Hey, Mr. Snowman flannel rhyme

Even though it's unlikely to be used until late this year, I made a snowman for a story kit about winter for our volunteers to take to daycare centers and preschools.  The patterns for this snowman are available in Children's Programming Monthly, vol. 1, no. 4, "Mitten Weather,"and were designed by Diane Briggs.

Hey, Mr. Snowman
I went walking
Through a winter wonderland
And spied a frosty snowman
Who needed a hand.
Hey, Mr. Snowman, what do you need?
I need some eyes. Put them on me, please.
Hey, Mr. Snowman, what do you see?
I see an orange carrot. Put it on me, please.
Hey, Mr. Snowman, now what do you see?
I see a purple hat.  Put it on me, please.
Hey, Mr. Snowman, now what do you see?
I see some red licorice. Put it on me, please.
Hey, Mr. Snowman, now what do you see?
I see some brown sticks.  Put them on me, please.
Hey, Mr. Snowman, now what do you see?
I see a green scarf.  Put it on me, please.
Hey, Mr. Snowman, now what do you see?
I see some red mittens.  Put them on me, please.
Hey, Mr. Snowman, now what do you see?
I see some black buttons.  Put them on me, please.
Hey, Mr. Snowman, now what do you see?
I see some yellow boots.  Put them on me, please.
Hey, Mr. Snowman, now what do you see?
I see the coolest snowman ever...ME!

Ten Little Fish flannel rhyme

I've been working on creating new storytime kits for our volunteers who take them to daycares and preschools to read to children, and I've decided that the flannel stories in the kits should be as cute as the ones we use at the library, so today I made one for "Ten Little Fishes" for a beach-themed kit.

Ten Little Fishes
Ten little fishes were swimming in a school
This one said, "Let's swim to where it's cool."
This one said, "It's a very warm day."
This one said, "Come on, let's play."
This one said, "I'm as hungry as can be."
This one said, "There's a worm for me."
This one said, "Wait, we'd better look."
This one said, "Yes, it's on a hook."
This one said, "Can't we get it anyway?"
This one said, "Perhaps we may."
This one, so very brave, grabbed a bit and swam away."

Spring!

This week's toddler storytime celebrates spring, which has arrived early here in Iowa this year.  

We will be reading:

Kitten's Spring by Eugenie Fernandes


Spring Things by Bob Raczka


and Wake Up! Wake Up! A Springtime Lift-the-Flap Book by Nancy Davis.


Our flannel rhyme this week is Five Little Flowers from Children's Programming Monthly, vol. 1, no. 7, p. 10.

Five Little Flowers

Five little flowers grew by my door.

I picked one for my mother, and then there were four.

Four little flowers, pretty as can be.

I picked one for my father, and then there were three.

Three little flowers, what could I do?

I picked one for my sister, and then there were two.

Two little flowers out in the sun.

I picked one for my brother, and then there was one.

One little flower, isn't this fun?

I picked one for you, and then there were none.

We will also make music to "Weather Rhythms" from H.U.M. (Highly Usable Music) by Carole Peterson.  I will distribute rhythm sticks and we'll use them to make the "pit pat" of the rain and the thunder.

Our craft this week was designed by Mallory, one of the youth library assistants.  I also used the pattern to make the flannel flowers for this week's rhyme.  We used our circle and scalloped circle punches to punch out the circles for the flowers, we cut out the leaves, and children will glue them to craft sticks to make flowers.  For a 3-D effect, children can scrunch the edges of the scalloped circle.

Big and Little

I am fortunate to have been invited to participate in a grant called Ready to Learn with Iowa Public Television, and one of their new programs currently in development is a fun, engaging cartoon called Peg + Cat, which includes match concepts for preschoolers.  This inspired the toddler storytime I'm finally posting today, which highlights the concepts of relative size and spatial capacity. 

The books we read were:

Tiny Little Fly by Michael Rosen


Big Little by Leslie Patricelli

And as a flannel story, A House for Birdie by Stuart J. Murphy. The idea for making this particular story into a flannel story came from Miss Mary Liberry at Flannel Friday.

I realized too late that I had made the smallest round bird gold, so I had to change the names of a couple of the birds to match the story.

We also did some action rhymes, but I can't post them because I didn't put into my plan where I found them.

As a craft, parents and children traced their hands onto green construction paper--the parent's hand is big and the child's hand is little.  Then the parent cut them out and the child taped them to our windows, where we had put up a tree that we intended to change through the seasons (buds and flowers in spring, leaves in the summer, colored leaves in the fall, etc.), but it isn't holding up as well as we thought it would, so it may be more temporary than that.  Our unseasonably warm weather this spring has also kicked all of the vegetation into high gear, so it looked more like May here last month than March.  I love that!

Because of the backlight on the windows, you can see only the silhouette of the trees, and to the left of the second tree, there is a tiny pond with a duck swimming there.  The tree was created by one of our interns, and the green hands look very leaflike, I think.

I love to do this kind of craft occasionally that allows children to have their work displayed in the library and that adds warmth and color to the children's department.