Toddler Time - Sharks!

This week marks my second to last Toddler Time. I am sad.I let my parents know that next week would be our last Toddler Time and I got a chorus of “whys.” It was really hard. Next week is going to suck.

Because it’s my last few weeks in Toddler Time, I’ve been trying to make them extra special for the kids and parents. Extra flannel boards, more singing, the works. This week I decided to do Sharks, based on some adorable flannels I saw during Flannel Friday’s Shark Week.

Stories and Flannels We Shared

Today’s story was The Three Little Fish and the Big Bad Shark, told with flannels. I’ll be honest here, I totally stole the flannels from Anne over at ItsyBitsyMom. I couldn’t help it. Her shark and fish were just so ridiculously adorable, and I knew I couldn’t do anything cuter, so I stole them. Sorry Anne!! I even copied her idea to use a stamp pad for shading, and omg, it worked awesome. If I was going to continue doing flannels I’d dig out my stamp pads and shade all my flannels. It’s such a great idea. I could totally see combining the stamp pad shading with my puff paints (Anne embroiders her flannels which makes them double sided, and awesome, but I’m not that good with embroidery). 

Next up I used a modified version of Smiley Shark from Kim over at Destination Storytime. No one near us owned Smiley Shark so Kim’s idea of retelling Ruth Gallaway’s story was great. I modified it a bit more and used pieces from my magent story I’m the Biggest Thing in the Ocean. I actually had a little one who was in LOVE with the flannel board so I didn’t put pieces on the board as I retold this story, I acted it out with the pieces in my hands. It worked! :) (photo refernce is the I'm the Biggest Thing in the Ocean. For Smiley Shark I used my felt shark from above, the crab, the jelly fish, the octopus, a turtle, and the fish.)

Rhymes We Shared

We went a bit over our time today, what with the longer flannels, so we didn’t sing as much. Today we sang our Shaker Song Twice, Tiny Tim, and our hello/goodbye songs. That was it! But it worked. Sometimes we sing more, sometimes we sing less.

Early Literacy Tips We Shared

Today was a learning day! I had parents who asked all kinds of questions which I LOVE so very much. It was exciting. 

• We talked about how to make flannel boards and flannel pieces, where to find patters, what kinds of books and/or stories work for flannels (anything!) and where to get the parts to make flannel boards. It was awesome. 
• We also talked about how to make shaker eggs at home, the different things to fill them and how to avoid choking hazards. I love when parents are interested in the processes of how a story time gets put together. 
• We also briefly touched on Phonological Awareness and how songs break down words into easy to understand syllables. The parents were much more excited about learning how to take Story Time home with them that I glossed over the typical tips and delved more into story time dynamics. 

Toddler Time - ABC's!

Since I only have 3 (counting this one) Toddler Time sessions left I wanted to make them really good ones. So I've been looking at doing fancier flannels and more interactive programs. I've been loving the Chicka Chicka Boom Boom trees people have made, so came up with a program to be able to make one!

Stories and Flannels We Shared
Today we read Chicka, Chicka, Boom, Boom! This isn't my favorite story (I know, everyone loves it), but the pictures are great and I wanted to make the tree, lol.
We used the Chicka, Chicka, Boom, Boom tree puppet to tell this story today. I've seen this a couple of times on Pinterest, and just love it so much. So I made one. :D It wasn't the easiest, but it definitely wasn't super hard. I did mess up making it though- I didn't make the trunk wide enough just using felt to fit around my hand. D'oh! So I ended up having to unglue it all and then attached a sock to the back of one side of the trunk to make my tree into a sock puppet. This worked really well, so it all worked out though! I purchased the dark brown felt and green felt from my local craft store and the foam for the coconuts from the dollar store, so the whole project cost me $2 in materials, and I have felt left over. I copied Lisa from Lisa's Library Land and used the templates from Making Learning Fun. She in turn got the idea from Twodaloo. My coconuts were cut using a 1 inch hole punch we have here at the library. Made my life SO much easier.
The foam coconuts work wonderfully since the kids can crumple them up and they just pop back into shape. And if they get lost- eh, they're foam.
I am going to try again (this time with my dad's help) to make the trunk just out of foam, so I bequeathed my sock puppet tree to a coworker.
I handed out some random letters to the kids and as we read the story they stuck the letters on the tree. Or rather since we're toddlers they stuck whatever letters they wanted on the tree whenever they felt like it, lol. :)

Rhymes We Shared
I also used this awesome rhyme from Storytime With Miss Tara called the Alpha-gator. She in turn found the idea on the Perry Public Library site. Can I saw how freaking awesome it is that we all share ideas like this? It is.
I used a gator puppet we have here at the library and the coconuts from the Chicka Tree. I had kids help me feed the gator and he "NOM NOM NOM NOM!"ed them as we read the letters. The kids LOVED feeding the gator and the parents got a kick out of the poem. It is rather adorable.
We also chanted the rhyme Emily shared on the Flannel Friday Facebook page about scarves. Found here.

