The Three Little Pigs - A Storytime Outline

This was a fun storytime! I basically found various versions of the tale "The Three Little Pigs" to introduce the children the idea that there are different ways to the tell the same story. I started out with our memory box then telling the classic tale with puppets before we went to our first book.


The children really liked this program. In fact they wanted to not do any in-between activity songs or rhymes. We pretty read through all the books before the craft. The last book The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs did take some time, and the children were losing interest, we didn't end up doing the the STEAM activity - building blocks. Oh well.

ORAL STORY
The Three Little Pigs 
I told this story with puppets. Three adorable pig puppets, which all the children cooed over and an awesome wolf puppet. The children were given props, which were pictures of a wolf (laminated) an glued to a craft stick to help them act the "And I'll huff, and I'll puff and I'll blooow your house down" parts of the story.

BOOKS
The Three Little Pigs: An Architectural Tale written and illus. by Steven Guarnaccia 
Surprisingly, the children wanted to read this one first! Which was great because I wanted to as well.

The Three Horrid Little Pigs written and illus. by Liz Pichon 
As I mentioned before the children wanted to skip our in-between-books song and go straight onto another story. So we read this one next. The children understood that the pigs did not have very nice manners at first.

The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs written by Jon Scieszka and illus. by Lane Smith
The majority of the children wanted another story before our craft. So we read this one, which was a bit too long for the end. I sped through the book because the story was long and I wasn't sure if the children were understanding it.

SONGS & RHYMES
Open, Shut Them
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
Open, shut them
Lay them in your lap.

Touch Your Nose
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 bends

And that's the way this touch game ends.

FLANNEL BOARD 
N/A

ACTIVITIES
Memory Box 
The item that was inside the box was one of my cute pig puppets. 

STEAM ACTIVITIES
Watch Me Grow in Storytime 
This is one of my new STEAM elements for storytime. I made a growth chart from a free printable I found through Pinterest (link to blog post here). The children love it! I used my die cutter to make little blue birds for the children to wright their name on. Then we measured everyone to see how tall we are at the beginning of the storytime season.

Name Box Color Sort
I got this idea from a coworker who provides toddler and preschool storytime at her branch location.  She has been working on my Early Literacy elements for her program, and one of her ideas was having the children work on their writing skills. They would do this by writing their name on a shape and dropping into a name box. I added more to this idea by making different colored slots on my box and the children were given different colored shapes. They have not only write their name but they have slip their shape into the corresponding colored. 

How Many Stories Read/Told
I've been doing this for the past year. I have the children work on their math skills by counting the number of books we have read and the number of stories that were told without a book and add it to last week's total.

Building Blocks 
I didn't do this because we ran out of time. But! The plan was to have the children work on building a house for all our piggy puppets. I know that some child would probably take the wolf puppet and plow down the house after it was built, but that may be to be expected.

CRAFT
"The Three Little Pig" story sequence pictures
I found this via Pinterest - a link to Kindergarten Nana (link here) who shared a scan of a printable page that had six panels that told the story of the three little pigs.The children liked this craft a lot. Some needed a little help, my looking at my example, to get their sequence right. However, that being said, everyone got it right without help!

Book images were found on www.goodreads.com here, here, and here.

Miss Dorothy's Favorites II - A Storytime Outline

This is the second of the continuing theme, "Miss Dorothy's Favorites." These books are among the ones that I love to read due to the story and/or the illustrations.

BOOKS
Tuck Me In! written by Dean Hacohen and illus. by Sherry Scharschmidt (T)
This book is extremely simple and so adorable for  adults to share with babies and toddlers. Sometimes I use this book with puppets and the little ones have to tuck them with pieces of fabric/blankets. This time around, I walked around the room and let everyone have a turn turning the half-page blankets on each illustrated baby animal. The children loved it!

What Will the Fat Cat Sit On? written and illus. by Jan Thomas (T)
I have a Folkmanis cat puppet that is perfect for this story. I used puppets to help tell this story.
Ernest, the Moose Who Doesn't Fit written and illus. by Catherine Rayner (T, P)
A great book about friendship and thinking outside of the box ... errr.. book!

Pete the Cat: Pete's Big Lunch created by James Dean (P)
Pete the Cat is awesome! As it's in an Easy Reader format I needed a way make this book more visual for the children. So! I created a flannel sandwich that the children had to help build during the reading of the book. See the Flannel Board section below for more details.

The Watermelon Seed written and illus. by Greg Pizzoli (P)
This books MUST be read with dramatics! It's very silly and imaginative. The children loved it!

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

Open, shut them

Lay them in your lap.

The Itsy Bitsy Spider (P)
(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! 

The Great Big Hairy Spider (P)
Tune: The Itsy Bitsy Spider
(follow actions)
The great big hairy spider
climbed up the water spout.
Down came the rain
and washed the spider out!
Out came the sun
and dried up all the rain.
And the great big hairy spider
climbed up the spout again!

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 bends

And that's the way this touch game ends.

FLANNEL BOARDS

Pete the Cat: Pete's Big Lunch (P)
As I mentioned above, I needed visual aids during the reading of the book Pete the Cat: Pete's Big Lunch since the book is in Easy Reader format, which makes the illustrations smaller than normal for storytimes. I made all the pieces by hand with the help of Microsoft clip art templates. I had a Pete the Cat doll with me that day, since then I've added a flannelized version of Pete to go along with the story.

