Toddler Time - Fruits and Berrries

Today's Toddler Time was all about fruits and berries! With strawberry and raspberry season upon us and blueberry season coming soon it seemed a perfect theme. :)

Stories We Shared
Our first story of the day was a classic - Jamberry by Bruce Degen. I'm sure I don't need to talk about how fun this story is.
Next up I read a favorite of mine, and one I've read before (and will read again) The Little Mouse, the Red Ripe Strawberry, and the Big Hungry Bear by Don and Audrey Wood. There are no words to explain how much I love this story. It's an all time favorite. (I even have it memorized, lol).

Flannels We Shared

Today I shared a flannel adapted from one I found at Mel's Desk, which in turn was adapted from one she found on Abby the Librarian's blog. If I had had time I think it would have been more fun to make 5 different types of berries/fruits to use with the flannel, but since I'm moonlighting in Adult and Teen services this summer my flannel making time is limited. So I just went with strawberries this week. I used animals from various other flannels I've made (the Giant Carrot and my farm animals- I love that cow) and they worked wonderfully. The mouse also made the perfect segue into reading The Little Mouse.

Rhymes We Shared
Today's rhyme was one that a fellow librarian shared on Facebook. Emily Lloyd wrote and shared this fun scarf activity poem and it was a huge hit.

     Things we can do with our Scarves
     We can wave them way up high
     We can pretend they're capes and fly [like a superhero]
     We can make believe they're hair [drape scarf on head, looking silly]
     We can throw them in the air
     We can swish them side to side
     We can use our scarves to hide [drape scarf entirely over head, like ghost]
     We can make them very small [ball up scarf]
     We can let them gently fall [drop scarf to ground]

We also sang our shaker song, Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, and Itsy Bitsy. :)

Early Literacy Tips Shared

• Rhyming is one of the things that children learn that lets them hear that words are made of smaller parts. By reading rhyming books or singing rhyming songs with your child, you are helping to build their phonological awareness. Phonological Awareness is the ability to hear and play with the smaller sounds in words.
• Counting is one the of learning concepts which support your child's background knowledge.
• Singing slows down language and helps children hear the different sounds that make up words. Singing also develops an awareness of rhythm and syllables

Toddler Time - Red

Today's Toddler Time kicks off something new I'm trying. I'm starting small "units" or as I'm calling them to the parents "series." Each series is going to tie together several weeks of programming. I'm starting with a Colors Series. For 6 weeks we'll focus on a specific color and then on the 7th week we'll do a rainbow Toddler Time tying all the previous weeks together. Other series ideas I have planned for the future are "Things That Go," "Animals," and possibly "Shapes." It's just something to keep me motivated and investigating new opportunities for Toddler Time.

Books We Shared:

Our first book is a very sweet and simple story. Red Sled by Patricia Thomas is a rhyming story about a young boy and his dad who take a
late night sled ride. This is perfect for short attention spans since each page has no more than 4 rhyming words on it.

Our second story is one of my absolute favorites. So much that I have the book memorized, lol. It isn't a new story by any means, but to me it's a classic story time book. The Little Mouse, The Red Ripe Strawberry, And the Big Hungry Bear by Audrey and Don Wood is adorable and has wonderful illustrations.

Flannels We Shared:
For the Colors Series we'll be repeating the same flannel every week. I want the kids to recognize the game/flannel and play with me every week. I'll probably add other flannels, but I want to have some aspects that are the same for all 7 weeks of the series. I found this flannel game over on Hushlander's blog. Little Bird is a relatively easy game for kids and the rhyme is an easy one to remember.

     Little Bird
     Little Bird you've flown so far,
     And now it's time to rest.
     Fly back and sleep in your
        RED nest!
     Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue,
     Purple

Action Rhymes We Shared:
We did three action activities today! Our first was a fun shaker song from Jbrary. We only sang the first two stanzas of the song since we have a young group that loses focus with long songs, but the two were plenty for us. They loved the song. And it's an easy one that I can remember! :)

    

 Shake Your Shaker

     Tune: London Bridge

     Shake your shaker in the air

     Shake it here, shake it there

     Shake your shaker in the air

     Shake your shaker

     Shake it up and shake it down

     Shake your shaker on the ground

     Shake it up and shake it down

     Shake your shaker

Our second movement activity was to dance with scarves to Raffi's De Coloroes. While the music played and the kids danced and I asked them to do specific actions with their scarves. We waved them up & down, side to side, high & low, over our heads & toes, in circles, behind us, and anything we could think of. They always love this type of activity so it was a big hit.
Finally we finished up with a rousing rendition of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star with our shakers, scarves, and twinkled with our hands.

Early Literacy Tips We Shared:

• Color and shape are among the first concepts babies learn. Babies can begin to associate words with objects and people as early as 6 months. Parents who identify the color of objects and frequently repeat this concept will find that their toddlers will start to recognize color names quickly. 
• Rhyming breaks down words into easy to understand syllables.
• We had some newcomers to Toddler Time today as well, so before we began we had a discussion of how children may not participate at first, but they will learn from their grownup and from watching their grownup participate. This is something I say at the beginning of every Toddler Time, but this dad was new so we had a nice dialog going. 

My First Flip-Flap Book of Fruit by Robert Salanitro

A few weeks ago I was invited to a Literacy Night at our local Early Head Start.  Each month they feature a book and do several activities centered around the book.  March's book was My First Flip-Flap Book of Fruit by Robert Salanitro.  It really isn't a super great story time book since it is a rather small board book, but the story is cute and it has related activities for educational growth on each page (for example on the apple page it shows a person reaching high to pick an apple and asks children to show how they would reach up to pick an apple).  Some are activities and some are open ended questions or questions about the book.  I thought it was a really cute idea, and would love to see it in a regular sized book.

I wanted to do more than just read the book so I created a flannelboard (after asking and finding out no one had made one I could 'borrow') based on the different fruits.  I made two pieces for each type of fruit- one of the outside and one of the inside.  As I read the story I placed the doubled up pieces on the board and the kids "peeled" the fruits showing what they looked like inside.  A couple of pieces had three layers- like the pineapple so I could show a segment and then the wedges that kids are more familiar with.  I think it came out pretty cute and the kids had a lot of fun playing with it.

The collected fruits all put together

The fruits and their inside pieces

And a surprise part to the pumpkin, on the back I added a smiling jack-o-lantern.