. The Fox worried that the Gingerbread Boy might get wet so he suggested that:

The Gingerbread Boy climb onto his head.

Finally, they reached the other side of the river. When they had climbed onto the shore, the Fox threw back his head and...

Gobbled up the Gingerbread Boy! Yum! Yum!

I know, I know! I spoiled the ending for you but I had to share the surprise of the Gingerbread Boy IN the Fox's mouth. I was so excited when I figured it all out.

It is actually too simple for words but here's how I did it:  I cut along the Fox's mouth line then I was able to slide the Gingerbread Boy into his mouth. 

I am really easy to excite, aren't I? 

Weeeell, in my defense, my storytime friends were just as excited about that part as I was!

By the way, did I mention that the patterns for this story were found in the book shared above? They are! 

Some of the patterns are in the "Cookies" chapter and the rest are in the "Gingerbread Men" chapter. They are simple patterns that can be enlarged to whatever size you want. Then simply cut them out of construction paper and laminate for the magnetic board or out of felt for the flannel board. I also like to make copies for each of my storytime friends to take home, color and cut, and use to retell the story.

I also have another activity for these pieces. I found it in the "Cookie" chapter and tweaked it so that I could use it as an extension activity for this storytime. It is my Gingerbread Friends version of Who Stole the Cookies From the Cookie Tray? Click here for the game.

The title of this post mentions "Gingerbread Friends" and "Flannel" so I will share a sneak peek at another Gingerbread Man extension activity that I will be posting about soon.

Here are my adorable little Gingerbread Friends that absolutely delighted my storytime friends last night:

Very simple to make from felt, glue, and brads.
Plus they are very versatile and easily used for
lots of learning activities like 
color recognition, counting,
and so much more!

I will have a "how I made my Gingerbread Friends" post up very soon since they are one of the items that I sent to one of my swap partners in our First Annual Storytime Swap. (Boy, I have a lot more typing to do, don't I?)

The swap  was such a wonderful experience! It was so successful that I have had many requests to do another one. Planning is underway for the next one and it will be announced this week. Be sure to check out the posts about our first swap and then come on back next week to find out how you can join in our next one!

Have a wonderful weekend!

And, as always,

HAPPY READING TOGETHER!

This week's Flannel Friday Round-Up is being hosted by Ann at So Tomorrow.

And I will be pinning all the awesome contributions from this week's Round-Up on Flannel Friday's very own Pinterest boards. :o) Stop by and enjoy all of our beautiful flannels and creative storytime ideas.

Saturday Share: A Baby WHAT?!??!!!

I hope that each of you will be able to enjoy a nice long 
weekend with your families and friends.
Stay safe!

I missed posting this for the Flannel Friday Round-up because we have had a super busy week with record numbers at our weekly storytimes. I have been extremely busy cutting out more and more and more dinosaurs! :oP 

Besides all the cutting though ~ I have been creating lots of fun learning activities with dinosaurs. I can't wait to share these Dino ideas with you. I have a couple of Fun Finds, several cute, yummy snack ideas, and even a few simple, inexpensive crafts to encourage your child/ren to use their imagination(s) as they explore the prehistoric world of the Dinosaurs. 

I always enjoy doing Dinosaur storytimes! Being the Mom of four boys, I had to learn about these awesome creatures over the years ~ each of my boys was obsessed with them at one time or another! But, apparently, they were not alone in this obsession! Over the years, I have notice that my boys are not the only ones who LOVE these strange creatures who just seem to never lose their popularity! 

Both boys and girls adore Dinosaurs!

Since I missed the FFRU, I am going to go ahead and do a Saturday Share this week. Here is a quick idea for some silly singing and puppet play. It is an easy, inexpensive craft to make and it is tons of fun to show the little ones. 

It is an egg puppet that hatches into a... 

Hmmm, I think I'll make you wait  for the BIG reveal in the song. (Yes, it is a dinosaur but can you guess which kind?!??!!)

The little ones think it is magical when the egg begins to hatch! 

Here is the song that I use with my puppet:

I'm Bringing Home a…

(Sung to: “I’m Bringing Home a Baby Bumblebee”)

Look what I found!
(The words in green are spoken.)

I'm bringing home a round, gigantic egg.
Won’t my mommy jump up on the bed?
I'm bringing home a round, gigantic egg.
Crack! Crack! Crack!

Uh, oh! It’s hatching!
 (Open the egg slowly)

And it’s a baby dinosaur!

I'm bringing home a baby dinosaur.
Won’t my mommy hide behind the door?
I'm bringing home a baby dinosaur.
"Roar! Roar! Roar!"

Oh, look!
 (Take the dinosaur out of the egg.)

It’s a Book-a-saurus!

(Did you guess?) 

I'm reading lots of books to my dinosaur.
Won’t my mommy love that more and more?

