Flannel Friday Roundup January 10, 2014

Welcome to Flannel Friday! Flannel Friday is a place where we show off our mad creative skills to create flannels and other props to make storytime awesome. You can fine out more here.

Every Friday we have a round up to see what everyone made. So without further ado, here's the roundup. 

Lisa at Thrive After Three combines two super popular themes with Truck Duck

My long-lost brother from the Internet, Seth, shares Five Little Clouds

Anne from Itsy Bitsy Blog made a super fun game, "What's in the Box," for her storytime crowd.

We can never get enough penguins, so it's a good thing we have Kathryn's Six Penguins this week.

Miss Tara uses felt in a BIG way to make a flannel activity to go with "A Pizza the Size of the Sun."

With the kind of ingenuity we love to see at Flannel Friday, Miss Kristen combines old and new to make a Mama and Baby Matching game.

With the weather we're having lately, there are a lot of ways to use Bridget's Five Little Snowballs!

Katie takes time from her new baby (awwww) to share her idea for the poem, "It Fell in the City."

K Leigh brings snow fun to her warm-weather library friends with a (nearly) life-size Snowman Flannel

And last but not least, Lisa brings us even more snowy fun with her Snowball Pom Poms. 

So many awesome creations!

And while I don't have a flannel or prop to contribute this week, I DO want to share a recommendation for a portable flannelboard that I found.

To find next week's round up, or the archives of past roundups, check here.

Apple BINGO--Inspired by Flannel Friday

I was inspired by posts I saw both at Falling Flannelboards (she includes PDF's, which I didn't notice until now, doh) and Roving Fiddlehead Kidlit to create my own version of Apple BINGO. I made mine with paper, and constructed it to work like a lift the flap book on the magnet side of my easel. It worked great!


This word says, 'apple.' A-P-P-L-E, apple. How many letters are in this word? Let's count them, 1-2-3-4-5. Five letters work together to make one word, 'apple.'  Let's sing a song about apples.

I know a fruit that's good to eat
And apple is its name-o
A-P-P-L-E
A-P-P-L-E
A-P-P-L-E and apple is its name-o

Uh oh, I'm hungry! Gobble gobble munch (open up the first flap to show the bitten apple instead of the letter).

I know a fruit that's good to eat
And apple is its name-o
*crunch*-P-P-L-E
*crunch*-P-P-L-E
*crunch*-P-P-L-E and apple is its name-o

And so on!

Inspired by Flannel Friday--Five Green and Speckled Frogs

I have been wanting to make this storytime prop for YEARS--ever since I first saw it on Mel's Desk in April 2011 (Holy moly time flies!).

I loved Mel's adorable frogs and their little log, but first I had to learn how to sing the song (that explains why it took so long).

Also, I knew that in order to use it in my family storytimes, I would have to make it bigger! Enter the mailing tube! Each frog photo is four inches wide, and it's shown sitting on the top shelf of a book cart, to give you an idea of the scale.

I added numbers for a little extra literacy punch. And yes, the waves do line up, because I'm fancy like that.

Next, I plan to steal another one of Mel's ideas, and hand out pipe-cleaner flies for the kids to wave around while we sing.

Flannel Friday--Alligator Pie

 The very first storytime I ever did was Alligator themed. Why alligators? No idea. Unfortunately, I don't remember where I found the rhyme Alligator Pie, but it was part of that very first storytime outline.

When I did it in storytime way back when, it went ok, but it felt kind of awkward and didn't really go over well.

Now that I've been doing this for a few years, I've been revisiting some of those old outlines and decided to give Alligator Pie another chance. Because of all I've learned with Flannel Friday, I thought that some visual cues for my audience might make a big difference.

I used clip art and made these--the main rhyme is the size of four 8.5x11 sheets, and each verse is on legal sized paper. I leave the main rhyme up, and switch out the other pages for each verse (I laminated these and use them on the magnetic whiteboard side of my easel).

