Spooky Rhymes, October 21 and 22, 2009

Begin by singing Raffi's Shake My Sillies Out.

Book: Who Said Boo by Anne Miranda

Rhyme: Scat the Cat
I'm scat the cat,
I'm sassy and I'm and fat
and I change my colors just like that! (clap)

Each time the kids clap their hands scat changes his colors. Scat is a cat drawn on a transparency, the transparency is then inset on a manilla envelope. The envelope is full of colored paper. As each sheet of paper is removed Scat changes color. We also purchased some special Halloween scrapbooking paper to make Scat a little spookier.

Song: There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Bat

Book: Haunted Party by Iza Trapani

Poem: The Mummy by Shel Silverstein. While we read the poem we wrapped me up in toilet paper to turn me into a mummy. Funny!

Book: Boo Who? by Lola Schaefer.

Song: The Black Bats Flew All Around

Awesome Storytime, October 14th and 15th, 2009

Begin by singing Raffi's Shake My Sillies Out.

Book: A Girl and her Gator by Sean Bryan.

Poem: Boa Constrictor by Shel Silverstein.

Book: The Doghouse by Jan Thomas.

Song: Rocketship Run by Laura Berkner from her CD Rocketship Run. We all blasted off each time the song counted down! We also followed the actions mentioned in the song. So much fun!

Puppet Show: Based on Watch Me Throw the Ball! by Mo Willems

Book: Tickle the Duck by Ethan Long. This is a touch and feel book and we took the book thru the audience to let them take turns actually tickling the duck. This one is always a hit.

Song: The Chicken Dance from Dance Baby Dance. For our final activity we did the chicken. If you've never seen it before here it is (our version was way cooler though):

Monsters, October 7th and 8th, 2009

Begin by singing Shake My Sillies Out by Raffi.

Book: The Monster at the End of this Book by Jon Stone

Puppet Show: Based on Ted Arnold's Five Ugly Monsters. Basically it's just Five Little Monkeys, but with monsters instead. Really fun though!

Book: Monsters Don't Eat Broccoli by Barbara Hicks

Song: If You're a Monster and You Know It. Sung to the tune of if you're happy and you know it.
The verses are:
Groan and growl
Flail your arms
Stomp your feet
Make a face
Do all four

Shadow Puppet Show: There's a Nightmare in My Closet by Mercer Mayer, we made shadow puppets to be used on overhead projector to tell this story.

Book: Leonardo the Terrible Monster by Mo Willems.

Song: Monster's Jubilee from the CD

by Deanna and Patrick

Noisy Stories, September 30th and October 1st, 2009

Begin by singing Shake Your Sillies Out by Raffi.

Book: Yum Yum! What Fun! By Mara Bergman

Poem: Orchestra by Shel Silverstein

We had the children “play” their instruments along with us, “playing” a little bit of everything as we did the last section of the poem.

So you haven’t got a drum, just beat your belly.
So I haven’t got a horn – I’ll play my nose.
So we haven’t any cymbals –
We’ll just slap our hands together,
And though there may be orchestras
That sound a little better
With their fancy shiny instruments
That cost an awful lot –
Hey, We’re making music twice as good
By playing what we’ve got.

Book: The Baby BeeBee Bird by Diane Redfield Massie – we used a noisy bird puppet with this one

Song: If You’re Happy and You Know It
We did clap your hands, as well as stamp your feet, and give a yell…

Book: Do Monkeys Tweet?

Song: Old MacDonald had a Farm (with finger puppets!)

Book: Yip! Snap! Yap! By Charles Fuge

Song: Let’s Make Some Noise from Raffi’s Everything Grows CD.
We handed out instruments and marched around the room to the music. FUN!

by Deanna, Paul and Robyn

Pets, September 23rd and 24th, 2009

Begin by singing Shake Your Sillies Out by Raffi.

Book: I Know a Rhino by Charles Fuge.

Poem: Our Hippopotamus by Colin West from the book Pet Poems by John Foster. We used a toy hippo and two little finger puppets for this – fun!!!

Book: Good Boy Fergus by David Shannon

Song: Bingo We used a dog puppet, and a sign that letters you can flip over.

Puppet Show: Based on An Octopus Followed Me Home by Dan Yaccarino – We used the awesome house that Liesl had and had our puppet animals pop-out of it. So fun!!! Script is attached.

Pet Show: Pet Rocks- we each brought a “pet rock” and showed off the tricks our rocks could do.
Liesl: Mine can do tricks!! Sit!
Deanna: Oh…Mine can’t do that.
Liesl: Mine can stay!
Deanna: Mine can’t do that.
Liesl: Mine can play dead!
Deanna: Mine can’t… but, he can roll over!!!
This was much more fun than we expected!

Book: Peanut by Linas Alsenas

Poem: Hot Dog by Shel Silverstein

Final Song: The Pets I Love from Baby Signing Time Volume 1. We taught the children the sign for each animal and then sang the song. We made pictures of each animal as well.

by Deanna and Liesl

Pirates, September16th and 17th, 2009

Begin by singing Raffi’s Shake My Sillies Out.

Book: Pirate PiggyWiggy by Christyan and Diane Fox.

Song: Galiant Ship from Kindermusik Adventures: Near and Far.

Book: Dinosailors by Deb Lund; illustrated by Howard Fine.

Song: The Crabby Song from the book and CD, Rhinoceros Tap by Sandra
Boynton and Michael Ford. We draped the blue blanket over a cart and made a pirate ship to "float" on top of the “water.” We decorated three puppets to look like pirates and gave two of them mops, and then had all three lip-sync to the song. It was fun.

Activity: Pirate School. We taught the kids how to become real pirates by attending pirate school. They practiced talking like a pirate (Aargh! Shiver me timbers! Ahoy! Land ho! Blow the man down! Walk the plank!), walking like a pirate (complete with a wooden peg leg), eating & drinking like a pirate (Belch!), swimming like a pirate, and finally, making a face like a pirate.

Poem: Captain Hook from the Shel Silverstein book, Where the Sidewalk Ends. We made a puppet of Captain Hook, which we used to act out the poem.

Song: The Pirate Song from the CD, H.U.M. All Year Long.

Book: Bubble Bath Pirates by Jarrett J. Krosoczka.

Activity: In order to become official pirates we had the children walk the plank! While the children did this we played the song, “Yo Ho Yo Ho [A Pirate’s Life for Me],” from the cd, Walt Disney Records Presents: The Official Album. After successfully walking the plank we gave each child a pirate hat and an eye patch. As always, this was a big hit

by Deanna and Patrick

Monkeys, September 9th and 10th, 2009

Begin by singing Raffi’s Shake My Sillies Ou”

Book: Where’s My Mom by Julia Donaldson

Rhyme: 5 Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed

Book: Ten Naughty Little Monkeys by Suzanne Williams

Rhyme: 5 Little Monkeys Swinging in the Tree

Book: Monkey and Me by Emily Gravett

Book: Hug by Jez Alborough

Final Activity: The Monkey Dance from the Wiggles CD, Yummy, Yummy. We danced along with the music.

by Deanna and Patrick