Flannel Friday: Little Red Valentine

Love is in the air and all around! 

And it is just in time for a heart-felt Valentine's Day celebration at storytimes.

I love sharing this activity with my storytime friends of all ages. 

First, I will show you the flannel board/magnetic board pieces and share the song. Then I will give you a few more ideas for activities that can help to extend your child/ren's learning at storytime and beyond.

I made my flannel board hearts using an Ellison diecut but you can easily cut them out by hand. I cut out red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, pink, white, brown, and black hearts from scrap felt. I don't use all of the colors every time but I keep them on hand just in case I need them ~ like when a little three year old says, "My favorite color is brown. Can we sing about brown?" 

*Good storytime motto: Always be prepared!

Little Red Valentine

(Sung to: "Skip to My Lou")

Little Red Valentine, I love you.

Little Red Valentine, I love you.

Little Red Valentine, I love you.

Orange one says, "I do, too!"

Little Orange Valentine, I love you.

Little Orange Valentine, I love you.

Little Orange Valentine, I love you.

Yellow one says, "I do, too!"

Little Yellow Valentine, I love you.

Little Yellow Valentine, I love you.

Little Yellow Valentine, I love you.

Green one says, "I do, too!"

Little Green Valentine, I love you.

Little Green Valentine, I love you.

Little Green Valentine, I love you.

Blue one says, "I do, too!"

Little Blue Valentine, I love you.

Little Blue Valentine, I love you.

Little Blue Valentine, I love you.

Purple one says, "I do, too!"

Little Purple  Valentine, I love you.

Little Purple  Valentine, I love you.

Little Purple  Valentine, I love you.

Pink one says, "I do, too!"

Little Pink  Valentine, I love you.

Little Pink  Valentine, I love you.

Little Pink  Valentine, I love you.

Everyone one says, "We do, too!"

I made the flannel board pieces to share with the Flannel Friday group because I love all the creative things they do with flannel and I want to get started making more flannel stories myself. 

However, I almost always have my activities, songs, and stories made for my magnetic board. (Maybe I should start a Magnetic Monday group? Would anyone else join it or would it just be me? LOL! ) 

Anyway, I guess it is the teacher in me. :-) As a teacher, I had easier access to construction paper, glue, and a laminating machine. Also, magnetic strips were/are reusable ~ if your pieces were destroyed or went missing then you just made new ones. Very durable for young children!

Here are my magnetic hearts:

  I usually do these colors with our younger groups...

then add a few more colors with the older preschoolers....

(Don't forget that the left-to-right progression is a pre-reading skill!)

**If I have the time, I prepare enough colorful hearts so that I can pass one out to each child. As we sing the song, I place mine on the board and the children with that particular color hold their heart in the air and wave it. The rest of the children  keep their hearts in their laps and make the ASL sign for the color that we are singing about. This is a good color recognition activity! At the end, everyone waves their heart in the air.

**If I know I will have a smaller group, like a visiting preschool class, I make sets of hearts for each child. Most of the time, the sets include the rainbow colors and pink. Once I hand out the sets, I have the children place them in a line in front of them starting with red. As we sing the song, the children wave the correct heart. 

**This is a very popular activity with 3's, 4's, and 5's, and their parents, caregivers, and teachers. It is often requested at other storytimes so I change the word "valentine" to "heart" and bring the activity out for color-related storytimes. I also use the hearts for Mother's Day, Father's Day, and Grandparent's Day. I have even been known to change the item from a heart to a teddybear or dinosaur. Your options are limitless!

**One more suggestion for adding to the learning potential of this activity:

To help the children with color word recognition, you can write the color word on the heart.

I hope you enjoyed my first Flannel (and more) Flannel Friday contribution. I will be trying something a little more difficult for next week's contribution ~ I hope! 

A HUGE thank you to Melissa for hosting the round-up this week. She is the founder of Flannel Friday!

Anne also has the archive and schedule of who is hosting Flannel Friday each week.

I hope you enjoy a wonderful Valentine's Day with your family and friends!

HAPPY READING TOGETHER!

Storytime: Aaaah!!! Last Minute, Big Surprise!

Whew! I just had a last minute SURPRISE storytime handed to me after a four day weekend! Can you say: "PANIC!!" ?!!??


Who ever said being a children's librarian is easy? One thing is for sure ~ they've never worked at my library! 


While doing desk duty at the Children's Desk this morning, I received a phone call at around 9:30. 


"Good Morning! This is Ms. So-and-So from the school across the street. We are headed over with our preschool classes for our storytime this morning."


WHAT??!!??!!


My mind and heart start racing!


I'm thinking, "There is no storytime scheduled for this morning. It is scheduled for next Tuesday. It says so here on the calendar." "How can I say no when they have at least 25 preschoolers bundled and ready to walk across the street?" "Aaaaahhh!!! What storytime can I do??"


