Saturday Storytime January 2019: Feelings

This storytime is for ages 0-5, but I've decided to structure it as a combination of Toddlertime and Preschool Storytime.

My formula for Saturday Storytime is:

Intro and Hello
Learn Theme Signs
Book #1
Movement Songs
Felt Story/Song
Book #2
Movement Song
Goodbye Song
Bubbles
Take-Home Craft

Intro and Hello

Hello Song

"Hello Friend"
Before turning on the music, I teach the kids (and grownups) the American Sign Language sign for "friends." Then we boogie, wave, and sing hello to all our friends!

Friend

Warming Up Motor Skills

"Open, Shut Them"

Stretching

"Tall/Small"

This is a short, easy stretch the preschoolers especially get a kick out of.

Learn Theme Signs

Our theme this week is feelings, so we learned the signs for "feel," "happy," "sad," and "grumpy."

Happy

Sad

Grumpy/Angry

Book #1

Grumpy Bird by Jeremy Tankard

This is one of my favorite storytime books because it's fun to read, and the kids love grumpy bird's transformation from grumpy to part of his happy friend group. 

Movement Songs

"Clap Your Hands"

"Feelings"

I like to do this song twice because it's only 40 seconds long. This also gives the kids a second chance to get all the movements down.

Felt Story/Song
"If You're Happy and You Know It"

After identifying the emotions each face seems to be feeling, we sang " If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands" for the happy face. Then we did the following verses for the other faces:

If you're sad and you know it, say boo hoo. BOO-HOO!

If you're surprised and you know it, say oh my. OH MY!

If you're scared and you know it, give a shriek. AAHHH!
If you're silly and you know it, make a face. (make silly face)

Book #2
Love by Stacy McAnulty
This book is new to our library, and a complete delight! Super diverse, super sweet, and few enough words to keep a group of wiggly kiddos engaged as storytime winds down.

Movement Song
"If You're Happy and You Know It" by Mr. Jon
We sang it a cappella already, but this is another good time to practice signing "happy" and get our wiggles out with a special appearance of the hilarious Tickle Bugs.

Goodbye Song
"Until We Meet Again" from Out of the Box
When we sing this song, I help them recall the sign for friends, and teach them a couple others as we sing. After a while, storytime regulars start to look like native signers!

Goodbye

Friend

Meet

Bubbles
I like to play the two following songs while I blow bubbles for the group.
One Little, Two Little, Three Little Bubbles
Yo Gabba Gabba Bubbles Song

Take-Home Craft

Since this is a monthly storytime with a theme, I thought it would be fun to provide families with a craft based on the theme to work on when they get home. This month I put everything needed for the craft in baggies, including an instruction sheet so they know how to do the project once they get home. It's a feelings wheel made of two paper plates, a brad, stickers showing different emotions, and whatever decorations the child would like to add. 

Giving a take-home craft as families leave the storytime room is a good way to extend the learning experience after families have left the library. Also, it's a great way to provide a literacy-based craft without having to clean up afterward.

Here's a video I took of my demo wheel in action:

And here is the "how to" sheet included in the craft bags:

(Click image to enlarge)

Sign Language Storytime: Feelings

My Sign Language Storytime format is:
Intro and hello
Felt story
Movement song or video
Book
Movement song
Goodbye

This storytime is special for a couple of reasons. First, it's the only one that I give a handout with pictures of the signs on it, so that the kids and grownups can refer to it during storytime and then practice at home. Second, I'm experimenting with adding an AV component to storytime by showing videos to follow along with instead of just listening to songs.

Handout:

Intro and hello:
Hello: "Hello Friends"
Before turning on the music, I teach the kids (and grownups) the American Sign Language sign for "friends." Then we boogie, wave, and sing hello to all our friends!

Warming Up Motor Skills: "Open, Shut Them"

On this song we do the movements described in the lyrics: open our hands, close our hands, clap three times, put our hands in our lap, creep our fingers up to our chin, and don't let them in our mouths.

