Flannel Friday: Mrs. McNosh Hangs Up Her Wash

After taking a long break from FF during which I just copied flannels that I've admired by other Flannel Fridayers, my offering this week was made by my colleague Lou to tell the story Mrs. McNosh Hangs Up Her Wash by Sarah Weeks with a clothesline. I love Lou's detailed pieces!  Many of them are even double-sided to make them sturdier to last through multiple uses by children.

And here's what part of it looks like on the line:

Of course, we passed out the flannel pieces and asked children to come and hang their items on the line when they were mentioned in the story.  It was a hit!  We found a few pics of flannelized or photocopy-and-laminate clothesline versions of the book on various blogs, so we don't know who to credit with the original idea. And although we chose not to use them, there are some Mrs. McNosh activities and printables available here.

When we someday do Mrs. McNosh again, we'll figure out a way to stabilize our line--we just tied it between two chairs, but as pieces were added, some twisted up and around so that they weren't all hanging straight down.  There are so many pieces that it might work better with a few smaller lines rather than one long one.

Since Halloween is over now and there's no rush, next week I'll post the flannel song I used for the two weeks leading up to Halloween.

Check out all of this week's Flannel Friday posts here.

Happy Friday!

Mrs. McNosh

Because two of our weekly storytimes this week are after Halloween, we decided to do our Halloween storytime last week, so this week we did Mrs. McNosh stories by Sarah Weeks.  We read:

Mrs. McNosh Hangs Up Her Wash

Oh My Gosh, Mrs. McNosh!

and Mrs. McNosh and the Great Big Squash

My colleague Lou created the most wonderful flannel set to use as a washline and clothespin story.  You can see that here.

Between stories we did an action rhyme called "Washing Clothes" by Susan Dailey that can be found here and "Early in the Morning" by Judy Nichols from v. 1, n. 6 of Children's Programming Monthly, the My Clothes issue.

Our craft was to bedazzle some of the wash from Mrs. McNosh's line with foam stickers, plastic jewels, buttons, sequins, and markers.  Here's a sample:



Halloween Window Silhouettes

We're into silhouettes in our windows at my library...and shadow puppet shows, too.  I just had to share these spooky designs done by my artistically talented colleague Dan.  It must be nice to be so talented!

Comparing

For an upcoming storytime on comparing/relative size, I'm using a plan similar to one I did at my other library last year.  We'll read:

Bigger Than Daddy by Harriet Ziefert

 

 

Up! Tall! and High! by Ethan Long

and Is It Larger? Is It Smaller? by Tana Hoban

I'm going to reuse the flannel story A House For Birdie based on the book by Stuart J. Murphy that I think was first posted on Storytiming.  It's absolutely perfect for discussing relative size. 

We'll also watch an episode of Peg + Cat, a new PBS Kids show that will premiere sometime next fall.  In this episode Peg matches pieces of cake to her picnic guests based on their size--the smallest piece goes to her smallest guest and the biggest piece to the biggest guest.  There are also lots of chickens in the episode.  :-)

Our craft will be a set of nesting dolls made from paper cups (small, larger, largest). I'll post a pic when the sample is ready.

 

Once again we'll have take-home activities from Virtual Pre-K for families to do for more comparing fun.

Where Is It?: Location Words

We're doing a storytime about location words, and these are the books we'll read:

In Front of My House by Marianne Dubuc

Peepsqueak by Leslie Ann Clark (I'll do some questioning such as, "Who is behind the sheep?")

 

and All About Where by Tana Hoban

After the first book, we'll jam to the song "Up and Down" by The Pop-Ups with scarves.  This is one of my favorite activity songs for storytimes!  We'll follow the directions in the lyrics:

Up and Down by The Pop-Ups
Pick it up, put it down (4 x)
Turn yourself around (2 x)
Stand up, sit down (4 x)
Turn yourself around (2 x)
Toss it up, it drops down (4 x)
Turn yourself around (2 x)
Up and down, up and down (2 x)
Turn it up, turn it down (4 x)
Turn yourself around (2 x)
Sun goes up, sun goes down (4 x)
Turn yourself around (2 x)
Up and down, up and down (4 x)

 

The Tooty Ta song would work just as well, but I just love the Pop-Ups!

After the second book, we're going on a bear hunt!  There are lots of versions on the web, but I'm planning to use the book version retold by Michael Rosen.

Our craft is a paper bag bear puppet similar to this one from enchantedlearning.com:

Parents will be given a take-home sheet of location word activities to continue the fun at home. 

