Finger play - Five Little Pumpkins

By Raffi

Five little pumpkins sitting on a gate [Show five fingers]

The first one said [Show one finger]
"Oh my its getting late!" [Hands to cheeks showing dismay]

The second one said [show two fingers]
"There are witches in the air!" [Look up with dismay]

The third one said [Show three fingers]
"But we don't care" [act brave, cross arms or wag finger]

The fourth one said [Show four fingers]
"Let's run and run and run!" [Pantomime running with fists]

The fifth one said [Show five fingers]
"I'm ready for some fun!"

"Oooooooooo" went the wind [make it spooky]
and OUT went the light [clap, snap or make a quick fist]

and the five little pumpkins rolled out of sight! [Roll fists in front of you]

Action Song - Grey Squirrel

I learned this song in 4-H as a child

Grey Squirrel

Grey Squirrel

Shake you bushy tail!

Grey Squirrel 

Grey Squirrel

Shake your bushy tail!

Wrinkle up your little nose,

stick it down between your toes.

Grey Squirrel 

Grey Squirrel 

Shake your bushy tail!

Have children shake their booties and act out the nose bit while singing it standing up.

Song - Willoughby Wallaby Woo

By Raffi

Willougby Wallaby Woo
An Elephant sat on you!
Willoughby Wallaby Wee
And Elephant sat on me!

Repeat from here with all the children's names. If you come to an odd number, throw in any silly verse like

Willoughby Wallaby Wibrary
An Elephant sat on the Library

or

Willoughby Wallaby Wallofus
And elephant sat on All of us!

Song - Five Little Monkeys Sitting in a Tree

I learned this song at a Childcare Seminar. 

5 Little Monkeys sitting in a tree [Show five fingers]

Teasin' Mr. Alligator 

"You can't catch me! You can't catch me!" [Put hands up by ears and act out teasing motion]

Along comes Mr. Alligator - quiet as can be... [Make a swimming motion with two clasped hands]

AND SNAPS that monkey right outta that tree! [Clap hands from top to bottom like an alligator's mouth]

Repeat until there are no monkeys left.

Doom!

So, I started a rad blog. 

Then I started an online training course, and thought I was busy. Too busy to blog in fact. 

But I did save all my storytime plans from the session so I could blog them for you later. 

I saved them all! 

On a flashdrive. 

And yesterday I deleted them all by accident.

I’m kind of ticked about this.

Here are some photos I took of the storytime stuff so I could blog about them.

Well, tomorrow is another day. I will try again once storytime break is over!

Apples!

Hello all. School is back in session, Summer Reading is done, and storytime Session 5 has begun. YAY! 

This week's storytime was about APPLES!

Here is the rundown:

For all of Session 5 I will be using the same opener:

Make one eye go wink, wink, wink,

Make two eyes go blink, blink, blink.
Make two fingers stand just so,
Then ten fingers all in a row!
Back and forth your head will rock
And your knees can knock, knock, knock.
Now stretch and make a yawn so wide,
and drop your hands down to your sides.
Close your eyes and help me say,
Our very quiet word today:
SHHHHHHHHHH!

Source: The Big Book of Stories, songs and Sing-Alongs by Maddigan, Drennan and Thompson

(But I got it from ItsyBitsyMom)

Next we sang Old Macdonald, doing 3 animals. I had 3 animals picked ahead of time in my script, but a very enthusiastic singer filled in her own ideas and that was great. I hope to do 3 different animals next week.

I briefly showed the signs for "Apple" and "Red" and put a felt apple up on the flannel board. I asked the kids what it was and to tell me about apples. Are all apples red? No? What other colors can there be? What does an apple look like inside. 

After this chat we read Ten Apples Up On Top by Dr. Seuss. 

Next we sang "Way up High in the Apple Tree"

Way up high in the apple tree

Two little apples smiled at me

I shook that tree as hard as I could

Down came the apples

Mmm mmm good!

From: Childhood

And then: The Wheels on the Bus

From: Childhood

Then we read The Apple Pie That Papa Baked by Lauren Thompson

Next a flannel board:

5 red apples hanging in a tree,

The juiciest apples you ever did see,

The wind came by and gave an angry frown

And one little apple came tumbling down.

4 red apples hanging in a tree.... (repeat until all apples are gone!)

Sorry, my pics are kinda blurry.

From Esther Storytimes 

Since we had a nice small group today, I let each child come up and take an apple down from the tree. I had to change the start to 6 red apples. This was a big hit. 

So we sang Hurry Hurry Drive the Firetruck

Hurry hurry! Drive the Firetruck!

Hurry hurry! Drive the firetruck!

Hurry hurry! Drive the Firetruck!

Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding!

Hurry hurry! Climb the Ladder!

Hurry hurry! Climb the Ladder!

Hurry hurry! Climb the Ladder!

Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding!

Hurry hurry! Spray the water!

Hurry hurry! Spray the water!

Hurry hurry! Spray the water!

Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding!

Is the fire out?

Source: my childhood.

I always do the song like this: I start very slowly, or as slow as I can tolerate and sing it without any urgency. When we get to the question at the end, I respond as if the kids said "No!" After doing this song together a couple of times, they will too. So we sing it through a second time, a bit faster. At the end, I again ask if the fire is out and respond to "No" OH NO!!!  And we sing it the third time at super silly speed, with exaggerated motions too. After we go as fast as we can, usually the third time, I end it with "YAY! We DID it!" instead of asking if the fire is out. 

Then we did another flannel.

