Flannel Friday--Naptime Chickens

I am SO excited to share this one. Last fall I asked my colleague Tami to share some of her flannels for a presentation I was working on, and she shared her Naptime Chicken with me. IT'S SOOOO CUTE. I finally made my own version, and here it is:

It's a full hand puppet, with a set of finger puppets that attach with velcro. Tami found the pattern online a few years ago, and saved the image, but no amount of Googling or reverse image searching led us to the original source. I'm afraid the blog she found it on was taken down. We searched diligently for the original source, but this is too cute not to share!

“Come little chickens,” calls Mother Hen (beckoning motion)

“It’s time to take your nap again.”

And under her feathers the small chicks creep. (velcro chick onto palm part of hen puppet)

And she clucks a song til they fall asleep (fold fingers to cover chicks, and make rocking motion while clucking a lullaby).

My favorite part about this is clucking the lullaby at the end. I made a Vine to give you the idea, but since there's sound I will link to it instead of embedding it. Check it out here. I love songs and rhymes like this that give us a good opportunity to be silly. I like clucking, "Rock a Bye Baby" or "Brahms Lullaby" for maximum silliness. For some reason, this is one that parents really get into too--score!

Themes: Farm, sleep/night, dinosaurs (closest living relative!), birds, singing. 

I took the liberty of creating a template for this flannel set. If you'd like it, please email me and I will send you a PDF.  My gmail address is opinionsbyanna.

And finally, if you know where this came from originally, please let me know!

This week's Flannel Friday Roundup is hosted by Katie at Storytime Secrets. To participate in upcoming roundups, or just find out what's what, check out the Flannel Friday Blog. 

You Are My Baby: Farm by Lorena Siminovich

Have you seen this book?

You Are My Baby: Farm by Lorena Siminovich

When I ordered this book I failed to notice this amazingly ADORABLE design feature:



It's a tiny book! Within the book! You can mix and match the animals and their babies! I need a lot of exclamation points to express my excitement! I was completely squee over this when it came in at the library.

This is great conceptual design (whether it is sturdy design is another question, but it seems like it will hold up as well as a touch-and-feel book/better than a lift-the-flap or popup). The format of the book reinforces the concept of the book, and both work together in perfect harmony. This is what good design is all about, people.

I reviewed Siminovich's picture book, "Monkey See Look at Me" last year, and while I ultimately recommended it, I was not blown away by the text/plot of the book despite my love for the illustrations.  Her art is really fantastic; full of soft lines, bright harmonious colors, and rich with patterns without becoming busy or visually assaulting. That was a hard book for me to review, so it's wonderful to see something so knock-it-out-of-the-park successful from this talented artist.

This book is making me EVEN SADDER that I don't have a baby storytime, and that's very sad.

There's also a Safari version:

You are My Baby: Safari by Lorena Siminovich

 

Flannel Friday Song Cards-La Granja

Today I'm posting a Flannel Friday in the spirit with which Flannel Friday was originally conceived--As a way to keep new content on my blog when I don't have time to write any.

I made these song cards to help introduce a new song to my storytime repertoire, "La Granja." As you can see, the song is in Spanish (Thank you Captain Obvious).





Vengan a Ver mi Granja =  Come and See my Farm, and I should warn you, this song is a major earworm. BUT it's also delightful and worth learning. I generally do not use recorded music in storytime, but if you'd like to learn the song, I highly recommend José-Luis Orozco's version on De Colores

You have to do rooster; in Spanish roosters say "kikirikí"

Many kids, even in my homogeneous community, know the basic names of some animals in Spanish. However, this song relies on the diminutive ito/ita endings. For those of you who don't speak Spanish, adding ito/ita to a word basically means you're describing it as cute, little, or dear.



I wanted to make sure that kids and parents didn't get confused--if they knew that duck was "pato"  then why were we singing "patito?" I used clipart from with Microsoft Word to find the animals, and I tried to use animals that were all the same style of illustration so they would look like they went together. I had a hard time finding a font that used the correct type of lowercase 'a' but I really like this one. Unfortunately I can't remember what it is and on my Mac at home--I'll update later.



With these song cards, we identify the animals in both English and Spanish, then talk about the ito/ita endings.  We practice the words before starting the song (hello print awareness) and everyone is much more engaged than they would be if we just started singing. Once this song is familiar enough to my audience, I will probably start doing it with puppets, most likely using my barn prop.



Here is a great resource for translations of what sounds animals make in Spanish--which is a really fun discussion to have during storytime!



