Flannelboard: Flowers

If I come up with more rhymes and songs to go with this set, the post will be updated to reflect that. If you have ideas for other ways to use the set, please share!

Flannelboard

I used this for my flowers and garden storytime. I am honestly not terribly thrilled with how this board turned out, but I had less time to make it than with many of my previous boards. I would like to at least add cute faces to these if I use it again, but what I'd really prefer is a flannelboard with five different types of flowers! I'm thinking rose, tulip, daffodil, delphinium, and iris. I can definitely see myself using a flower themed board again in the future, so I may update this board at that point in time.

Songs, Rhymes, Games, and Fingerplays

“Out in the Garden”

Out in the garden
Growing in the sun
Were five pretty flowers
And I picked one!

Verses: Count down to one

Source: Mel's Desk

Storytime: Flowers and Garden

Books

Planting a Rainbow by Lois Ehlert

Plant the Tiny Seed by Christie Matheson

My Garden by Kevin Henkes

Lola Plants a Garden by Anna McQuinn

What Does Bunny See by Linda Sue park

Flower Garden by Eve Bunting

There are a lot of great books about flowers and gardens out there and it is a perfect theme for Spring or Summer. I did this one in late Spring, even though I'm just getting to posting it now. Plant the Tiny Seed is a fantastic interactive book if you have a small group, though it may not work as well for a larger audience. It was my favorite of the book selections for sure. I used What Does Bunny See in my bunny storytime too, but I brought it back for some of my groups who hadn't read it the first time around.

Click read more for extension activities to go with this theme.

Flannelboard: Gnomes

If I come up with more rhymes and songs to go with this set, the post will be updated to reflect that. If you have ideas for other ways to use the set, please share!

Flannelboard

I used this for my gnome storytime. This set definitely took longer than a lot of my flannelboards, but I have a slight (okay more than slight) obsession with gnomes so I had to make it perfect. As with my superhero flannelboard, I made sure to make each gnome have a different skin tone from pale peach to dark brown and also to have both male and female gnomes represented. Most gnomes you see in artwork are white males with white beards and red hats, so I included the traditional gnome among my pieces, but there is no reason that gnomes can't come in all skin tones and hair colors! 

The list of songs and rhymes to go with this board is a bit long, so I've put it behind a cut. Click read more for gnome themed rhymes and songs to go with this cute board!

Storytime: Gnomes

Books

Go Big or Go Gnome by Kirsten Mayer

No, No. Gnome by Ashlyn Anstee

Lawn to Lawn by Dan Yaccarino

Good Night, Garden Gnome by Jamichael Henterly

The Tomten and the Fox by Astrid Lindgren

Pip the Gnome by Admar Kwant

We didn't actually have all of these books at my library. I bought a copy of Pip the Gnome specifically for this storytime and my personal collection at home because I love gnomes! I ended up using it for the toddler storytime, so I'm glad I had it! If you like to use music from CDs or videos with your storytimes, definitely consider using Emily Arrow's "No, No Gnome" song along with the book!

I was so exciting for this storytime that I even dressed up for it both times I ran it, with different gnome themed dresses each time! I dress up for storyimes when I can. I should really try to get more pictures of that since that is what the "lookbook" part of my blog title was supposed to be. 

For extension activities click read more.

Flannelboard: Eclipse

If I come up with more rhymes and songs to go with this set, the post will be updated to reflect that. If you have ideas for other ways to use the set, please share!

Flannelboard

This was just a quick modification to my spaceship flannelboard that I used for my eclipse storytime. Reusing parts from old flannelboards is always a great option when you can do it!

Songs, Rhymes, Games, and Fingerplays

"Where is Bright Sun?"

Bright sun, bright sun, we’ll find you soon.
Are you behind the (color) moon?

Source: I made this up myself!

Storytime: Eclipse (Sun and Moon)

Books

Sun & Moon: A Giant Love Story by Lisa Desimini

Sun and Moon by Lindsey Yankey

What the Sun Sees/What the Moon Sees by Nancy Tafuri

Papa, Please Get the Moon for Me by Eric Carle

Sun and Moon Sisters by Kho Lê

Whose Moon is That? by Kim Krans

I have a backlog of other storytime posts to get to, but I wanted to share the eclipse one while it is still relevant! My library is not in the path of totality, but we are getting over 99% coverage with the eclipse coming up on Monday. As such, a lot of the people in the area are very excited about the eclipse. I thought it was only fitting that I do a Sun and Moon themed storytime in celebration. I was even able to find one book that has an eclipse as a central part of the story: Sun & Moon: A Giant Love Story! The rest of the books are simply about the sun and moon. I found a lot of songs about the sun and moon and modified lyrics to some of them to be more eclipse related. For those songs and other extension activities click read more.

Ukulele: Snuggle Puppy Chord Chart

I'm starting a baby storytime soon and one book I'm very excited to use for it is Sandra Boynton's Snuggle Puppy. Of course, I wanted to learn how the song for the book went and the next step was to learn how to play it on the ukulele! This song uses some new chords that the other songs I've outlined so far do not:  A, A7, and D, in addition to the G chord that you already know. Here are the fingering charts for those chords:

Fingering charts from Coustii

Since I am now in the habit of making cute chord charts for all the songs I play in storytime, I had to make one for Snuggle Puppy too, even if it was a lot harder to fit the whole song on one page! The book does not have the repeat at the end of the chorus the second time it is sung, so that's how I made my chord chart so caregivers could read along with the book while I play.

Source: Snuggle Puppy song lyrics are by Sandra Boynton and the music is by Eric Stolz. Thank you to Christy Shink on the Librarians with Ukes Facebook group for providing me with the chords!

It's a little difficult to read the chords in the jpg image, but they are much clearer in the pdf version. Feel free to download the pdf from my Google drive and use it for your own storytimes if you would like!