      

It was a great success! I do a clap rhythm (hand clap knee slap) while we recite it, and with the visual cues everyone participated with me--Hurrah! I will be adding Alligator Pie into my regular rotation.

 Email me if you'd like to share--they are Microsoft Publisher files.

Learn more about Flannel Friday here, and see the rest of this week's round up on Andrea's blog, Roving Fiddlehead Kidlit

What Flannel Friday Means to Me

For the two year anniversary of Flannel Friday, Sharon at Rain Makes Applesauce is doing a special roundup of posts where community members reflect on how FF has impacted them.

Adorable graphic Sharon designed

For me, Flannel Friday was the beginning of creating a personal learning network (PLN) that has dramatically changed my career for the better. When FF started I was alone at a rural library with a too-big job and no network whatsoever. It was sad. And lonely.  Through Flannel Friday I got onto Twitter--FF gave me an entry point, people to follow, and reason to be on Twitter. Now I have a worldwide network of amazing librarian colleagues, many of whom have become real life friends, and that has led me into participating in librarianship on a wider scale by giving me the resources, awareness, and connections needed to get involved with presenting and committee work.

I love the idea sharing that takes place on FF. My first post included no flannel; it was a prop story. I continue to advocate for FF as a community for idea sharing rather than one specific format. It's so much more than just flannel board stories!

To me, Flannel Friday means community.

Flannel Friday--Puppet Edition

Meet Fergus! Fergus is a very large, very animated puppet. I named him with the help of the Flannel Friday Facebook group. Unfortunately, I can't remember who it was who suggested the name Fergus (Linda, was it you? or was it Lisa?!), but I want to give credit to whomever it was. There were lots of great suggestions, but Fergus just stuck.


So, this qualifies as a Flannel Friday because I'm sharing my method for using Fergus in storytime. Fergus is our letter monster! He loooooooooves eating delicious letters, but he's very hungry, so after he eats them we have to think of some delicious words that start with that letter.


I know I've mentioned them before, but I'm a big fan of this set of Alphabet Soup Starters from S&S Worldwide. There's a 'soup can' for every letter. Inside are cardboard upper and lowercase letters, and a variety of images that start with that letter. On the back of each image the word is printed and the letter is highlighted in a second color. For the vowels there are images for both long and short vowel sounds. I usually tape the images up on my storytime easel to prompt the kids with ideas, especially since many of my storytime kids are on the younger side of things.

I ask the kids if they can think of any words that start with our letter of the day, and as they throw out suggestions I pick one, "OOoh, ball is a GREAT "b" word. Buh, buh, BALL listen to that 'b' sound. Ok, let's feed it to Fergus-he's so hungry!" And then we count, "One, two, three, BALL" and 'throw' the word towards Fergus, who gobbles up words being thrown at him from all corners of the room (Think Cookie Monster).

It's a really fun shtick, and the kids find it delightful. I think it's a great way of making the letter of the day a truly fun part of storytime!

**update** if you are looking for ideas to do a letter of the day, but puppets just aren't your thing, check out this post. 

Here's an idea of how big they are.

The Hair-Raising Adventure of Shanice Suzanne

Today I’m lucky enough to share my blog space with a coworker who doesn’t blog. I thought this story was too cute not to share!

Look at that adorable face!

The story is adapted from a story on page 181 of the book Glad Rags: Stories and Activities Featuring Clothes for Children by Jan Irving and Robin Currie, and it's about a girl who simply won't take care of her hair--until animals start living in it!  

This version is made using clip art, laminated pieces, and magnets, and yarn. 

I had a copy of that book at my old library and have a long list of ideas to create from it—it’s definitely a book worth getting your hands on (even if some of the stories DO need adapting for cultural awareness).

 

Here is a House--using the iPad in Storytime

I've had this post in the draft stage for a while now, but with all the chatter on the Flannel Friday Facebook page on what to do with the (Awesome!) Folkmanis Sequoia finger puppet stage and some posts by Sharon and Erin I see that it's past due!

