December is Read a New Book Month storytime

To honor the theme of Read a New Book Month, I chose to...not read a new book.  Ok, I decided to read a few of my favorite picture books.  Yeah, they aren't new books, but I can't help my lack of creativity when it comes to storytime.  Anyway, The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle was our first book.  Then, we made our very own hungry caterpillars by gluing pom-poms to popsicle sticks with pipe cleaner antennae and goggley eyes.  While we waited for our caterpillars to dry a bit, we read Bark, George by Jules Feiffer and one of my very favorites, Owen & Mzee: Best Friends.  Twas another successful storytime, indeed.

Eat a Red Apple Day and apple smiles

Today's storytime theme was Eat a Red Apple Day, December 1st.  The first book we read was The Apple Pie Tree by Zoe Hall.  Then we ate none other than red apples in the form of apple smiles.  My mom suggested this edible craft - we took red apple slices and put peanut butter on one side of two apple slices and then stuck mini marshmallows in the peanut butter and between the apple slices, like the ones in the picture to the right.  Of course, with 3-year-olds, trying to get the whole apple smile put together without any part being eaten alone is practically impossible.  I was absolutely amazed at how quickly these little girls could gobble up little marshmallows!  I gave one half a dozen to stick in her peanut butter and turned around to distribute more marshmallows and just a few seconds later the first few marshmallows were no where to be found.  It went well though, except for the one little girl who was apparently afraid of peanut butter, poor thing.  Anyway, while our apple smiles were being devoured, I read Apple Farmer Annie by Monica Wellington.  The girls enjoyed storytime and the parents, as always, got a giggle at my observance of pseudo-holidays.

Thanksgiving storytime

We had our Thanksgiving-themed storytime a week early today - storytime is canceled for next week since my holiday vacation starts promptly at 8pm Monday night (a vacation that will encompass both Thanksgiving and my birthday).  To start off, we read Thank You, Thanksgiving by David Milgrim as a few more people showed up.  Then, we glued together these turkeys for some festive refrigerator art while practicing our shapes and colors (here is where the original idea and pattern came from).  While the glue on our turkeys was drying, we read Thanksgiving at Our House by PK Hallinan and then re-read Thank You, Thanksgiving for those who showed up a bit late.