Songs We Shared
Today we sang our usual Shaker Egg song from Jbrary today. The kids REALLY missed it from last week when we had to take a break because of my hip/leg pain. So I made sure to bring it back.We then sang the ABC's (of course), Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star, and Itsy Bitsy.

Early Literacy Tips We Shared

• Singing the alphabet song is one way to introduce children to letters. Part of letter knowledge, one of the early literacy skills that helps children be ready to read in school, is knowing the names of letters. At first your child may not relate the letters they sing to the written letter. That's ok; this is a first step.
• You don’t need an alphabet book to talk about letters. With any book you are reading together, let your child look for the first letter or any of the letters in his or her name.
• Letter knowledge starts with seeing and recognizing shapes. A baby playing with a ball feels its roundness. Later that will mean a circle and then the letter O. Lots of letters use the circle shape. Others use triangle or other shapes. Researchers have found that children identify letters by their shapes. Playing and exploring are a part of learning how to read!

Toddler Time - Space

This week's Toddler Time is all about SPACE! No particular reason why, I just thought a space program would be fun. :)

Stories We Shared

Today we shared two books. Over the summer I've started to get a slightly older crowd, and that means I can sometimes share a slightly more detailed book. Our first book was an older one, but one I think is a lot of fun. Dogs in Space still has Pluto listed as a planet (sadface), but I just changed the title to "dwarf planet." This was a fun book (better for the older kids than the younger) and had a ton of good talking points. We talked about why Mercury might be hot and Pluto cold, what an asteroid is, and the red spot on Jupiter.
Next up we read I Want to be an Astronaut. Super fun and simple. This is definitely a good story for the younger kids.

Flannels We Shared
I did two magnet rhymes today (the magnet board seemed more fitting than the flannel board). The first was based off the 5 Elephants Went Out to Play (hard to sing with astronauts, but we managed) and the second was a super simple Rocket poem. (pictures to come)

     Three Little Astronauts
     One little astronaut went out to play
     Over the moon and far away.
     He had such enormous fun
     That he called for another astronaut to come!

     Two little astronauts went out to play
     Over the moon and far away.
     They had such enormous fun
     That they called for another astronaut to come!

     Three little astronauts went out to play
     Over the moon and far away.
     They had such enormous fun
     That they called for everyone to come!

     I'm a Little Rocket

     I'm a little rocket,

     Pointing to the moon!

     5, 4, 3, 2, 1... 

     Blast off, zoom!

Songs We Shared

Today we sang our shaker song (of course) and sang Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star, and The Itsy Bitsy Spider. 

Early Literacy Tips We Shared

• Having a large vocabulary, knowing the names of things, is one of the skills children need when they later learn to sound out words. 
• When you come to a word that is not familiar to your child, use that word and explain it in a way your child can understand. Books give us different words than those we use in conversation. Knowing many words helps children with reading when they try to sound out words. 

Toddler Time - Balloons!

Today's Toddler Time was on my birthday! Yay! I was super excited to plan a Toddler Time for my birthday. Because it was my birthday, I decided that today's program would focus on the learning concept of play. Play is so important for children learning to read and relate to the world around them.

Stories We Shared
Today we read an adorable book I had InterLibrary Loaned: The Blue Balloon by Mick Inkpen. It's about a balloon a little boy finds that does all kinds of crazy things, from never popping, to disappearing and reappearing square, to taking a space adventure. The book is simple and engaging.

Flannels We Shared
Today's flannel was a counting rhyme that I found on Sunflower Storytime.
     Four Balloons
     Four balloons up in the sky
     See them flying way up high?
     If one of those balloons should happen to POP!
     Only 3 balloons will be left floating up top! (2..1..)

Rhymes We Shared
As usual we sang our Shaker Song today. Since we were playing I did not add any additional songs or rhymes, but we did some activities, outlined below.

Activities We Shared
Since today was a special Balloon program I brought in 67 assorted balloons for us to play with! I had blown them up the previous night, taking care not to blow them up fully so they were extremely hard to pop.
With the balloons we practiced throwing them, naming the colors, catching them, and kicking them. We also found colors that matched and colors that were almost the same (light and dark blue) but didn't quite match.
Then, I brought out the parachutes. Both of them. The little one and the enormous one. They had SO much fun. We popped the balloons like popcorn, moved the parachutes fast & slow, hard & gentle. They absolutely loved it. So much that we forfeit our usual play time for more parachute and balloon play. This was a huge hit with everyone.
We also only had one balloon casualty, and it didn't pop, but instead just slowly fizzled out.

Early Literacy Tips We Shared

• Play with your children is super important as they grow! It is one of the primary ways young children learn about how the world works.
• Play helps children practice putting their thoughts into words
• Play helps children think symbolically. That this item stands for this thing, which helps them understand that words can stand for real objects or experiences. (We experienced this when we talked about how the balloons were like popcorn cooking and a little one excitedly yelled that the balloons were like coffee in the machine.)
• Play is how children practice becoming adults and process what they see and hear everyday.