This song translates pretty well to English too, so if you'd like to learn the song both in English and Spanish I'd be happy to share my translation.  Enjoy!

posted from Bloggeroid

No Flannel Friday--Old MacDonald Had a Farm

I got this idea from the amazing puppeteers at Neenah Public Library during the 2009 WLA conference. Take a box (B&T boxes are so great since they have a flat bottom). Paint it to look like a barn door.  Don't worry, you don't even have to do that good of a job--the kids won't care.

Then cut the upper part of the door so that it opens like so:




Now when you sing Old Mac you POP the puppets through the door. "Old MacDonald had a farm, E-I-E-I-O. And on that farm he had a...COW!!!"




Sometimes I put in a big pause and really punch the animals through. Half the kids jump, and then they laugh and laugh. I always tell them when we've seen all the animal friends in the barn, but maybe if we all sing nice and loud one of them will come back for an encore. Usually it's cow who comes back, and he moos with gusto before saying goodbye to the kids.

I use this once a month or so regardless of my theme, but sometimes I'll put in a weird animal who relates to the theme or something to surprise the kids--like at Halloween the sheep 'dressed up' as a ghost when he popped out.

So much fun and easy to do!

posted from Bloggeroid

Farm Storytime

Today was my first regular storytime since I started this blog. I can barely believe it. I did storytime over the summer, but they were kind of 'greatest hits' storytimes thrown together in a rush.  I would normally have started fall storytime a few weeks ago, but our staffing changes took up all my time. But we're back in business now!

I usually do 1-3 outreach storytimes a week, plus regular storytime Wednesdays at 10:30.  Woe betide any attempts to offer storytime at other days/times in this community!

I will be writing up a few posts on my storytime process later, but for now here's what we did this week:

Opening Song: 1,2,3, I Love the Library (lyrics I wrote to tune I learned as a child).

Barnyard Banter by Denise Fleming

I read this one for three of my four sessions and it was a huge hit every time. I am trying to be better about saying the titles of the books, and I defined 'banter' for them. When we looked at the title page most of them thought the goose was a duck so we talked about geese and how they have long necks. The kids LOVED spotting the Goose on every page--more than saying the animal noises with me.

Song: Old MacDonald (with puppets and barn prop) This is one of my most popular storytime activities, and it deserves its own post--coming soon.

Action Activity: I can Jump Jump Jump. It was rainy here this week, so for the daycares and school groups we did this a few times and varied speed to really get those wiggles out (the source is here, but I've adapted it--we stomp stomp stomp and at the end do it again for show. Repeat all, then sit down slow).

Book: Stuck in the Mud by Jan Clarke or Hungry Hen by Richard Waring

 Hungry Hen was a big hit with my my school and daycare groups, but I opted out of reading it for regular storytime. The group skewed young and quiet and I didn't think they'd appreciate the twist at the end. Stuck in the Mud is fun--we all chimed in (more or less) on the refrain he/she pushed and pulled again and again.

Song: There's a Little Chicken (To the tune of "If You're Happy and You Know it"). I do this song with whatever little stuffed animal or fingerpuppet fits my theme or transition best. It's a good way to build body part vocabulary. "There's a little chicken sitting on my...nose! OH NO! I don't know what to say and then he runs away. Now there's no little chicken on my nose." After each verse I have the little chicken pop out from behind my back and pretend that I'm nervous about where he'll go next, which makes the kids laugh and join in. 

Fingerplay: Here is a Cup. I learned this one from last year's Collaborative Summer Reading Program manual, and it's a new favorite.

"Here is a cup (cup hand) and here is a cup (other hand)

and here is a pot of tea (fist with index finger out for spout)

Pour a cup, and pour a cup (you got this).

And have a sip with me"

We start slow and get very fast, ending with a nice looooong drink of tea and rubbing of the belly--YUM!

Book: Clip Clop by Nicola Smee or Moo, Moo, Brown Cow! Have you Any Milk? by Phillis Gershator.

Flannel Story: Make a Pig. I LOVE this flannel. So much.  It's so much fun--the kids just roll with laughter.

  

Fingerplay: My Hands. The version I use is closest to this one here.

We read one more book--one of the ones I didn't choose above. For each group I decide on the fly depending on how they're reacting and what I'd like to read.  My back up books that I didn't use at all were Margaret Wise Brown's Big Red Barn and Lucy Cousin's Maisy's Morning on the Farm.

Closing Song: Storytime is Over Now (Mary had a Little Lamb).

Hand Stamps (There would be riots if I forgot this).

Craft: I printed a b&w clip art barn onto legal sized paper and there were six animals for the kids to color and glue (precut by my student worker). Easy!