Other books that could be used for this storytime:

Over, Under, and Through/ Tana Hoban
Over and Under/ Marthe Jocelyn and Tom Slaughter
We're Going on a Lion Hunt/ David Axtell

Patterns and Sorting

The books we'll read for our patterned storytime are:
Bees, Snails, and Peacock Tails by Betsy Franco and Steve Jenkins

Harry the Dirty Dog by Gene Zion

and The Monkey with a Bright Blue Bottom by Steve Smallman

After our first book, we'll play a finish-the-pattern flannel game from Notes from the Story Room.

After the second book, we'll sing "Clap Your Hands" from American Folk, Game & Activity Songs by Pete Seeger.  We'll talk about how patterns can be in sounds as well as images.

Our craft today will be to make a patterned friendship bracelet with pony beads--the pattern is the child's choice.

Parents will be given a take-home sheet of activities from the Virtual Pre-K kit so parent and child can have more fun with patterns at home.

For toddler storytime, instead of the finish-the-pattern flannel game, we'll match patterned dinosaurs with solid colored ones, an idea from Piper Loves the Library.

Other pattern and sorting books for storytime friends to check out:

Alike or Not Alike?: A Photo Sorting Game/ Kristen McCurry
I Like Black and White/ Barbara Jean Hicks
Beep Beep, Vroom Vroom/ Stuart J. Murphy
Old Bear's Surprise Painting/ Jane Hissey
A Pair of Socks/ Stuart J. Murphy
Patterns Outside/ Daniel Nunn
Sort It Out!/ Barbara Mariconda
The Spider Weaver: A Legend of Kente Cloth/ Margaret Musgrove
Spotty, Stripy, Swirly: What Are Patterns?/ Jane Brocket
A Star in My Orange: Looking for Nature's Shapes/ Dana Meachen Rau
Swirl by Swirl: Spirals in Nature/ Joyce Sidman

 

 

Shapes

In an upcoming week during preschool and toddler storytimes, we're learning about shapes.  The books we'll read for preschool storytime are:

Circle Dogs by Kevin Henkes

Circus Shapes by Stuart J. Murphy and

Lots of Dots by Craig Frazier

In honor of shapes, after the first book we'll do a circle song, "Bluebird, Bluebird."  If you've never done this one before, you can find some demos on YouTube.  We'll do ours somewhat like this one.

After the second book, we'll build a picture with flannel shapes, an idea from a Flannel Friday post from Mel's Desk. I'll give a couple of pieces to each child, we'll decide what to build, and each child will contribute her/his shapes to the picture where they make the most sense. 



After the third book, we'll play another circle song game I saw on Everything Preschool.  The shapes are just cut out of construction paper and laminated.  We'll sit in a circle with the shapes in the center, and the child who is "it" will walk around our circle as we sing, [to the tune of "Skip to My Lou"]
Lost my circle, what do I do?
Lost my circle, what do I do?
Lost my circle, what do I do?
What do I do, my darling?
Then the child will find the shape we've been singing about.  We'll repeat, substituting the names of the other shapes until we've found all of them, and for each verse a different child will be "it."

There will be a take-home sheet for parents for more fun with shapes at home.

For the craft this week, we'll be making quilt squares with wallpaper samples.  One of the youth staff made the quilt templates, and we'll provide children with the wallpaper shapes that they'll glue onto the templates to make a design. 

For toddler storytime, the books will be Shape by Shape by Suze MacDonald, Circus Shapes by Stuart Murphy, and One Sunny Day by Tammi Salzano.  In place of the building blocks flannel activity, we'll do a flannel shape matching activity from Piper Loves the Library. I made triangles and squares in addition to circles, and I'll keep a set for myself, distribute one from the matching set to each child, and sing this song, to the tune of "Happy Birthday to You."

Which circles are the same? 
Which circles are the same? 
Can you tell me, can you tell me,
Which circles are the same?

Children with the matching shapes will come to the flannel board during the song and put theirs together.  Then we'll repeat the verse, substituting the other shapes when appropriate. 

Other books considered that were displayed for check-out after storytime:

Apes Find Shapes/ Jane Belk Moncure

Circle/ Sophie Schrey

Not a Box/ Antoinette Portis

Perfect Square/ Michael Hall

Pond Circle/ Betsy Franco

Rectangle/ Bryony Jones

Shape Capers/ Cathryn Falwell

Shapes, Shapes, Shapes/ Tana Hoban

So Many Circles, So Many Squares/ Tana Hoban

Square/ Bryony Jones

Triangle/ Bryony Jones