A while ago, I shared the house-shaped finger puppet stage that I made.

 

In case you forgot

I used it in a new way this summer that was absolutely delightful and wanted to share it with you.

I did extensive downloading and testing with my iPad to find which 'animal noise' app would be the most useful in storytime, and I was really pleased with "Music Animals," which I believe has changed its name. You can find it in the app store under the name, "Musical Flashcards" by Kids Place. It's a free app for iPhone and iPad--well, the first 12 animals are free, and then there's a small fee to get the total of 65 animals (at this point I don't recall the price, but just a few dollars). Compared with other animal apps I evaluated (many of which I bought) this was far and away the best value and best format for how I wanted to use it.

I liked it because:
--many animals on one screen.
--easy to choose which animal noise you wanted to play
--great selection; lots of useful animals and fewer of the weird ones like 'goldfish' (with the noise of bubbles (?))
--photographs of real animals
--very easy to use while also manipulating puppets

I buy Oriental Trading's plush mini bean bag animal assortment for SRP prizes, and digging through the box I was amazed that I could find over a dozen cute little stuffies to correspond with the animal noises in my app:

Combine those little cuties (or any finger puppets) with the house stage, add a cute rhyme and you've got a surefire recipe for success!

During a discussion about 'surprise' storytimes on the Flannel Friday Facebook page, someone mentioned the poem, "Here is a box." I loosely adapted the poem for my own purposes. My version is below, and you can see the original here on Katie's page.

"Here is a house
Where someone can hide
Let's knock on the door
to see who's inside (knock knock)
[use iPad for animal noise]
Yes! It's a __________!
There is no doubt
Let's look at the (window/door)
And see it pop out."

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

Exciting news for Flannel Friday!

Introducing the Flannel Friday website!

It's awesome. Seriously, go look--I'll wait.

Background

 (this post has been written by Melissa of Mel's Desk, our fabulous Flannel Friday originator, and everyone who has ever hosted FF has been invited to share it)

As you know, Anne at So Tomorrow has been an amazing manager and archiver of Flannel Friday information for the past year. Anne and her husband are expecting their first baby in June (congratulations Anne!) so we wanted to give her a break from Flannel Friday during her maternity leave. So this spring, Anne and Mel from Mel's Desk and a small group of old and new Flannel Friday-ers worked to create a new web home for Flannel Friday.

Here's the link!

The new site will be the home of the Round Up Schedule, the archives, FAQs about Flannel Friday, information about how to get involved with Flannel Friday, and links to help new members get started with social networking and blogging. There will also be a link to the week's Round Up, but the Round Up will continue to be hosted on individual blogs. We'll just point to each Round Up from the site.

Refining the Round Up Procedure

The Flannel Friday community has grown continuously over the year, with new bloggers, new Round Up Hosts, and new members every week on Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter. We are building an amazing community and are grateful to each and every one of you for your participation and enthusiasm. As the group has grown, you've probably noticed that so have the Round Ups! We've seen an inevitable increase in missed links and general confusion as the Round Ups are compiled. We thought that the launch of the new site was a great opportunity to take a page from other round ups in the blogosphere and establish one single method for building the Round Up each week.
This information will be in the FAQs on the new site, but here's our new strategy in a nutshell:

• Every week the Round Up Host will publish a "placeholder" post for the Round Up on the host blog at 10pm EST on Thursday.
• Each blogger who wants to participate in the Round Up will make a comment to the Round Up post with the link back to their Flannel Friday post by 10pm EST on Friday.
• This will be the only place to post links for the Round Up! This way the Host won't have to worry about checking Facebook or Twitter as well.
• If a blogger can't make the 10pm EST deadline on Friday, we'll ask that the post be held for the next week's Round Up.
• The Round Up Host will gather links from the Round Up post comments throughout the day, and publish the Round Up at the end of the day.

