Flannelboard: Parrots

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 flannelboard for my jungle storytime. All the birds are based on actual parrots and cockatoos: Scarlet Macaw, Yellow-headed Amazon, Blue-and-yellow Macaw, Yellow-crested Cockatoo, and African Grey. I had fun researching different tropical birds to make this flannelboard!

Rhymes, Songs, Games, and Fingerplays

“Five Little Parrots”

One little parrot, in the morning dew
Along came another and then there were two!

Two little parrots, as chipper as could be
Along came another and then there were three!

Three little parrots, high above the jungle floor
Along came another and then there were four!

Four little parrots, glad to be alive
Along came another and then there were five!

Five little parrots, no room for more
One flew away and then there were four!

Four little parrots, high up in the trees
One flew away and then there were three!

Three little parrots, red and green and blue
One flew away and then there were two!

Two little parrots, when the day is done
One flew away and then there was one!

One little parrot, far away did roam
He was lonely, so he went home!

Source: Abby the Librarian

Storytime: Jungle

Books

Do Crocs Kiss? by Salina Yoon

Jazzy in the Jungle by Lucy Cousins

We’re Roaming in the Rainforest: An Amazon Adventure by Laurie Krebs

The Perfect Siesta by Pato mena

Rumble in the Jungle by Giles Andreae

“Slowly, Slowly, Slowly” Said the Sloth by Eric Carle

There are so many “jungle” books out there that have savanna animals in them instead. I tried to get away from this, but some of my chosen books still have animals in them that aren't really jungle animals. This is definitely true of Do Crocs Kiss?, but it's such a fun book with great opportunities for animal noises, that I decided to just add it anyway. They also often combine African and South American jungle animals in the same stories. This was even more difficult to avoid than the inclusion of savanna animals. So, while jungle is a fun theme, you are not very likely to get an accurate representation of jungle wildlife unless you pull nonfiction books as well!

Click read more for extension activity ideas.

Storytime: Camping

Books

Scare a Bear by Kathy-jo Wargin

Camping Day by Patricia Lakin

Sheep Take a Hike by Nancy Shaw

Maisy Goes Camping by Lucy Cousins

Do Princesses Make happy Campers? by Carmela LaVigna Coyle

A Camping Spree with Mr. Magee by Chris Van Dusen

Camping was a fun theme for the summer months. Most of the children had been camping before so they could tell me what kinds of things they did while camping and what foods were good for cooking over a fire. I expanded the theme a little to include outdoor activities like hiking to have more book options to choose from.

For extension activities click read more.

Storytime: Hot Dogs

Books

Hello, Hot Dog! by Lily Murray

The Pigeon Finds a Hot Dog! by Mo Willems

One Hundred Sausages by Yuval Zommer

Sausages by Jessica Souhami

Hot Diggity Dog: The History of the Hot Dog by Adrienne Sylver

Ten Fat Sausages by Elke Zinsmeister

July is National Hot Dog Month so I wanted to try doing a hot dog themed storytime, particularly after seeing Hello, Hot Dog! when it came in with our new orders last month. There are, unfortunately, not a lot of great books to go with theme, so I expanded to sausages to find a few more options. In the end I ended up reading Hello, Hot Dog! and The Pigeon Finds a Hot Dog! for both of the storytimes I did with this week. Both books are short and funny which is a winning combination for groups that are a little squirmy. Hot Diggity Dog: The History of the Hot Dog is far too long for a storytime, but it does have a lot of interesting facts about hot dogs in it that you may want to share with your group. Ten Fat Sausages is basically the same rhyme as the "Five Little Hot Dogs" fingerplay and is also a small boardbook so I'd probably only use it with a small group and only if I didn't want to use the fingerplay too.

There are also a limited number of songs and rhymes to go with the theme so I made liberal use of some of my old favorites even if they weren't about hot dogs. I did find a few things that fit the theme though. Click read more for hot dog and sausage extension activities!

New Posts (Hopefully) Coming Soon!

I currently have 30 drafts waiting for me to add pictures of my flannelboards and some more themes waiting in my Google Drive to be made into blog posts. Letting myself get so far behind in posts has made me feel a little overwhelmed with how much I need to do to get this up to date. However, I am going to make a concerted effort over the next week to get whatever pictures I need taken and whatever formatting needs to be done so I can at least get those drafts posted. I want this blog to be a good resource for other librarians and care provides and what good will it be if I don't get my information out there for people to see?

Storytime: Opposites

Books

Animal Opposites: A Pop-up Book by Petr Horáček

The Hueys in What’s the Opposite? by Oliver Jeffers

Big Bear, Small Mouse by Karma Wilson

The Opposite Zoo by Il Sung Na

Marta! Big & Small by Jen Arena

What’s Up, Bear? by Frieda Wishinsky

I did this storytime way back in September, September 9th is opposite day, but am only now posting it. See how far behind I am? This was a great theme! In fact, I'm planning on doing it again this coming September. There are so many great books for kids that present opposites so there are a lot of stories to choose from! I taught the children some word pairs in sign language like big and small, fast and slow, and short and tall and we also learned some Spanish words from Marta! Big & Small. I had a boy in this storytime who was a native Spanish speaker and he was only too happy to help me out with some of the Spanish pronunciations when I was unsure.

There are also a wealth of songs and rhymes for kids that present opposites. For the ones I chose for this storytime, click read more.

Ukulele: Baby Beluga Chord Chart

I just did an ocean themed storytime so I had to take the opportunity to learn my favorite Raffi song on the ukulele: Baby Beluga! It's a pretty easy song overall and a lot of fun to sing and play! There aren't any chords in it that I haven't covered in previous ukulele posts.

I realize the cute whale on my chart is a blue whale and not a beluga, but a white whale wouldn't show up on the white background! The chart is a little harder to read than some of my previous ones because of the number of verses, but the pdf is easier to read than this image. Feel free to download the pdf from my Google Drive if it would be useful to you!