Picnic, No Ants Allowed! - A Storytime Outline

If it isn't too hot, families should enjoy picnics! This is the storytime that I did during the week of July 4th, and hoped that some families were going to do the tradition of joining the outdoor festivities, which includes yummy food noshing, before the firework show. The children loved the theme, and all of theme loved the reading of The Very Hungry Caterpillar. The preschool children loved sneezing during the Five Hungry Ants rhyme. A word to the wise, be prepared for a response about what happens to the ant(s) after they sneeze. A boy who kept on saying that they died when they sneezed! I said they were so tired after sneezing really big that they had to take a break. Whew!

T = Toddler Storytime
P = Preschool Storytime

BOOKS

Click, Clack, Quackity-Quack: An Alphabet Adventure written by Doreen Cronin and illus. by Betsy Lewin (T)
The toddlers liked seeing the animals, especially the sheep because they were zooming fast to catch up. One little boy thought it was because they wanted to eat the mice. Thankfully he agreed when I said that they were probably wanting to go on the picnic with the rest of the farm animals too.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar written and illus. by Eric Carle (T, P)
Eating yummy food is always a good idea for a picnic. Even the Preschool children wanted to read this story instead of another "picnic" book.

Ready for Anything written and illus. by Keiko Kasza (P)
A book about friendship and being prepared. The children loved guessing what would live in a cave.

SONGS & RHYMES

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

Five Hungry Ants (P)

Five hungry ants,

marching in a line,

came upon a picnic

where they could dine.

They marched into the salad, 

they marched into the cake,

They marched into the pepper...

Uh oh, that was a mistake!

AAHHHH-CHOOO!

continue to count down till there is one ant left

One hungry ant,

marching in a line,

came upon a picnic

where it could dine.

It marched through the salad,

it marched through the cake,

it marched through the pepper...

Uh oh, that was a mistake!

AAHHHH-CHOOO!

Now there are no more hungry ants 

Source: Miss Mary Liberry

We're Going on a Picnic (T, P) - I ran out of time before I got to do this one.
We're going on a picnic,
A picnic, a picnic.
We're going on a picnic,
and this is what we'll bring.

Let the children say what we should bring.

We'll bring along some hot dogs,
Some hot dogs, some hot dog.
We'll bring along some hot dogs,
and that is what we'll bring.

Continue with other items:
watermelon, beach balls, bubbles
Source: Yakaberry

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.

ACTIVITIES

Egg Shakers (T, P)
We did our usual shaking in the Toddler Storytime, but because I was running out of time and wasn't able to do our last song, I had the Preschoolers do some egg shaking as well. They loved it! In both programs I added in the song "Head and Shoulders," which they got the grasp of all the while shaking an egg.

Watermelon Seeds (T)
This is a flannel board. No rhyme (at least not until I write one up, eventually), just sticking seeds on the felt watermelon.

FLANNEL BOARD

Watermelon Seeds (T)
To make the watermelon just made fat U-shapes from the pink and green felt. I added in light green felt squiggles to give the skin some variety. The seeds are just regular black felt ovals. They were the perfect size for a toddler's hand.

Five Hungry Ants (P)
To go along with the rhyme, I flannelized the elements. How awesome is that salad? The children thought that my pepper shaker was a sock, but I'm that it was because they never really paid attention a salt and pepper shaker in real life before. The ants were three lumps with three strips glued on the middle of the backside. The children loved making the sneezing portion of the rhyme. One boy kept on saying that the ants died every time they sneezed. I told him that each ant was just tired from such a big sneeze!

CRAFTS

Picnic Plates (T, P)
To keep it simple this time, I cut out pictures of food from magazines and had the children glue the pictures to a paper plate. They could color their plate with the crayons if they wanted too.

PICTURES

I need to get a better camera or try to take pictures in a different room. I'm getting dark pictures right now, it's depressing despite the uber cuteness of the flannel boards!

Watermelon Seeds flannel board, Toddler Storytime,
Created by Dorothy WP-CC, 2012.

Five Hungry Ants flannel board, Preschool Storytime,
Created by Dorothy WP-CC, 2012. 

Picnic Plate craft, Toddler and Preschool Storytime,
Created by Dorothy WP-CC, 2012.  

MORE BOOKS

We're Going on a Picnic! written and illus. by Pat Hutchins
The Best Picnic Ever written and illus. by Clare Jarrett
Polly's Picnic written by Richard Hamilton and illus. by Sophy Williams
One Hundred Hungry Ants written by Elinor J. Pinczes and illus. by Bonnie Mackain
Please Do Feed the Bears written by Phyllis Renolds Naylor and illus. by Ana Lopez Escriva
How Hungry Are You? written by Donna Jo Napoli and Richard Tchen and illus. by Amy Walrod
The Surprise Picnic written and illus. by John S. Goodall
Piggins written by Jane Yolen and illus. by Jane Dyer
The Rattlebang Picnic written by Margaret Mahy and illus. by Steven Kellogg
The Most Perfect Spot written and illus. by Diane Goode
The Bears' Picnic written and illus. by Stan and Jan Berenstain

Camping and Hiking We Go - A Storytime Outline

Summer is a great time to go camping with the family and explore the world of nature on a hike. Granted, if you are in Texas right now, it may be a little (a smidge...) too hot to actually do it. So! I brought camping and hiking to the library's storytime! The children thought it was a fun program, and some told me that they went camping too. We all loved our discussion about s'mores!