Stretch: "Tall/Small"

This is a short, easy stretch the kids get a kick out of. While we're stretching, I like to encourage them to reach for the ceiling, touch their toes, then make themselves into a tiny ball.

Felt Story

"If You're Happy and You Know It"

Almost everyone knows this classic song. We sing it with five different emotions, and practice the feelings signs whenever we name that feeling.

If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands (*Clap clap*)
If you're sad and you know it, say "boo hoo" (Boo hoo!)
If you're scared and you know it, say "oh no" (Oh no!)
If you're angry and you know it, give a frown (Grr grr!)
If you're excited and you know it, say "yipee" (Yipee!)

Video

"Feelings Song" by Dream English Kids

During the video, I encouraged everyone to practice along. Using videos in storytime is still something I'm trying out, but it's going well so far.

Book

Grumpy Bird by Jeremy Tankard

This book teaches a great lesson about cheering up your friends, and also provides a great opportunity to practice the sign for "mad" or "grumpy."

Movement Song
"Feelings" by Mary Trachsel
A nice simple song that kids and grownups can easily sign along to. It's also very short, so I usually repeat it twice.

Goodbye

"Until We Meet Again" from Out of the Box

When we sing this song, I help them recall the sign for friends from the hello song, and teach them a couple others as we sing: meet, time, and say.

Friends

Meet

Goodbye

This is the only storytime that I don't close with bubbles, because directly following is another program called Stay and Play where I set out 4-5 bins of toys for a 30 minute free play. Adding bubbles to that seems to be too much stimulation. 

Preschool Storytime 7-20-17

Hello again, and welcome to another Preschool Storytime post!

We have been doing a lot of themed storytimes lately, and today's theme was supposed to be robots, but I had trouble finding anything to go with that theme except the "I Am a Robot" song (which we did actually dance to today). I figured rather than put on a subpar storytime that stuck with a difficult theme, I would put on a GREAT storytime without a theme. 

So our first story today was I Am Tall by Flying Frog. This is a lift-the-flap book I like because at the end, you have to physically turn the book sideways in order to reveal the tall giraffe. It's also a fun book of opposites, and the preschoolers have fun calling them out. I like to prompt them by saying things like, "If the bird is small, then the giraffe is..." and they almost always catch on right away. 

Our first movement song of the day was "Clap Your Hands," which I got on a burned CD from a previous library and haven't been able to find another downloadable version of since. Some children's songs are illusive like that (and like the Out of the Box goodbye song), and I'm glad I kept my version because it's a great movement song that keeps the kiddos engaged. I like to start it out by asking if they know how to clap their hands, stomp their feet, brush their teeth (that always gets a laugh), and touch their nose. They always respond that they do, and show me how they do it. My answer before pressing play is, "Well then, you guys will do great at this next song!" I've found a short introduction like this to movement songs makes them more interested to see what is about to happen.

This is the version of "Clap Your Hands" that I use. 

Next we danced to "Arms Up," a simple and slightly mellower tune which is also impossible to find on the internet without knowing who sings it. 

Click here to listen to the version of "Arms Up" that I use.

Our second story was Grumpy Bird by Jeremy Tankard. I love, love, LOVE this book. It is so funny, and formulaic enough that the kids can follow along almost immediately, without ever becoming boring. 

 

One thing I like to do with this book is teach the kids the sign for "grumpy" before we start reading. Then every time the bird declares that he's grumpy, we practice the sign while making our grumpiest faces.

angry/grumpy

Our last movement song was the fun, fast, and silly "I Am A Robot." Even though the kids (and me, most of the time) have a hard time following all the directions quickly enough, we all have fun doing our best robot dance and powering down at the end. 

After that, we said goodbye to all our friends until next week, and ended with the bubble-filled baby mosh pit that pretty much the best part of my day.