While my mind and heart are racing, I mouth is saying, " What time will you be here? Okay, see you in 10 minutes."


As soon as the phone hits the cradle, I am on a search for someone to cover my desk time so I can pull together a quick storytime. It will have to be a Snow Storytime since that is what I did last Thursday. But do I still have enough things laying out that I can grab quickly?


Thank goodness! I think I do.


This is what we ended up doing for our storytime:


Intro. music playing as they entered the room: "Let It Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow" from Drew's Famous Let It Snow CD.


I welcomed them to the library and we talked about the stories we would be sharing for our Snow Theme. We also talked a little about snow.


"Let's make it snow in the library, okay? Where does snow come from? The sky? Let me see two snowflakes way up high above your head." (We all count 1-2 as we put our hands above our heads and we do our first fingerplay.)

Snowing All Around

"Now that we have snow, I am wondering who is happy to be here for storytime? You are? Well, let's see you show me how happy you are to be here." (This is my lead-in to my beginning songs and activities that we always do to start our storytimes.)

If You're Happy and You Know It

"Now that I know how happy you are, let's do a fun activity that wakes our brains up and gets us ready to share a book. Don't forget! Put on your listening ears and follow directions!"

The Turning Song

"We're ready for the bus to take us to a c-c-cold place where we can find lots of snow. Ready?"

The Wheels on the Bus

I hold our first book, Millions of Snowflakes, by Mary McKenna Siddals. I ask how we can tell if we have found the cold and snow. We discuss what we see on the cover... snowflakes, mittens, scarf, etc. I read the title and ask if the storytime friends think we can count to a million.

"Let's try. 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-are we there yet? Hmmm... I think it would take us a very long time to count to a million, don't you? Do you know what we have to start with if we want a million snowflakes? Yep, just 1! Show me your first snowflake. (Hold up one finger.) Well, that is where this story starts..."

Read:

"That was fun! Why don't we make it snow some more!"

Sing:

It Is Snowing

"It looks like we have enough snow for a snowman, but what happens when the sun comes out?"

Do fingerplay:

A Snowy Day

"What do you think snowmen do if it stays cold all day and they don't melt away?  What do they do at night? Let's find out in our next book, Snowmen at Night, by Caralyn Buehner."

Read:

"That was fun! The snowmen do a lot things at night, don't they? Let's all stand up and have some fun with a very special snowflake. Everyone gets one." ( I passed out snowflakes that I had punched out for an unpcoming craft. The colors went perfectly with our first book's illustrations and. luckily, I had enough snowflakes for everyone. Whew!)

We did a Creative movement actitivity with the snowflakes:

Snowflake, Snowflake, Dance with Me

"Let's have some more snowflake fun with this song. Everyone stand up with your snowflake."

We did a song from our Seasonal Songs CD:

Snowflakes

(This song had the children whirling and twirling like snowflakes but at the end, they "Softly land" so they were sitting down again.)

"Are you ready to build a snowman with me? What do we start with? Snowflakes! Let see how many we have."

Do this magnetic board count-up activity:

Five Little Snowflakes

Once the snowflakes were on the board, we started to build our snowman. I used my snow version of Brown Bear, Brown Bear to build our snowman together.

Snowflakes, Snowflakes, What Do You See?

"This is an awesome snowman! Did you know that he always has fun wherever he goes? But the other day, he had something strange happen to him. Would you like to hear about it?"

We did the fingerplay:

A Chubby Little Snowman

 "Wow! We had a lot of fun today, didn't we? Thank you for being such good listeners! You can take your snowflakes home with you so that you can share them with your grown-ups and tell them all about storytime. I also have a snowman sticker and a snowball cookie for each of you. But first, let's do our goodbye song and thank you's."

Children form a circle and we sing our usual goodbye song:

The More We Get Together

And then we went right into our "Thank you" poem:

:My Hands Say, "Thank You!"

As CRAZY as it was to pull this storytime together at the last minute, I really enjoyed the children. Their smiling faces made all the rush and craziness well worth the effort!

I will be back as soon as possible to add more pictures and to tweak my grammar and to, hopefully, add links to my songs and fingerplays.

Thanks for stopping by! I hope you enjoyed our last-minute, SURPRISE storytime!

HAPPY READING TOGETHER!

Not a Flannel Friday: My Heart Is Like a Zoo

Wow! Another FIRST for me this week!


Here is my very first Flannel Friday contribution! But... it is really NOT a flannel. It is a magnetic board activity. :-}


My contribution this week was inspired by Michael Hall's bold and colorful book, My Heart is Like a Zoo.