ACTIVITIES
Storytime Scarves (T)
The little ones were restless so in addition to our egg shakers I let the toddlers dance to the following songs with our storytime scarves:

• I'm Gonna Catch You by Laurie Berkner
• My Energy by Laurie Berkner

Egg Shakers (T, P)
Shake them up high and shake them down low!

CRAFTS
"Tuck Me In and Read Me a Story" coloring page (T)
The toddlers got a coloring page that allowed them color their own bed and blanket. If they wanted to they could draw (or scribble) an animal or themselves on the pillow. 

Pop-Up Book/Card (P)
To tie into the book Ernest, the Moose Who Doesn't Fit I used a pop-up card die cut to create the inside page for children to paste and tape scrapes of paper to create their own fold out book/card like the book is. The cover was created just by cutting a rectangle and folding it in half. Then they could draw anything inside of it that would need extra room to fit in the book. I drew a giraffe as you can see. I saw a couple rockets that were pretty awesome.

PICTURES

Pete the Cat: Pete's Big Lunch flannel board,
created by Dorothy WP-CC, 2013.

Tuck me in and Read me a story! coloring page,
Toddler Storytime craft, created by Dorothy WP-CC, 2013.

Pop-Up Book/Card, Preschool Storytime craft,
created by Dorothy WP-CC, 2013

Flora and the Flamingo - Picture Book Gush!

This is not entirely a book review (in some form and fashion it really is). This is more of a book gush. I don't know if I can put into words or complete sentences on how much LOVE this book. I have seen so many different types of picture picture over my lifetime as a reader and as a Children's Librarian. Generally, adjectives I've used in the past to describe the books include "cute," "adorable", "pleasant," "lovely," "funny," "icky," "gross" "ugly," (those last three are describing book illustrations are not my cup of tea). I cannot remember a time of when I used the word "beautiful" ... until now. Also, I am not only referring to the illustrations. I am referring to the entire book itself. Cover art. End pages. Illustrations. Book design. Flora and the Flamingo is a beautiful book. Hands down. I don't care what other people may say.

Another way I can describe this book is that it's like finding a friend and never wanting to let it go. I am constantly looking at this book, I had it on display during a My Favorite Stories storytime, I have a poster in my storytime room, and I am getting to the point that I will have buy this book so that it can grace my home for forever. This beautiful book makes me happy.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Idles, Molly. 2013. Flora and the Flamingo. Illus. by Molly Idle. San Francisco: Chronicle Books LLC. ISBN: 9781452110066.

BOOK REVIEW
Though Flora and the Flamingo is a wordless, flip-the-flap book it does not mean that this book lacks characters or a story. Unlike some lift-the-flap books, but not all, this book has a real storyline. A beautiful flamingo is resting by by the water when Flora appears in a bathing suit, flippers and adorable swim cap. She follows the bird's movement creating a graceful dance between the two of them. Then... a flop. through their twists and turns they have become friends and the flamingo encourages her back to the dance before splashing into the water at the end.

As you are turning the pages, in tuned with the story, and flipping the flaps to reveal the next move, you can hear the music they are dancing to in your head (at least I do!). The sense of movement you get of Flora and the flamingo dancing around the pages is excellent.

A study of lovely pink hues and a pop of yellow from Flora's swim cap is calm and soothing. All picture books are works of art. Art in writing. Art in illustrations. Art in book design. Plain and simple. Flora and the Flamingo is an example when all three things (yes, there are no words, but a story had to be developed somehow. Perhaps note taking? Also, don't forget the cover flap description!) combined creates the ultimate book. This book is a masterpiece. The fonts used on the cover and cover flaps are perfect. The delicate yellow scalloped border of the vignette on the cover. Matching plain yellow end pages. The black and white stripe at the top of the spine. A word for design: Perfect.

For those who enjoy picture books on eReaders I have seen the Adobe EPUB version as well as the Kindle Book version. I was disappointed in the EPUB format as the illustrations did not fill up the whole screen (it did better in the landscape view). The Kindle Book version was better. Not only are you required to view the picture book in landscape (and it fills the entire screen!), but it is still interactive like in the real book. Whenever there is a flap the reader will have to double-tap to "flip" it. The only downside side is that you cannot do both flaps at once like you can with the real book. I still recommend reading/sharing the real, original book format, but the Kindle version is my second best choice. 

It will be a sad day when the book's flaps will be separate from the book pages. However, that means that this book was read over and over again and was loved. Which is also a wonderful thing! A must read and own book!

CONNECTIONS

• View the book trailer at Chronicle Books' webpage (scroll down to the bottom). Ask the children if the music that was used matches the music that played in their head while they read the book.
• Play different types of music while reading the book (perhaps several times) and allow the children to decide which one they think fits the best. Different answers are encouraged!

EXRTA
I am not the only one who thinks so. I came across this blog post by Carter Higgins (Design of the Picture Book). Her review of the book is beautifully written and she echos the same thought I have:

 "... if I had to put all of my money on the top Caldecott contender for this year? This one, by leaps and bounds."

For the first time, my fingers will be crossed when it comes to the Caldecott Medal announcement next year!

Have I gushed enough? I don't know...