Green

This is the second week of our color-themed storytimes.  There was some schedule shifting this week, so I’m subbing at a different day/time.  Since it’s only the second week, there’s not really a crowd of “regulars” yet, but I’m treating it a little bit like a first week again, going for simple stories that I know really well.

Opening Song: “I Am Here & You Are Here” by Peter & Ellen Allard (on Sing It! Say It! Stamp It! Sway It! Vol. 3)

Story: Green by Laura Vaccaro Seeger.  Her books are so pretty, and this one does a great job of introducing many different shades of green.  I skipped the last few pages.  The kids were really interested in the cutouts on each page and what they could see through them.

Story: Little Pea by Amy Krouse Rosenthal.  Poor Little Pea just hates candy, but he needs to eat it to grow big and strong.  Can he choke down five icky bites to get to his dessert?  This one has nice opportunities for audience interaction in naming the different colored candies and counting the five pieces of candy Little Pea must eat (complete with wretched faces and choking sounds.)  It entertained the adults at least as much as the kids.  I find that keeping the adults entertained goes a long way towards keeping order in the room.

Book/Song: The Croaky Pokey by Ethan Long.  That’s what it’s all about!  I know I’ve blogged about this one before, but I always use a party blower and blow it at the end of each page to represent the frog’s tongue trying to catch the fly.  It adds a little bit of extra interest (especially if it’s the kind that makes a noise when you blow it.)

Story:Don’t Squish the Sasquatch! by Kent Redeker.  This is another one that stretches well across ages – repetitive enough for the little guys and silly enough for the big ones.  Plus, the kids love to holler, “Don’t squish the sasquatch!” as each silly creature gets onto the bus.  As with Little Pea, the adults got a kick out of this one.

Song: “The Green Grass Grew All Around” with flannel board.  It’s not super active, but this cumulative, call-and-response song is so easy for the kids to join in.  This worked well.  The response part of the call-and-response was perhaps a bit quieter than it could have been, but I’m thrilled to get the adults singing at all.  It definitely got louder towards the end as the kids picked up the idea and joined in.  I even had one family ask for it on CD after storytime and was able to find a Pete Seeger version, although I have no idea how different it was from the version I sang.  I made the flannel last week and it took less than 30 minutes to put together a reasonable combination of die-cut and free cut pieces.  The feather is an actual feather with a piece of Velcro stuck to the back.  You can just barely make out the flea, which is a little circle of black felt with two googly eyes.  It didn’t show up super well on our black flannel board, but it was sort of funny to see just the eyes peeping out.  The prettiest flea that you ever did see!   (As a backup in case of squirrelly kids, I considered “We are the Dinosaurs” from the Laurie Berkner album  Whaddaya Think of That?.)

Closing song: “Wave High, Wave Low”

Craft: For a totally different kind of “green” craft, I went with a recycling theme and made magazine picture collages (sorry about the glare in the picture).  On two of the tables I put out old magazines and catalogs, scissors, glue, and green paper.  When I’m doing cutting I try to have a toddler friendly alternative, so on the third table, I substituted some precut pictures for the magazines and scissors.  This seemed about right; roughly one third of the families chose the no-scissors table.  The independent cutters largely needed some help; I heard one mom comment to another that, while her son had cut with scissors, he hadn’t really tried to cut irregular shapes.  So maybe this will inspire some scissor-work at home.

 

Other Contenders:  Ooh, there were so many this week!  Stanley Mows the Lawn, by Craig Frazier; Manana, Iguana, by Ann Whitford Paul; Go Away, Big Green Monster, by Ed Emberley; Snip Snap! What’s That? by Mara Bergman; and Old Manhattan Has Some Farms by Susan Lendroth

The Green Grass Grew All Around

In the wood,
There was a tree.
The prettiest tree
That you ever did see.

Oh, the tree’s in the wood…
And the green grass grew all around, all around,
And the green grass grew all around.

 

And in that tree, there was a branch…
And on that branch, there was a nest…
And in that nest, there was an egg…
And in that egg, there was a bird…
And on that bird, there was a wing…
And on that wing, there was a feather…
And on that feather, there was a flea…

 

Ends with:
Oh, the flea’s on the feather
And the feather’s on the wing
And the wing’s on the bird
And the bird’s in the egg
And the egg’s in the nest
And the nest is on the branch
And the branch is on the tree
And the tree’s in the wood…
And the green grass grew all around, all around,
And the green grass grew all around.