Flannelboard: “Five Little Apples”

Five little apples hung in a tree
The farmer wasn’t looking.
So guess who came to eat?
A _______ ! Munch, munch, munch!
Now the tree is bare
There are no more apples there
But when next fall comes around
Guess who’ll be there!
The _________

Credit: Storytime Secrets 

I had planned two other songs, which both got skipped. My bunch was smaller but very antsy this morning. Anyway, if they had been up for it I would have sung "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" and "I'm a Little Apple Tree"

I'm a little apple tree

All my apples grow on me

I mustn't sneeze, I mustn't cough,

or all my apples will fall off!

Ah AH AHCHOOOOOO!

Get your apples!!!

From: Childhood

But we moved straight into movement and craft.

We danced along to Shake My Sillies Out by the Wiggles.

Then it was off to the craft area. Today the kids colored apples with dabbers with the option of also coloring an apple tree with crayons, dabbers or both. The kids REALLY liked the dabbers. I mean a lot. Crayons were out of the questions for most. So simple!

Then it was playtime!

My kids were really antsy today, so a few things got skipped. Everyone really liked the theme and they loved Ten Apples Up On Top. 

So for this session, I'm going to keep a lot of the same songs each week, and change up the theme, the books we read, and the flannel stories. 

Dogs

This week I used another theme chosen by Ms. Martha: Dogs! Super easy and super fun.

I started us off with Hello Friends with signing again today. I did a brief demonstration of the signs for hello and friends and then we sang the song twice.

Hello friends

Hello friends

Hello friends

Its time to say hello

From Jbrary

I showed the kids the sign for Dog next.

After that I sang My Dog Rags and showed them the motions. The grown-ups kind of got into “Rags” while the kids were a bit stumped. Maybe it was my fab dance moves?

I have a dog.
His name is Rags.
He eats so much that his tummy sags,
His ears flip flop
and his tail wig wags.
And when he walks, he goes zig zag.

He goes flip flop, wig wag, zig zag.
He goes flip flop, wig wag, zig zag.
He goes flip flop, wig wag, zig zag.
I love Rags and he loves me.

From Jbrary

Also see this fab version by Sharon, Lois and Bram. Remember the Elephant Show?

Next I did this fingerplay, which I hadn’t memorized, quite. So I looked at the paper a lot and the second time through got the words all mixed up. Oh Katy…

Fingerplay: “Ten Little Doggies”
Ten little doggies went out one day, (hold up ten fingers)
To dig in the dirt and play, play, play. (dig, slap knees on each ‘play’)
Five were spotted, and five were not, (hold up one hand, then the other)
And at dinnertime they ate a lot! (pretend to eat)

From StorytimeKatie

Next we read Doggone Dogs by Karen Beaumont

This book is silly, fun and rhymey and I must confess, in one of the earlier parts I almost said G#@d@&# Dogs instead of Doggone!! I wonder if the parents noticed?!

Next we sang B-I-N-G-O, which was quite lively! The kids all knew the song.

Next I did a flannel board based on this fingerplay I found on Storytime Katie

Flannelboard “Five Little Puppies”
Five little puppies were playing in the sun.
This one saw a rabbit, and he began to run.
This one saw a butterfly, and he began to race.
This one saw a pussycat, and he began to chase.
This one tried to catch his tail, and he went round & round.

This one was so quiet, he never made a sound.

Here I got myself flustered yet again and got the words a bit wrong. I don’t think the kids noticed.

Next I sang If "You’re a Doggy and You Know it" with the kids. Of course being completely mixed up at this point I told them all it was just like “The Wheels on the Bus”  when in reality it is “If You’re Happy and You Know it”. I don’t know why preschoolers and flannel boards get me so flummoxed. Babies and slideshows were easy. I was always joking about my out of tune singing, but I didn’t wreck the words of everything so completely!

I got this song from Ms. Martha’s Resource File

If You’re a Doggie and You Know It

If you’re a doggie and you know it,

Say, “Woof, woof”.

If you’re a doggie and you know it,

Say, “Woof, woof”.

If you’re a doggie and you know it,

And you really want to show it,

If you’re a doggie and you know it,

Say, “Woof, woof”.

Repeat with Wag your tail, scratch your ears.

Next I did a flannel story: Dog’s Colorful Day by Emma Dodd. We had this gorgeous flannel set of Dog and his spots and some numerals. I was really excited to get to use it!

Only after storytime did I find the Orange and Purple spots in the envelope. So I could have skipped the numerals (we only have 1 through 8) and done all the colors instead.

The kids loved Dog as much as I did.

After this I had planned to sing “This Old Man”. I got really nervous because I hadn’t practiced, and I haven’t sung this one since I was a kid, I don’t think. So I kept things moving right along and read Bark, George by Jules Feiffer.

The kids recognized the book from school and were very excited to talk with me all about how George had “eaten” all those farm animals. They loved shouting out the farm animal noises. The grownups were laughing a lot during this story too.

The crowd was a bit rowdy at this point so we skipped movement and headed straight into craft.

Martha had provided the plans for this Dog puppet in her resource file. It can either be Dog (a la his colorful day) with colored spots, or just a Dalmatian or mutt if you only use neutrals. We did colorful Dog today.

The kids really enjoyed this craft and some of the older boys stayed behind at the craft area to color in the whole puppet while the little ones had playtime.

How it went:

Well, if I hadn't been a complete nervous wreck, it would have been just fine. Perhaps I need to just rehearse the whole storytime. I did baby storytime at my last post, and that amounted to me singing almost the entire program. Something about the variety of things AND the kids ability to respond, really throws me off. Since it is summer we have all ages from infant to elementary school. Those elementary school kids intimidate me! Knowing all the songs before I sing them!! BUT then it’s more fun, like during BINGO today.