We hope this will make the Round Ups easier to create and easier to contribute to! We'll look forward to your feedback over the next few weeks. Sharon /@ReadingChick at Rain Makes Applesauce has the Round Up this week, 5/11, so she's going to try out the new procedure with us and see how it goes!
If you have questions or comments, don't hesitate to share them via the new Flannel Friday email: flannelboardfriday [at] gmail.com.

Thanks for all you do to to make Flannel Friday more than a blog event--but a great community too. Here's to the next great year of Flannel Friday!

Flannel Friday--Without Flannel Edition

Way back when, I did a house-themed storytime, and was inspired to create a little finger-puppet stage that looked like a house.

I used an old shoe box, and sheets of adhesive craft foam. I love building with cardboard!

Little House

Who's behind the door?

What color window will Little Chicken pop out of? 

Back view

I've used this with Popsicle stick puppets, to introduce letter of the day items, and for guessing games. I wish that I had made it bigger, because it's really too small for a larger crowd (my smaller storytimes are usually about 15 kids plus adults, but since I don't require registration I don't ever really know when those will be).  But it's perfect for a storytime of 15 or less.

Recently, I was inspired by Flannel Friday (Katie via Smashed Peas and Carrots) to have my student worker create a "Lorax Dice Game." I wanted to use it for my "Lorax Party" storytime during National Library Week, but didn't have a giant die to use. So, I re-worked the game pieces to coordinate with a letter (A=Leg, B=Arm etc.) and put foam letters into the box behind the house. The idea was to have the kids put their hands in through a window or the door and 'randomly' choose a letter and then put the corresponding Lorax piece on the board ('randomly' since I'd be able to nudge the right letter in their direction). My Lorax party ended up being insane attendance-wise,* so I didn't end up using it.

*I don't automatically consider large crowds insane, I LOVE big storytimes, but it depends on whether the majority of the group is new to storytime or not. If I have a lot of new kids, I usually end up substituting less-involved activities on the fly.

posted from Bloggeroid

Flannel Friday--CollageTechnique

Just a quick Flannel Friday entry.
Other people have shared lots of snowman flannels and rhymes in the past, and there are various ways to use these little guys, so I won't go into that. I wanted to share this because of the technique I use: Collage.

These are clip art snowmen, and were black and white--completely identical with no way to customize them before printing. After printing them the size I wanted, I used colored paper cutouts to add scarves, hatbands, and carrot noses. A little gluestick action and viola! Just print an extra and use that for a template if you're not comfortable doing it freehand like I do.

They were then laminated. This technique is quick, easy, doesn't require special materials (like felt and extra sharp scissors) and works equally well for felt and magnet boards. I often use laminated pieces with masking tape attached to the back instead of velcro dots. It's removable and I think it works better than dots.

This technique is a good option for those of us who don't have a lot of time!

Flannel Friday is hosted by Angela this week, and look for it on Cate's blog next week.

posted from Bloggeroid

Flannel Friday Valentine (and related!) Extravaganza

Welcome FF'ers! I don't have anything to share myself today, but I'm happy to host. The number of half-finished posts in my drafts file is very frustrating, but other things have had to take priority. I'm restarting programming next week, and between training my new library clerk and planning a staff in-service to start the process of creating customer service standards for the library I haven't had time for much else. The in-service was today, and it went really well! We'll see if things start evening out for me soon.

