Flannelboard: Bear in the Lair

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

Flannelboard

I used this board for my hibernation and camping storytimes. I am honestly a little surprised that I haven't seen anyone else use this idea. I found a lot of hibernation themed storytimes for inspiration, but none of the flannelboards were quite what I wanted for the theme. I eventually latched onto the idea of a “Mouse in the House” variation with a sleeping bear in a den. I decided to keep the rocks for all the dens grey and just change the colors of the moss and foliage around the den. 

Rhymes, Songs, Games, and Fingerplays

“Bear in the Lair”

“Sleepy bear, sleepy bear, are you in the (color) lair?”

Source: Written by me!

Storytime: Hibernation

Books

Old Bear by Kevin Henkes

Hibernation Station by Michelle Meadows

Bear Snores On by Karma Wilson

Time to Sleep by Denise Fleming

Sleep Bear! by Shelby Alinsky

Hibernation by Margaret Hall

This was a really fun theme and a great one for including some nonfiction titles. There are a lot of fantastic books related to hibernation. As you can tell by the covers, most of them feature bears, but Time to Sleep, Hibernation Station, and Hibernation all talk about other animals that hibernate as well. I love Old Bear. It's a sweet story and the illustrations are so lovely!

For extension activities click read more!

Storytime: Dinosaurs II

Books

Stomp, Dinosaur, Stomp! by Margaret Mayo

Bones, Bones, Dinosaur Bones by Byron Barton

I am NOT a Dinosaur by Will Lach

Dinosaurs from Head to Tail by Stacey Roderick

Dinosaur Roar! by Paul and Henrietta Stickland

Tyrannosaurus Rex vs Edna the very First Chicken by Douglas Rees

I have a big backlog of storytme posts still sitting in my drafts, but this one was easy to get ready to post since I didn't have to take any new photographs for it and there was minimal formatting that needed to be done. As such, I'm posting it first and hoping I can get through some of my backlog in the next couple weeks!

This is my second time doing a dinosaur theme. I was going to wait about a year to recycle any themes, but I saw other librarians doing dinosaur themes for “Dinovember” and I couldn't resist! I used a lot of the same extension activities from my first dinosaur storytime, but I used a completely different set of books and found some new songs and rhymes as well. When I do dinosaur themed storytimes, I like to not have books that include dinosaurs and humans living together and also love to use books that have multiple dinosaur names included as well as nonfiction titles. I am NOT a Dinosaur was a great title to use because it outlines some prehistoric creatures that are often mistakenly identified as dinosaurs (like pteranodon and plesiosaur) which is a great teaching opportunity!

Click read more for the new dinosaur songs and rhymes I found!

Storytime: Mice

Books

Mouse and Hippo by Mike Twohy

Oops Pounce Quick Run by Mike Twohy

Mayday Mouse by Seb Braun

Hide and Squeak by Heather Vogel Frederick

Mouse Shapes by Ellen Stoll Walsh

Mousequerade Ball by Lori Moretensen

There are a lot of great picture books and children's songs about mice. There's also everyone's favorite flannelboard, "Mouse in the House," so this storytime was a definite winner!

Click read more for extension activity ideas

Art in Action: Frida Kahlo

Books

Frida Kahlo: The Artist Who Painted Herself by Margaret Frith

Me, Frida by Amy Novesky

Frida Kahlo by Ma Isabel Sanchez Vegara

Frida by Jonah Winter

Frida: Viva La Vida! Long Live Life! by Carmen T. Bernier-Grand

Viva Frida by Yuyi Morales

This was the second Art in Action program I ran, but it has taken me this long to get it up on the blog. I'm hoping to get at least some of my backlog of posts up during the holidays when I have some time off work and storytimes!

Frida Kahlo is one of my favorite artists. She has beautiful art and an inspiring story. I'm so glad that she has become such a popular figure. It was really easy to find good books about her. My favorite of these books was Me, Frida. The illustrations are very reminiscent of Frida Kahlo's own work.

After I did this program I also discovered the wonderful Lil' Libros board books. They have a great little counting book inspired by Frida too: Counting with/Contando con Frida by Patty Rodriguez. This would be another great book to pull for a Frida Kahlo related program, especially if you anticipate having younger children there. It is a bilingual book and teaches some interesting vocabulary relevant to artists, like paint brushes and portraits, as well as the blue house, La Casa Azul, which is the name of Frida's home in Coyoacán Mexico and where the Frida Kahlo museum currently is!

For my Frida Kahlo art project examples click read more.

Ukulele: Picked a Pumpkin Chord Chart

As usual, I am far behind with storytime write-ups. I have a lot of them nearly ready to go and just need to add images, but I keep putting that off. In the meantime, however, I'd like to share another seasonally appropriate chord chart I recently made. I've swapped this one in for my berry themed songs with my random song activity. This one is to the same tune (Oh My Darling Clementine) as the "Picked a Berry" song I posted about earlier this year, but is about picking pumpkins instead!

Feel free to download and use the pdf from my Google Drive if it would be useful for you!

Flannelboard: Pirates

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 pirate storytime on Talk Like a Pirate Day! I spent far too much time making these pieces, but hopefully I will find use for them in the future. If nothing else, I can continue to do pirate themed storytimes for Talk Like a Pirate Day every year! Part of the reason I decided to do a flannelboard with five pirates instead of something like a mouse in the house variation with treasure in chests was that I wanted to make 100% sure I would have both female pirates and pirates of color in my storytime. Most books for children about pirates feature white boys as the protagonists so I thought a great way to make sure I added more diversity was to do a flannelboard with different pirates too! I've made three out of the five pirates female and each pirate has a different skin tone. The two lightest skin tones look pretty similar in photographs but they are different and I think the difference is slightly more obvious in person.

Songs, Rhymes, Games, and Fingerplays

Flannelboard: “One Brave Pirate”
(Tune: One Elephant Went Out to Play)

One brave pirate sailed out to sea
Across the blue waters, wild and free
He had such enormous fun
That he called for another brave pirate to come.

Two brave pirates sailed out to sea
Across the blue waters, wild and free
They had such enormous fun
That they called for another brave pirate to come.

Verses: Count up to five

Five brave pirates sailed out to sea
Across the blue waters, wild and free
They had such enormous fun
As they sailed together 'neath the golden sun!

Source: modified from Storytime ABCs

Flannelboard: “Five Scurvy Pirate”

Five scurvy pirates standing on the shore,
One went on a search and that left four.

Four scurvy pirates sailing out to sea,
One went for a swim and that left three.

Three scurvy pirates out on the ocean blue,
One walked the plank and that left two.

Two scurvy pirates having tons of fun,
One went below the deck and that left one.

One scurvy pirate, tired and alone,
He turned the ship around and sailed for home.

Source: Storytime ABCs