"Michael Hall's menagerie invites you and your children to talk about feelings and emotions, explore color and shapes, count the hearts, and meet the animals." ~ from the cover

As you can see from the picture, this book is filled with zoo animals ~ all made from hearts! 

The animals are so adorable that I couldn't resist making my own. I started with the lion because, as you can see, Mr. Hall provided step-by-step illustrations for making the lion's face. (I used this to create a lion puppet as our craft. For instructions on making the craft, click here.) I added the body to the lion and then went on to make 8 more heart animals.

I made:

A brave lion (tan)

A snappy crab (red)

A cozy clam (orange)

A busy bee (yellow and black)

A jumpy frog (green)

A frightened rabbit (blue)

A thoughtful owl (purple)

A silly seal (gray)

An angry bear (brown)

They were all made from construction paper heart shapes and then laminated. After trimming the extra lamination, I added a strip of magnetic tape to the back and they were ready for several storytime activities.

I had originally thought about making each animal in the book and retelling the story with them. (I might still make all of them for several different reasons that I will share in a future post. I have several ideas for a number of educational activities ~ too much for now but definitely worth a second or third or even fourth post!)

I decided to make only a few heart animals and I chose them for their colors and for the emotions they were associated with. 

Here are two learning activities that I used the heart animals for:

If You're a _____ and  You Know It

(Sung to the tune of: "If You're Happy and You Know It")

If you're a brave lion and you know it, give a roar.

ROAARRR!.

If you're a brave lion and you know it, give a roar.

ROAARRR!

If you're a lion and you know it, then your face will surely show it.

If you're a brave lion and you know it, give a roar.

ROAARRR!

Additional verses:

A snappy crab ~ give a snap 

(make snapping movements with your hands)

A cozy clam ~ give a hug

(wrap arms around yourself)

A busy bee ~ give a buzz

A jumpy frog ~ give a leap

A frightened rabbit ~ give a wiggle

(either wiggle nose or wiggle hands above head for ears)

A thoughtful owl ~ give a whooo

A silly seal ~ give a clap

An angry bear ~ give a growl

As you add the animals to the board, you can talk about the animal or about the emotion it is being used to convey. I also like to make the ASL sign for the animal and the emotion. This seems to help the children stay focused on the activity and the parents love the idea that their child is learning a few signs! 

Sometimes, I pass out the animals and have the children bring their animal up to the board when we sing about it. (This is another little "trick" to help the children stay focused on our activity.)

Here is the second activity for the heart animals. If you read my post entitled, "It is Snowing All Around", then you know that I like adapting the book, Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? by Bill Martin. Well... here is another adaptation, Brave Lion, Brave Lion or Tan Lion, Tan Lion. It actually can be done in two different ways. You can focus on the emotions or on the color of the animals. I chose to focus on colors for this particular post. If you would like the words to Brave Lion, Brave Lion just email me at storytimeabcs@gmail.com but they are simple enough to do yourself. :-)

Tan Lion, Tan Lion, What Do You See?

Tan Lion, Tan Lion, what do you see?

I see a Red Crab looking at me.

Red Crab, Red Crab, what do you see?

I see an Orange Clam looking at me.

Orange Clam, Orange Clam, what do you see?

I see a Yellow Bee looking at me.

Yellow Bee, Yellow Bee, what do you see?

I see a Green Frog looking at me.

Green Frog, Green Frog, what do you see?

I see a Blue Bunny looking at me.

Blue Bunny, Blue Bunny, what do you see?

I see a Purple Owl looking at me.

Purple Owl, Purple Owl, what do you see?

I see a Gray Seal looking at me.

Gray Seal, Gray Seal, what do you see?

I see a Brown Bear looking at me.

Brown Bear, Brown Bear, what do you see?

I see lots of children looking at me.

Children, Children, what do you see?

We see:

a Tan Lion

a Red Crab

an Orange Clam

a Yellow Bee

a Green Frog

a Blue Bunny

a Purple Owl

a Gray Seal

and

a Brown Bear

Looking at us! Yay!

My apologies for the quality of the pictures. I am home sick today so...

I will take better pictures next week to replace these.

The children enjoy helping to finish the story! When it is time for them to help, I encourage them by saying, "It is your turn now. Can you remember all the animals in the same order that we first saw them?"

Then I point to each animal going from left to right (pre-reading skill). At the end, I always compliment the children on their storytelling abilities. "You were awesome! Did you know that you were such a good storyteller?"

The new storytime friends are always surprised that I called them "storytellers". LOL! It is such a joy to see the surprised look on their faces!

Well, that is my first Flannel Friday contribution. Hope you will be able to enjoy these ideas with your children!

Be sure to check out the other Flannel Friday posts. This week’s Valentine Extravaganza round-up is being hosted by  Anna over at Future Librarian Superhero.

