Our first session of fall storytime started up this week and it was great to see all the kids again. I had some regulars and some new faces in my group - about 24 kids this week. We made some changes to our schedule this year. Typically, we offer one 6-8-week session in the fall and one 6-8-week session in the spring. We've decided this year to offer two 4-week sessions in the fall and one 4-week session in the spring (this might change, as we just hired a new children's librarian!). When storytime is in session, we offer the same theme at 4 different class times each week. You can see what we did last year in this recap post.
So, today was the first week of our Fall Session I and we talked about mice today! Here's what we did:
Opening Song: My Hands Say Hello
Memory Box: This week's Memory Box item was a silver bell from Mouse Mess.
Book: The Little Mouse, the Red Ripe Strawberry, and the Big Hungry Bear by Don & Audrey Wood. This is a perennial favorite and my kids loved it. The big pictures make this a great choice for storytime sharing and they always crack up at the picture of the strawberry wearing a disguise.
Book: Mouse Mess by Linnea Riley. The rhythmic, rhyming text makes this one a great choice for storytime.
Song: Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes. My kids were starting to get a little squirmy, so I threw in a song and dance number here.
Felt Story: If You Give a Mouse a Cookie by Laura Numeroff. Miss T in my department made this one. It's a story so familiar to many kids that it lends itself well to a felt story. It's also neat to look back at the end and look at ALL THE THINGS we gave Mouse! (A note: I typically do not memorize felt stories and keep a script nearby!)
Book: Mouse's First Fall by Lauren Thompson. There are lots of Mouse stories by Thompson, perfect for sharing in any season!
Prop Story: Lunch by Denise Fleming. Miss A, who planned this week's storytime, made this awesome prop story. You can see our tiny brown mouse finger puppet in the top left corner, poking out of the turnip. Each food item had a hole in it so I could show the kids how mouse ate right through.
Song: Hickory, Dickory Dock. I used another mouse puppet to "run up the clock". After we had sung the song together, I passed out little laminated paper mice in different colors and sang "Hickory dickory dock, the red mouse went in the clock!" (going through all the colors we had). When I called their color, kids came up and put their mouse in the clock (can you see the panel that opens beneath the clock face?). Miss A made this clock out of a long pizza box (we had a bunch that were donated for a craft project last year).
Closing Song: Do You Know What Time It Is?
Craft: We've done take-home crafts for our storytimes for a couple of years now. We include all the supplies for the craft and instructions on how to put it together. We do not include supplies like glue, crayons, scissors, etc. We also include a related book list and other suggestions for extension or early literacy activities and tips. If we have another handout or flier we want to include (ex. a flier for an upcoming early childhood fair), we include those, too.
This week, we did M is for Mouse and included a die-cut M (paper, not fun foam) and all the supplies for turning their M into a Mouse!
Alternate Books/Ideas:
If you don't have or don't like any of the above books, consider using any of the following:
Mouse Paint by Ellen Walsh (Storytime Katie has a really cute Mouse Paint flannel story!)
Mouse Went Out to Get a Snack by Lyn MacFarland