I'm reading lots of books to my dinosaur.

"More! More! More!"

We love books!

Yay!

My inspiration for the baby dinosaur once again came from a sticker. The sticker set is so old that I have no idea where I bought them ~ probably a teacher store or catalog ~ years and years ago. The Stegosaurus sticker was always my favorite so it became my "Book-a-saurus" for this craft.

As you can see from the picture below, I enlarged the baby dinosaur quite a bit! I enlarged it on the copier. Then I traced the outline to use with my cut-paper technique. It is a simple and effective technique! All you need to do it for yourself is ~ construction paper in different colors, a pattern, scissors, and glue. Add a popsicle stick and ~ viola!  ~ you have a puppet!

The egg part of the craft is a little more involved. It is simple enough to do but it does have a few steps involved. Contact me at storytimeabcs@gmail.com if you are interested in the directions.

At the end of our storytime, I had my storytime friends go on a Dinosaur Hunt in the library. They each found a smaller black and white copy of the Book-a-saurus to take home and color. I also provided them with a completely put-together egg to be decorated any way they wanted and a popsicle stick to make their dinosaur into a puppet.

Besides being a fun puppet to sing and play with, I told the families that each "Book-a-saurus" needed to be read to every day. I gave them 7 star stickers each and told them to add a sticker to the egg each day that they read to their new friend. Once they have added 5 to 7 stars, they can bring the egg back to the library and receive a special dinosaur prize! The adults loved this idea. It is a great way to encourage the families to read each day! ;o)

Well, that's it for my Saturday Share. If you make your own "Book-a-sarus", I would love to hear about it and see a picture or two. 

Have fun!

And, as always,

HAPPY READING TOGETHER!

Flannel Friday: A Rumble in the Jungle

Hey, it's a jungle in here!

Source

Happy Flannel Friday!

This week, I was inspired during a super quick visit to our Dollar Store. It was a fast in-and-out visit yesterday morning but I happened to notice some adorable jungle stickers. 

They were only a $1.00!

Since my Family Night storytime this week was an adventure to the jungle, I just had to have them! 

But ~ what to do with them?!??!???

When we adventure to the jungle at storytime, I usually do several songs with lots of different jungle animals so I decided to make some magnetic/flannel sets using these cute animals as my inspiration. 

I took a sheet of the stickers and scanned it into Photoshop. Then I used the cropping tool to isolate each animal ~ leaving a border of the green around each one because I thought it was a nice contrast. Finally,  I enlarged each animal to the appropriate size and printed them out on cardstock.

This is what you need to make the flannel set.

Once they were printed out, I cut out each one leaving the nice green border. 

Sorry about the colors 

~ he should be brown and tan with a light green border ~ 

I'm not sure why my pictures show strange colors sometimes. :o(

Here is where I did different techniques ~ one for the magnetic board and one for the flannel board:

To prepare the animals for flannel use, I glued the cardstock to some stiff black felt using Tacky glue. 

The final step ~ I trimmed the black felt to leave a black border around the edge of the green. That really makes the colors stand out! 

Now he is ready to monkey around at storytime!

For the magnetic board set, I simply copied the animals onto the cardstock, cut out each one ~ leaving the green border ~ and laminated them. Once laminated, I trimmed them up again and put a magnet on the back of each one. Here is the whole gang that I made for last night's storytime:

If you are observant, you will have noticed that I did not include all of the animals from the sticker sheet. I was in a crunch for time since I found them at around 1 pm and needed to use them at 7 pm. I made the ones that I knew would go along with my featured book and a few songs that I had planned to sing. I will be adding the rest soon.

If you are super observant ~ which I am NOT! ~ you may have noticed an extra jungle friend. Here's a clue ~ It is one of these two animals:

It is the flamingo! Isn't she gorgeous? 

And she fits right in with a little help from the green border. I found the flamingo by doing a Google search in images. Once I found one that was similar to the other animals, a friend used a cool tool in Photoshop to add the green border. It is the rubber stamp tool. He says it is simple so I will be learning how to do it myself.  (I love learning new things, don't you?)

There you have it! 

Two ways to very quickly take an inspiration (stickers!) and transform it into usable, brightly colored storytime props.

A few ways that they can be used:

First, I used some of them with a fun song ~ The Jungle Walk (resource information coming soon ~ I have used this song for 20 plus years. It is from a record set that a friend gave me when I first started teaching preschool. The set is my absolute favorite music resource for teaching and for storytimes. I am researching on-line for information on it and will share it as soon as I find it In the meantime, you could just read the words. Contact me if you are interested in having them sent to you.) :

"It's a perfect day to walk in the jungle

Come and spend some time.

Look for the animals deep in the jungle.

Look through the trees and vines."

Each new verse introduces a different animal and asks the children to move like that animal. This song is wonderful for movement and for encouraging good listening skills.