And, keep an eye out here because I will be posting a complete outline of my Wild about Hearts Storytime. I'll link it so you can see the other activities, books, and craft that I shared along with my snack ideas, too.

HAPPY READING TOGETHER!

Activity: Five Little Snowflakes

This particular activity is one that I have been doing at Snow Storytimes for many years and the children love it!


It actually combines 2 fun fingerplays about snowflakes. One is a count-up fingerplay and the other is a count-down fingerplay so the children get the benefit of seeing items increase and then decrease in the same activity.

 I usually start off by placing one item on the magnetic board and asking the children what it is. We name it and describe it: 



"What is this?"

"It is a snowflake."

"It is white and sparkly."

"It has 6 points. Let's count them. 1-2-3-4-5-6."

"Where does a snowflake come from? The sky?"

"What else comes from the sky?"

"Is a snowflake wet like the rain?"

"Is a snowflake hot or cold?"

 "Cold like ice?"

"What happens when a snowflake gets warm?"

"Does it melt like ice?'

These are just a few examples of the types of questions and comments we might explore when talking about a snowflake. The length and depth of the exchange always depends on the interest level of the children.  Sometimes we might only be able to say that the snowflake is "white and sparkly" before we have to move on to the actual activity. That is okay! Whatever keeps the children engaged!

***As you say the fingerplay, add or take away a snowflake as indicated by the words.

FIVE LITTLE SNOWFLAKES

(Count-up Fingerplay)

One little snowflake with nothing to do,

Along came another and

Then there were two.

1-2.

Two little snowflakes laughing with me,

Along came another and 

Then there were three.

1-2-3.

Three little snowflakes looking for some more,

Along came another and 

Then there were four.

1-2-3-4.

Four little snowflakes dancing a jive,

Along came another and 

Then there were five.

1-2-3-4-5.

Five little snowflakes having so much fun.

Out came the sun and

Then there were none.

I use this last verse when I do the count-up fingerplay as a stand alone activity. I skip it when I do both the count-up and count-down fingerplays together. You will see why I skip this verse as you read on...

FIVE LITTLE SNOWFLAKES

(Count-down Fingerplay)

Five little snowflakes

(Hold up 5 fingers.)

Floating by my door, 

(Move hand in a floating motion.)

One blew away.

WHOOSH!

(Dramatically move both hands from one side to the other.)

And then there were four.

(Hold up 4 fingers.)

Four little snowflakes

Falling down on me,

(Wiggle fingers down to the floor then point to self.) 

One blew away.

WHOOSH!

(Dramatically move both hands from one side to the other.)

And then there were three.

(Hold up 3 fingers.)

Three little snowflakes

Falling down on you, 

(Wiggle fingers down to the floor then point to children.) 

One blew away.

WHOOSH!

(Dramatically move both hands from one side to the other.)

And then there were two.

(Hold up 2 fingers.)

Two little snowflakes

Having lots of fun, 

(Make ASL sign for "play".)

One blew away.

WHOOSH!

(Dramatically move both hands from one side to the other.)

And then there were one.

(Hold up 1 finger.)

One little snowflake

Lying in the sun, 

(Form a large circle over your head with your arms.)

It melted away.

SPLOOSH!

(Clap hands together.)

And then there were none.

(Hold up closed fist.)

There you have it! A fun count-up/count-down activity for snowflakes. 

Depending on the storytime, I might follow this activity with a well-known Raffi song, Mr. Sun, from his CD, Singable Songs for the Very Young, and talk about the snow melting when the sun comes out and makes it too hot for the snowflakes.

I hope you enjoyed this activity post!

Before I end it, I would like to acknowledge a special group of ladies who inpired me to finally take a chance and start my own Storytime blog. That group is Flannel Friday. (When I figure out how to link to them, I will be back to do that!)

I would especially like to acknowledge Library Quine who has a wonderful blog here: http://loonsandquines.blogspot.com/

I encourage you to visit her blog!

She inspired me with her Flannel Friday: Five Little Snowflakes post! I finally gave up my old magentic board snowflakes which had become dull and were all the same design. (See below.)

And, by providing the templates for 5 very beautiful and very different snowflakes, she inspired me to make my wonderful new magnetic board snowflakes. They even glitter and shine!

Thank you, Library Quine!

If you too would like to make 5 different snowflakes for your Snow Storytime, be sure to visit Library Quine and print off her awesome templates by clicking here. (Yay! I think I made a link! LOL)

I know my Storytime friends are going to LOVE these tonight!



Well, that is my first activity post. I hope you enjoyed it!

Please feel free to share any comments or suggestions with me below. 

Also, please feel free to share my blog with any friends who might be interested in activities, books, and crafts for little ones.

HAPPY READING TOGETHER!