So without further ado may I present
Flannel Friday for Friday the Thirteenth of January

Alison with Jan Brett's "The Hat"
Anne with "The Little Rabbit Who Wanted Red Wings" (I grew up with this old version of the book and I LOVED it even though the part where his Mummy doesn't know him broke.my.heart. every time)
Kari presents a set of matching valentines with multiple uses
K joins us with a magnetic version of "My Heart is like a Zoo"
Meghan's Valentine post isn't quiiiite ready, so here are some winter theme options with snowmen
Cate is submits My Froggy Valentine
Andrea mushy-gushies up a familiar verse with "Two Little Lovebirds" 
Katie presents "H-E-A-R-T" to the tune of BINGO
Tracey shares a whole bunch of great on-theme ideas on her blog 
Sarah with some versatile shoes (and everybody's favorite, Pete the Cat!)
Linda shares a cut and tell version of "Squirrel Gives Her Heart" with suggestions for flannelizing
And Katie presents the sweet family themed poem "Five Little Kisses"
Don't forget to check out Erin's sweet little Candy Hearts rhyme

And finally, Melissa gives us a bunch of simple, easy to adapt ways to use Five Hearts. Melissa is also next week's roundup hostess and her blog is where you can get a Flannel Friday button.

The archived/upcoming hosts are on Anne's blog, here.
For us visual learners, browse all the past Flannel Friday contributions via Pinterest (602 members and counting!)
Join the discussions over at the FF Facebook page. And finally, follow FF on Twitter by searching #flannelfriday (whether or not you have a Twitter account).

See you next week.

Cheers!

Flannel Friday--Fill up the Shopping Cart

Good morning, duckies. Today I am sharing a little ditty inspired by this post from Mollie at What Happens In Storytime. Go take a look, then I'll show you what I did.

Back? Great. I searched a bit for pictures of baskets, but didn't find anything that I really liked.  My other problem was that I wanted to print it very large, so I searched the clipart from within my Microsoft Word program and found several cute shopping carts I liked, including this one:



I used Microsoft Publisher to print the image over several sheets of paper so that it's about the size of a piece of posterboard.  I laminated it and taped magnets to the back, so that I could use it with my chalkboard/easel.

Next was the really fun part--finding all my fruit images! I mainly used the clipart in Word again, and chose all photographs of fruit so it would be consistently realistic. I made sure to include all the fruits mentioned in the Watermelon Song (our favorite!).  The fruit was all cut out, laminated, and magnetized as well.


During ST I handed out a variety of fruit, and we sang, "Pickin' up strawberries, put 'em in the basket. Pickin' up strawberries, put 'em in the cart."  Mollie did hers to the tune of, "The Paw Paw Patch" and she even sent me a link to the song, but I just couldn't pick up on the tune. We sang it more or less to the tune of, "Shortnin' Bread" (Mama's little baby loves shortnin, shortnin. Mama's little baby loves shortnin' bread.)


We talked about the differences and similarities between the different fruits, and of course the kids LOVE to come up and put things on the board.  Normally I have too many kids to let them put things on the board, so I love this one because I have so much fruit everyone can play.

Check Andrea’s Roving Fiddlehead Kidlit blog for the Flannel Friday roundup later today. If you want to participate, leave Andrea a comment (and a link to your post). If you have a great flannel you'd like to share but can't get it posted by the end of the day today, just save it for next week's roundup!  And if you don't have a blog email one of us who does and we'll get you included.

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

Five (Six) Little Apples

B & T box covered with construction paper.

Not one but two of my fellow Flannel Fridayers recently posted about this little ditty and how they use it-- Anne at So Tomorrow and Katie at Storytime Secrets--I guess this is an inspiring rhyme, because I've been using it regularly for a while too!

Both Katie and I found the rhyme on this site, and this is the text as written there:

Five Little Apples

Five little apples hung on a tree
The farmer didn't care
So guess who came to eat
A caterpillar... munch, munch
Four little apples hung on a tree
The farmer didn't care
So guess who came to eat
A bird... munch, munch
Three little apples hung on a tree
The farmer didn't care
So guess who came to eat
A pig... munch, munch
Two little apples hung on a tree
The farmer didn't care
So guess who came to eat
A horse... munch, munch
One little apple hung on a tree
The farmer didn't care
So guess who came to eat
A scarecrow... munch, munch
Now the tree is bare
There are no more apples there
But when next fall comes around
Guess who'll be there
The caterpillar
The bird
The pig
The horse
And the scarecrow
Yum, yum.