The jungle animal sets can also be used for another active song:

 If I Were

(Sung to: "The Mulberry Bush")

Oh, if I were a monkey, 

a monkey, a monkey,

Oh, if I were a monkey

I'd swing around the jungle.

Swing, swing

Oh, if I were a tiny snake,

tiny snake, tiny snake,

Oh, if I were a tiny snake 

I'd slither around the jungle.

Slither, slither

More verses:

Flamingo ~ fly

Zebra ~ trot

Tiger ~ crawl

Giraffe ~ stretch

Hippo ~ waddle

Lion ~ stalk 

Elephant ~ stomp

For a different take on this song, you could make sounds instead of movements such as roaring for the lion, hissing for the snake, etc. If you don't know what an animal sounds like, you could always ask your child/ren. They often have great suggestions! 

Okay, one more:

At the last minute, I decided to use the animals for a little storytelling. I did a jungle version of Brown Bear, Brown Bear.  Any version of this popular book is always fun and well-received by the children and the parents!

It started out like this:

I went for a walk in the jungle

And what do you think I saw?

I saw a monkey looking at me!

And this is what I said,

Monkey, Monkey, what do you see?

I see a snake slithering by me.

If you would like a copy of the whole story, please send my an email at storytimeabcs@gmail.com

Our adventure to the jungle was a BLAST! Thanks to the colorful jungle animals that were soooo simple to make! I hope you enjoyed learning how they were adapted for both the flannel board and the magnetic board. Come back soon for another visit because I will be sharing more ideas on how to use these stickers for other learning activities. AND I will be sharing our craft from last night! He produced lots of ROAR-ingly good fun!

It's a roaring lion!

I chose this particular picture to include because 

of the little one in the background. 

They are really having fun with the magnetic set!

The little guy's expression is priceless!

I hope you have a fun, adventurous weekend!

And, as always,

HAPPY READING TOGETHER!

This week's Flannel Friday Round-Up is being hosted by Mollie at her blog, What Happens In Storytime. Thanks for hosting this week, Mollie!

Curious about Flannel Friday? 

In the awesome words of Library Quine:

Find out about Flannel Friday on the dedicated website. Features include past roundups, host schedule and how to participate.

Scan the Flannel Friday posts on Pinterest. 

Search for flannels and storytime ideas at Mel's Desk.

Discuss storytime and flannel boards on the Flannel Friday Facebook Page. 

And in my own words, 

ENJOY!

Flannel Friday: My Mommy Is Special!

Happy Flannel Friday!

AND...

to all the Moms and Grandmothers, too!

My contribution this week is Flannel Friday-inspired by Mollie at What Happens in Storytime... and also by these lovely felt "Moms" and "Daughters" made by Shelia at Note Songs.

Watch for the surprise!

M - O - M - M - Y

Sung to: "BINGO"

I have a very special friend 

And Mommy is her name-o!

M - O - M - M - Y

M - O - M - M - Y

M - O - M - M - Y

And Mommy is her name-o!

Here comes the surprise!

Each flower has a different Mommy on the other side!
So as you sing the song, each time you will turn a flower over to reveal a new Mommy.
For each new Mommy, you will add a kiss instead of singing the letter.


For example, the 2nd verse would be:

I have a very special friend 

And Mommy is her name-o!

(Kiss) - O - M - M - Y

(Kiss) - O - M - M - Y

(Kiss) - O - M - M - Y

And Mommy is her name-o!

At the end, there will be 5 kisses and 5 Mommies ready for the next song. :o)

Five Pretty Mommies

Sung to: "Five Little Ducks"

Five pretty mommies I once knew.

Cute ones, busy ones, happy ones, too.

But the one in the middle, pretty as can be.

I love her and she loves me!

Down to the grocery store we did go,

Skippety-hop, skippety-hop, to and fro.

But the one in the middle, pretty as can be,

I love her and she loves me!

Here is another song for our lovely Mommies:

Mommy Is Special

Sung to: "Frere Jacques"

Mommy is special.

Mommy is special.

~ If you look ~

~ You will see ~

Someone very special.

Someone very special.

~ It is Mommy! ~

~ It is Mommy! ~

I hope everyone enjoys a delightful Mother's Day with their families! 

If you are looking for a quick, simple, last-minute gift for your children to make for the special lady in their lives, here is the one we made at our Family Storytime last night. 

(Click on the picture for directions on how-to make it.)

"Don't Forget ~ I Love You!"

Magnetic Note Holder

And one last song to go with this special Mother's Day gift:

Hugs and Kisses

Sung to; "Frere Jacques"

Hugs and kisses,

Hugs and Kisses,

Just for you!

Just for you!

Just to tell you Mommy,

Just to tell you Mommy,

I love you!

I love you!

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!

And, as always,

HAPPY READING TOGETHER!