T = Toddler Storytime
P = Preschool Storytime

BOOKS

Baby Bear, Baby Bear What Do You See? written by Bill Martin, Jr. and illus. by Eric Carle (T)
This was a great book for the toddler program. All the animals in the story where ones that you might come across when you're hiking through nature. One little boy loved seeing all the animals and would help me name all of them. 

We're Going on a Bear Hunt written by Michael Rosen and illus. by Helen Oxenbury (T)
This was a little long for toddlers, so I skipped over some of the elements that we had to go through. 

Camping Day written by Patricia Lakin and illus. by Scott Nash (P) 
This was a fun book to read. The children thought it was funny that alligators were scared of their own shadow. 

One-Dog Canoe written by Mary Casanova and illus. by Ard Hoyt (P) 
Of all of the books, this was one of the most popular with the preschool children. They kept on shouting that there was no more room in the canoe whenever the next animal appeared, asking if they could come aboard. 

Ten Flashing Fireflies written by Philemon Sturges and illus. by Anna Vojtech (P)
The children did a great job with keeping tack of the number of fireflies in the jar and outside the jar!

SONGS & RHYMES

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.

Row, Row, Row Your Boat (T)
Row, row row your boat
Gently down the stream
Merrily, merrily, merrily
Life is but a dream.

Rock, rock, rock your boat
Gently down the stream
Merrily, merrily, merrily
Life is but a dream.

Five Little Fireflies (T)
One little firefly shines very bright
Two little fireflies show their lights
Three little fireflies glimmer and glow
Four little fireflies watch them go!
Five little fireflies fly in the night
Blink! Blink! Blink! (open and close fingers when blinking!)
My! What a sigh!
Source: King County Library System

Row, Row, Row Your Boat Backwards! (P)
Row, row row your boat
Gently down the stream
Merrily, merrily, merrily
Life is but a dream.

Rock, rock, rock your boat
Gently down the stream
Merrily, merrily, merrily
Life is but a dream.

Row, row row your boat
BACKWARDS down the stream
If you see an alligator
Don't for get to scream! Aaaaggghh!
Source: Sturgis Kids 

A-Camping We Will Go (P)
A-camping we will go
A-camping we will go
Hi-ho and off we go
A-camping we will go

Other Lyrics
First we pitch our tent
Next we chop some wood
We Light the campfire now
We cook our dinner now
We tell fun stories now
It's time to go to sleep
Source: Kinder Korner

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 BOARDS

Five Little Fireflies (T)
To go along with the rhyme I created a felt jar and a bunch of fireflies. In the picture below you'll see that I have more than five fireflies. This is because I had about ten toddlers in the program and I let them all put a firefly in the jar.
 
A-Camping We Will Go (P)
To create a visual for the song, I made a tent, camp fire, a hot dog, a book, and a sleeping bag. The children kept on telling me that the sleeping bag was too close to the fire.

ACTIVITIES

Egg Shakers (T)
You can't get enough egg shaking!

CRAFTS

Firefly Coloring Page (T)
The toddlers had to glue a picture of a cartoon firefly onto a sheet of black construction paper then paste little bits of yellow and orange paper to its bottom, which helped create the look that he was glowing. The really fun part, in my opinion, was everyone using the special construction paper crayons. They crayons are AMAZING! You can color on black paper and you can see the crayon marks! All our pictures looked like the night sky!

Glowing Fireflies (P)
I saw this craft idea online at Inner Child Fun and loved it immediately. I took more construction paper and pre-cut six oval shapes. The preschool children had to glue little squares of yellow tissue paper on the backside of all the holes. Then they used the amazing construction paper crayons to create the bug's body and the rest of the night sky. If you hold your finished work of art up to a light or window, it looks like the fireflies are glowing! The children left the program dancing around the program room with pictures held up to the ceiling were all our lights were.

PICTURES 

Five Little Fireflies (or can be Ten Flashing Fireflies),
Toddler Storytime, Created by Dorothy WP-CC, 2012.

A-Camping We Will Go flannel board, Preschool Storytime,
created by Dorothy WP-CC, 2012.

Firefly Coloring Page Craft, Toddler Storytime,
Created by Dorothy WP-CC, 2012.

Glowing Fireflies Craft, Preschool Storytime,
Created by Dorothy WP-CC, 2012.

MORE BOOKS

Let's Go Camping written by Jan Mader (T, P)
Maisy Goes Camping written and illus. by Lucy Cousins (T)
Tiny Goes Gamping written by Cari Meister and illus. by Rich Davis (T, P)
Duck Tents written by Lynne Berry and illus. Hiroe Nakata (P)
Bailey Goes Camping written and illus. by Kevin Henkes (P)
Molly and Emmett's Camping Adventure written and illus. by Marylin Hafner (P)
When the Fireflies Come written by Jonathan London and illus. by Terry Widener (P, SA)