Butterfly Storytime!

This week we talked about butterflies!

Songs:

Tooty-ta By: Dr. Jean

I Feel Crazy so I jump in the soup By: Laurie Berkner

Spin Again By: Jim Gill (We use scarves while spinning!)

Bubblegum By: Dr. Jean

Flannel Board:

5 Little Caterpillars (The kid and parents loved this one!)

Books:

Butterfly, Butterfly By: Petr Horacek

Don’t Worry Bear By: Greg Foley

The Crunching Munching Caterpillar By: Sheridan Cain

The Very Hungry Caterpillar By: Eric Carle

Check out my Butterfly tag on my Shelfari page for more good books that I didn’t have time to read!

Craft:

We made cute butterflies out of clothespins, coffee filters and markers!

Flannel Friday: 5 Little Caterpillars

This week’s Flannel Friday is a special one because Seth wrote it, and I made it!  I got the idea that I wanted caterpillars to be transformed into butterflies and asked him to write it for me.  THEN, I got an even better idea to make the last “caterpillar” a worm.  I think it flows very nicely!  I’m hoping the kids don’t pay TOO much attention to the fact that all the “caterpillars” don’t look the same.  On one side of the flannel square is a caterpillar, then I flip it over when it turns into a butterfly.  Easy!  I was able to use our Ellison die cut machine for this too, so that made it even easier.  Sorry I don’t have a pattern!

5 Little Caterpillars tucked in eggs among a score

1 began to hatch and that left four.

4 Little Caterpillars munching on some leaves

One became too full and that left three.

3 Little Caterpillars spinning their cocoons

One fell right to sleep and that left two.

2 Little Caterpillars basking in the sun

Then he became a butterfly! …BUT WAIT! There still was one.

1 Little Caterpillar waiting for his turn

But it never came because he was…a worm!

Color Storytime!

This week we talked about colors!  I love this theme because there are so many great books out there that you can use.

Songs:

Color Game By: Jim Gill

Fruit Salad Salsa By: Laurie Berkner (We got in a circle and pretended the middle was the bowl and used shakers!)

My Ups and Downs By: Jim Gill

Flannel Board:

Five Little Birds

Books:

Where is the Green Sheep By: Mem Fox

I Ain’t Gonna Paint No More! By: Karen Beaumont (This one was tough because the kids didn’t get the rhyming aspect, so prob better for older kids)

Sylvie By: Jennifer Sattler

Scat the Cat (Folder Story)

Check out my Color tag on my Shelfari page for more good books that I didn’t have time to read!

Craft:

I cannot remember whose blog I got the idea for this craft from!  So sorry!  I will update as soon as I remember.  I passed out colored strips of paper to each child and scissors.  I figured I could let them cut the strips into pieces, more fun that way 🙂  Then we glued them on to make a rainbow!  The cotton balls add a nice cloud effect too.  And I added the line on the bottom so they could write what their favorite color is.  Here is the sheet I used:

Rainbow coloring sheet craft

Polls!

I’ve done a few polls here in the last year.  I realized that I never shared the final results with you all!  I’ll try to stay up to date with this as I add a new poll every few months, but for now I’m going to share with you all the past ones to date.  I had people vote from the US, UK, Canada & Australia!  It’s so interesting to see how far away some people are, yet you can share information so easily 🙂

Storytime or Story Time?

70 total votes:

60 said Storytime

10 said Story Time

Do you prefer to sing during storytime or not sing?

57 total votes:

50 said Sing

7 said NOT Sing

What classification system does you library use?

57 total votes:

49 said Dewey Decimal

2 said Library of Congress

4 said Bookstore

2 said Other

Do you use crafts in storytime?

95 total votes:

66 said Yes

12 said No

17 said Sometimes

Flannel Friday: Five Little Birds

Here is my Flannel Friday for this week!  I really like this “5 little” counting rhyme because it’s a little different than the usual ones.  Instead of taking things away, we add them!

Five Little Birds

1 little bird with feathers of blue, flew beside the green one and then there were 2

2 little birds singing in the tree, the red one came to join them and then there were 3

3 little birds wishing there were more, along came the pink bird and then there were 4

4 little birds happy to be alive, found a yellow one and then there were 5

5 little birds happy as can be, singing beautiful songs just for you and me!