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.

National Pastry Day storytime

In case you were unaware, December 9th is National Pastry Day and if you've been keeping up with my blog and paying any attention at all, you should know by now that I love to bake.  And a lot of picture books with baking in the story happen to have various recipes in the back.  Sooooo, I picked one rather cute book and baked the featured recipe the day before storytime to surprise my storytime group.  The first book I read was the one that features the recipe I used: Sun Bread by Elisa Kleven.  When I surprised the kids (and parents) with the homemade sun bread, they were really excited.  (Luckily, I had a leftover pizza box laying around which came in quite handy to both transport the bread and conceal it prior to the surprise.)  While we munched on the bread, we read a classic, The Little Red Hen by Byron Barton and This Little Bunny Can Bake by Janet Stein.  I was a little bummed that most of my regular storytime kids didn't come to see my surprise, but whacha gonna do?

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.

Veterans' Day/America Recycles Day storytime

On Wednesdays at 11am, I present Pre-School Storytime at the Newberry Branch Library.  Following my mom's suggestion (my mom is a school library media specialist), I choose holidays to determine the theme for each week's storytime.  Sometimes this is a legitimate holiday such as Veterans' Day or Halloween but more often than not, these are pseudo-holidays such as America Recycles Day (Monday, November 15th, for the record) or, say, Dinosaur Month (October, in case you were interested).  I originally wanted to do just Veterans' Day for this week's storytime, but there are not many good pre-school storytime-worthy picture books relating to said holiday.  So, I combined these two holidays into one storytime.  First, I read Michael Recycle by Ellie Bethel.  Then, in honor of Veterans' Day, we decorated bookmarks with crayons, colored pencils, and stickers to send to the troops overseas. 

Luckily, the Tower Road Branch Library (where I worked for five and a half years as a library page) participates in the Books for Soldiers program which sends books, magazines, and other requested materials to troops overseas.  Thus, I will be taking the bookmarks we made to the Tower Road library to be sent off in the next care package.

After making our bookmarks, we read The Garbage Monster by Joni Sensel.  And after a "Read another one!" request, I also read Drummer Hoff by Barbara Emberley.  

Next week's storytime: Thanksgiving, of course!