Flannel Friday Shark Week!

Every Child a Reader
      Every child takes home a shark!

Today was our last story time for Every Child a Reader this summer and I sent everyone home with a shark!  (and five fish)  Does this look familiar?  

Piper and I featured the shark rhyme on the blog recently, (click here), but this week is SHARK WEEK!   The shark came to life - big time.  And boy-oh-boy and girl-oh-girl, did they ever love it!  We visited camp and brought Shark with us.  We had Shark in story time earlier in the week and Shark made two appearances in our Every Child a Reader program today.  I have seen so many teeth this week as everyone showed me their "shark face!"  Or should I shout ((((( SHAAARK FACE!))))))  

I used the magical copy machine again and made color copies for the kiddos to take home, cut out, (with some help), and do the rhyme with family.  Again - giant smiles all around and...more teeth!  We both started and ended today's program with the shark rhyme.  (see the above link for the rhyme)  The confidence of doing it again at the end of the program surprised me and has me re-thinking my flannel board rhymes.  The kids were more dramatic and more silly with the rhyme the second time.  We'll have to do this more often.  Although...when we sat back down on the rug to do the rhyme again for closing...the moms didn't sit.  Hmmm, maybe it was kids-only-craziness on the carpet! (yea, say that three times with a book in one hand and a puppet on the other!)

Here's a photo of the take home sharks.  Great, huh?  And not a single child was scared of the shark...just me.  No, they weren't scared of me...I was the only one afraid of the shark!

Piper and I brought two really great books along with Shark when we visited camp.

Nighttime Ninja by Barbara DeCosta

and The Gunnywolf - retold by A.Delaney

Both were big successes.  Today I told The Very Hungry Caterpillar on the flannel board.  

After the story we moved to the tables for the writing part of this program.  We traced around the butterfly with black Crayola markers.  Each child's skill level was different, it was fascinating to watch.  Although we had hundreds of crayons on the table...some kids really only want pink... and purple! (with a touch of yellow, maybe!)

Butterfly on the left has only the body traced with marker 

and the pink one has selective tracing.  

P.S. (Piper Script):  I'm the nighttime ninja at our house.  Late night snacks are the best!  

        Shhh, don't tell!

Flannel Friday Guessing Game!

Simply fun!  

We posted this game once before.  Click if you want! 

Better yet, just keep reading!

Today was the second program of Every Child a Reader in my branch library and all I have to say is Fun! Fun! Fun!  See Jane have fun!  

Sometimes I think I am "just so" smart...ah...CLEVER...and today was one of those days.  Here, I'll explain and you can determine for yourself!  Clever?  Magical?  Smartypants?  Lost her marbles...I'll let you decide!

When I arrived at the library this morning I planned to create a coloring/cutting craft to complement "Little Cat, Little Cat, are you in this Party Hat?"

I started drawing and suddenly thought...hmm this is too much work on a hot day will be a big process for the little ones.  Is there a better way to do this?  YES!  Place my flannel pieces on the glass of the color copier and make a copy for each child.  Perfect!  Then they can do the cutting - a fine motor skill we all need to practice again and again!  (FYI: They attend this program with a parent who gets to help them with the cutting.) 

So...here's what their paper looked like.  Kudos to a great copier. And bravo to the black backing I use on my flannel pieces.  It gives them "depth" and "dimension" and "pop" (okay, I'll stop!), when you photo copy them.  Yes! this is a photo copy!

Isn't this soooo CLEVER?  We sat at the tables and first - we decorated brown paper bags - we needed something to bring our "parts" home safely.  And then we cut out these paper parts that look just like my flannel board pieces!   Magical!!

The guessing game was going on all over the tables!  The smiles were all around the room.  There was conversation on making Daddy guess later.  They were thrilled, overjoyed, excited, happy that they were taking the pieces home!  This was so successful.  And so easy.  

Just in case the Little Cat/Party Hat guessing game is new to you...it's the same as Little Mouse, Little Mouse.  Click here to see our version.   Hide the mouse behind a house or hide a cat behind a hat and recite a little verse.  We could play this all day long.  I'm serious!  Mostly because of the Pirate House! (in the mouse version below)

Today's program included the book Dog's Colorful Day and everyone got to place splots and spots on Dog.  We sang "Do you know the ice cream man" while we rang our bells and I pretended to be a rockstar we rocked it with Greg and Steve's ABC Rock.  Oh yeah.  It was a great day in story time.   Maybe, possibly, could be ... that I've lost my marbles!  But I'm good with that today!

P.S. (Piper Script): no comment!

  

Oh, David, it's Flannel Friday!

Oh! David!
     No, David!

David Shannon's wonderful No, David has been the highlight of my week.  We had more fun with this book than I ever could have planned.  And it was a learning experience for me.  So it's back to the drawing board today.  I need a David with movable eyebrows and a movable mouth.  David needs to show his emotions!!

So I can do things like this:

and this:

or this:

So now, all of David's features are movable.  His eyes, eyebrows, and mouth are made of stiffened black felt and his nose is made of the same felt as his skin.   I hope to make a few more of these to keep on the flannel board during social time because David's many faces were ultimately the most fascinating part of the program.  A small tilt of the brow, or tip the mouth and WOW!

Some time ago I made a set of bandaids for Piper.  I pulled them out this week to use with the No, David book to include the CCSStandard of consequences.  I mean really people,  why does David's mom always say "No"?   Oh yes...this was fun, and comical, and I want to do it again. 

...David fell while trying to sneak a cookie and hurt is elbow

....David accidently stabbed his hand with his fork while playing with his food

....David fell on his bottom, "his bum" in his slippery bathroom

....David's head hit the ceiling while jumping on his bed

There was no end to the number of bandaids David needed.  And now...there will be no end to his expressive face.  Next time around...the children can provide the consequence, the bandaid AND change David's expression.  Oh, and we can all imitate David's face.  I'm thinking we need a mirror in our story time room!

I am presenting a program titled : Every Child A Reader this summer.  It's for children ages 4-6 with a parent.  It brings together the skill sets from ECRR along with many of the CCSS to encourage early literacy success.  Everyone went home with their own David-on-a-paint-stirrer-stick-puppet to practice narrative skills.  They decided while coloring if their puppet was a Naughty David or a Good David.  Needless to say most everyone selected Naughty David!  I say "Bravo"!  Play out the naughty with the puppet.  Let the puppet get in trouble!

This is mine, made of felt today...but we made paper ones in the library with an assortment of wild and crazy expressions.  

Piper and I outreached to a summer camp this week where we did two programs.  Not to be outdone by David...Piper needed her story told ...the story of why she needed all the bandaids.  She loved the attention!  Indeed Piper girl, you are my very real puppet!  xo

P.S. (Piper Script) There's more to David.  Yep, yep, yep!  The library's first Library as Incubator program featured David.    

If you would like to learn how to make David - click here for a tutorial (it's at the end of the post)