I thought this was a great opportunity to use some of the many puppets I inherited in this job. So I took a old B&T box with the flaps cut off (book boxes are great because of the flat bottoms). I covered the bottom with construction-paper and then reinforced with book tape.

Next, I used velcro dots, and placed them on the tree. I made six, because I want to free children from the tyranny of the number five...or because I just felt like it.

I spent a dollar on a package of six large pom-poms (oh, that's where the six came from) and attached the grippy side of the velcro dots to the pom-poms.

Crow, bee, bunny, raccoon, mouse, bear

When I use it in storytime I grab whatever six puppets I feel like using that day--sometimes I'll choose a silly one like the dragon or octopus if I can tie it into my theme, but these are the ones I have that make the most 'sense' (except maybe the bunny--I don't really think they eat apples, but I can imagine one taking a nibble).

When I use it in storytime, I put the box up on my lap or table and all the puppets are inside the back of the box mostly out of sight.  We say the rhyme with actions. When we get to "Guess who came to eat?" I pause, and then peek part of the puppet out or make a noise/action so the kids can actually guess. The puppet takes an apple, I make a munching noise/motion, and then say, "Bye rabbit!" and make the rabbit wave--the kids all wave/respond and then we go on.

I don't use the second part of the rhyme because I never memorized it, but I bring the animals back and we talk about them--which ones fly, which has long ears, etc. I should memorize it though! Next time.

Crow Puppet

The crow puppet steals the show. There's a squeaker in the beak that really does sound like a crow!--he's always the last one to come out and he flies and swoops cawing madly. I don't know where this puppet came from, but he's great!

posted from Bloggeroid

Story Time Magic!

Hello duckies, I'm busy and frazzled but I'm posting nonetheless!

Anybody else have this puppet?  I inherited it when I started here. I use it to make story time magic!

Folkmanis Puppet $12

 I thought it was kind of a lame puppet for a long time, since you just sort of attach it to your hand:

Puppet Fail

 Then one day, getting ready for a caterpillar/inchworm storytime, I realized that I'm dumb:

Oh, there's an opening here

But that's not really part of the story, just funny. So I was getting ready for storytime, and somewhere in the depths of Google I found a suggestion to use a brown paper bag for a cocoon. Sadly, I have lost the source, but it was a classroom teacher forum and I'm sorry! And I thought, "Hmm, I have that puppet with the 'secret' opening...story time magic!"

You can make magic with these common library items!

 So I made a caterpillar out of a large craft stick, pom poms, pipe cleaner and googly eyes.

Yeah, he lost an eye

He fit perfectly into the puppet opening!

Bag with butterfly hidden inside, caterpillar added.

So, we read Eric Carle's "Very Hungry Caterpillar." Then I brought out the caterpillar and we went over the plot elements of VHC from memory, which helps kids understand narratives/build vocab. When we got to the part where he builds a cocoon, I pulled out the paper bag (I already had the puppet hidden inside) and asked if we could pretend the bag was the cocoon.  Then I stuff the caterpillar inside the puppet and twist the 'cocoon' closed.  Then I taped it up in a 'safe' place, and we tested if it was safe from the wind by blowing on it.  With some groups I talked about camouflage too. 

cocoon!

I talked about how long caterpillars stay in cocoons and left the bag up there while we read another book (older groups) and/or sang a song like, "There's a Little Caterpillar on a Leaf--Munch munch" (Happy and You Know it).  They really anticipated opening the cocoon and made sure I didn't forget about it.

When I tore open the bag and pulled out the butterfly (holding it at the opening) it completely blew their little minds, and they pronounced me magical. I highly recommend story time magic.

The End

p.s. The picture of the cocoon is in my office, and I'm just leaving it there. Story time magic becomes office magic.