I Went Walking in West Hartford

Will you walk with me?

A long time ago I made a set of animals for my flannel board to go with Sue William's lovely book:   

Years later at the suggestion of my friend/librarian/former blogger, Kari Ann St.Jean, I added black felt to the back of these laminated animals and now, they are better than new.  

I went walking, right here in West Hartford, and what did I see?

...I saw a cow following me. 

I went walking, right here in West Hartford, and what did I see? I saw a cat following me.

I went walking, right here in West Hartford, and what did I see?

a horse...a pig....a duck

and a dog following me

I love this set and it has served me well for more than 25 years.  It also inspired the Dinosaur bucket of I went walking - always a hit at the library.

But we didn't stop at Dinosaurs...we added a supply of bugs for our bucket.  Take a look! I went walking, outside and around the library, and what did I see...whoa!

And then we have the Zoo animals in the bucket - that gets really loud in the library!

I went to the zoo and what did I see?  

I also created an "I went swimming and what did I see?" set of animals for the bucket.  Perfect for summer story times.  You'll have to wait for that photo!  

Alas the snow is melting in Connecticut and taking a walk in the sunshine will soon be a reality.  We'll tell Sue Williams story on the flannel board in story time and the little ones will guess the animals, and make their sounds.  I'll ask if anyone ever saw a cow on their West Hartford street. Sometimes they say yes!  I love it.   Imagination, creativity, books and storytelling - they rock our world.  

Amen ~ Piper & Jane

Pete the Cat Rocks on Flannel Friday!

Pete the Cat
I Love My White Shoes!   Story by Eric Litwin, Art by James Dean  

I am truly digging this cat!  I am diggin' this story!  I am diggin' these story stones.  

DIG INTO READING!

This is the first time I've made story stones.  And to be honest about it...this was a collision of ideas.  I completely wanted to do story stones with a dinosaur theme for Dig into Reading - but the ever present Pete the Cat just kept calling "dig my white shoes, dig my white shoes!"  And really...drawing Pete is so much easier than drawing dinosaurs.

I cleaned off some old rocks.  Then drew little pictures of  Pete, some sneakers and stuff on sketch paper, (not too thick), and colored them in with sharpies.  I cut everything out and modge-podged them all to the rocks.  In this photo...each rock only has two coats of Modge Podge.  I think they'll need about four more coats.  

I can't wait to use these story stones.   " Pete the cat goes walking down the street in his brand-new white shoes.  Pete loved his white shoes so much, he sang this song:" Go on, sing it!  You know it - sing it!

    

vocabulary building, sequencing, patterning, narrating, singing, dancing, pretending

It's all good!

P.S. (Piper Script) READING ROCKS!

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