Colorful Art - A Storytime Outline

Ahhh.. art! It's awesome! For today's storytime I tied in art ideas with the classic theme of colors. This theme was perfect for all the ages. My programs were small because of the holiday (President's Day) and only had an new infant in Toddler Story Time, so I quick morphed the Toddler program into a Baby program. I left the outline as if there were toddlers in the program and included the baby songs I actually did.

B = Baby Storytime
T = Toddler Storytime
P = Preschool Storytime

BOOKS

Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See? written by Bill Martin Jr. and illus. by Eric Carle (B, T)
The classic rhyming color book! I held the book while I had the kids put the pictures on the flannel board.

Cat's Colors written and illus. by Jane Cabrera (B, T)
I love this book or any book by Jane Cabrera! 

The Color Box written by Dayle Ann Dodds and illus. by Giles Laroche (T)
This is such a fun book about colors and it's about boxes too!

I Ain't Gonna Paint No More written by Karen Beaumont and illus. by David Catrow (T, P) 
I love this book and its rhythm!  I actually wish I had this in big book form so that the older kids could see that the boy was pointing to his butt at the end. But then, again, perhaps not.The parents and grandparents thought the whole book was funny too.

Art written and illus.by Patrick McDonnell (P)
I :: LOVE :: Patrick McDonnell's books and comics! The book was perfect for the theme because the various ways he did the art on the pages.

Bear's Picture written by Daniel Pinkwater and illus. by D.B. Johnson (P)
This was fun book to read. You can ask the children if they saw what the gentlemen were seeing then if they saw what the bear said his painting looked like. I love you have to turn the book upside down to see what his painting became!

SONGS & RHYMES

Opening Rhyme: Open, Shut Them (T, P)
(follow actions)
Open, shut them
Open, shut them
Give a little clap
Open, shut them
Open, shut them
Lay them in your lap
Creep them, creep them up to your chin
Open your mouth wide, but don't put your fingers in!
Open, shut them
Open, shut them
Give a big clap
Open, shut them
Lay them in your lap.

Pat a Cake (B)
Pat a cake, Pat a cake (pat knees/lap in rhythm)
Baker's man.
Bake me a cake as fast as you can.
You roll it and pat it  (roll your hands or arms then pat your hands together!)
And mark it with a 'B' (mark a B in your palm)
Put it in the oven for baby and me! (pretend your putting it in the oven then point to baby and yourself!)

The Itsy Bitsy Spider (B)
(follow actions with your fingers and arms)
The itsy bitsy spider (move your fingers like a spider going upward)
went up the water spout.
Down came the rain (wiggle your fingers like rain is falling)
and washed the spider out! (sweep with your hands like the a wave of water washed the spider out)
Out came the sun (raise arms overhead in a circle to make a sun)
and dried up all the rain.
And the itsy bitsy spider (make your finger spider go upwards again!)
went up the spout again!

Color Rhyme (T, P)
(follow actions) 
If your clothes have any red,
Put your finger on your head.

If your clothes have any blue,
Put your finger on your shoe.

If your clothes have any green,
Wave your had so that you're seen.

If your clothes have any yellow,
Smile like a happy fellow.

If your clothes have any brown,
Turn your smile into a frown.

If your clothes have any black,
Put your hands behind your back.

If your clothes have any white,
Stamp your feet with all your might!
Source: SurLaLune Storytime

Mary Brushed on Red Paint (T, P)
tune: Mary Had a Little Lamb
Mary brushed on red paint,
Red paint, Red paint,
Mary brushed on red paint all day long.

Mary brushed on blue paint,
blue paint, blue paint,
Mary brushed on blue paint all day long.

Mary brushed on yellow paint,
yellow paint, yellow paint,
Mary brushed on yellow paint all day long.

Continue with other colors:
purple, green, orange, etc.
Source: ME! I piggybacked the song from the classic "Mary Wore a Red Dress"

Closing Rhyme: Touch Your Nose (T, P)
(follow actions)

Touch your nose

Touch your chin

That's the way this game begins

Touch your eyes

Touch your knees

Now pretend you're going to sneeze!

Aaachooooo!

Touch your hair

Touch one ear

Touch your two red lips right here

Touch your elbow where it ends

And that's the way this touch game ends.

FLANNEL BOARD

Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See? (T)
If there were toddlers in the program I would have done the flannel version of the story were they had to put the animal on the board when I read the rhyme out loud.

Mary Used Red Paint (T, P)
As cues for which color we were going to sing about next I made "paint splotches" to put on the board, which we pretended to be a giant paint canvas. To make it even more fun I let the children hold onto my big paint brushes and way them about while we sang. After the song we pretended to paint shapes in the air. The circle was the easiest and most fun one to do!

CRAFT

"Anyone Can Be An Artist" Tie Dye Window Decoration (T, P)
I wanted to do a craft that allowed the kids to feel like artists without the mess of paint and brushes. So! I I decided that they were going to make window decorations with a ruffled coffee filter and washable markers. Have the children color the filter, which was flattened out, any way they want with the markers. Note that the more color they use the richer and runnier the markers will be. Why?! Because you're going to spray the filters with water when they're done, that's why! I used a regular spray bottle to get the filters wet, and we washed the colors run and meld together to become tie dye-y! To make it a window decoration I had whole punched the filters during my craft bag prepping, and handed out a string at the end of the program saying that hang up the filter in a window once it dried. Oh, and the kids left with their wet filters on a paper plate.Voila! Artsy fun!

PICTURES
Mary Brushed on Red Paint (T, P)

Mary Brushed on Red Paint song,
created by Dorothy WP-CC, 2012
Doesn't my purple paint splotch look like a dinosaur!?!?

"Anyone Can Be An Artist" craft (T, P) 

I love the tie dye affect of this craft.

EXTRA BOOKS

More books about colors and art!
Mouse Paint written and illus. by Ellen Stoll Walsh (T)
Can't go wrong with this one! 
I'm the Best Artist in the Ocean written and illus. by Kevin Sherry (T, P)
Vincent's Colors written and pictures by Vincent Van Gogh (T, P)
This is such a cool book that I wish I had time for it during the program!
Dog's Colorful Day: A Messy Story about Colors and Counting written and illus. by Emma Dodd (T, P)
The Squiggle written by Carole Lexa Schaefer and  illus. by Pierr Morgan (P)
Warthogs Paint: A Messy Color Book written by Pamela Duncan Edwards and illus. by Henry Cole (P)
A Book About Color: A Clear and Simple Guide for Young Artist written and illus. by Mark Gonyea (T, P)
This lives in my library's juvenile nonfiction collection, but you can read it as a book about colors. Towards the end the text gets a little complicated more than what a preschooler may need to know about colors, but I would still show the pictures anyway because their descriptive and so on. 
The Dot and Ish written and illus. by Peter Reynolds (P)
I ::love:: these books!