Storytime: Frogs

Okay.  Blogger was down for me when I tried to do this post before.  Now it's back up, but I think I've forgotten most of what happened in Storytime.  I'm hoping it comes back as I type.


Hello!
As always, we sang our hello song first.  I always use the same hello song, it's my own version of the Dragon Tales Hello Song found here.

We read:

Where Do Frogs Come From? by Alex Vern

    I really wanted to talk about real frogs - what they are and their lifecycle.  The kids LOVED it!  We talked about tadpoles and froglets and frogs and how they all look different, but are all the same things.  This was a great book to read in storytime because it doesn't go too much into detail, and has places to elaborate if you feel like it.  

999 Tadpoles by Ken Kimura

   This is a great book.  It wasn't until a little girl burst out crying that I realized it's a bit scary.  Oops.  If I'd have realized that, I would have prepared the kids a little better.  I reassured everyone that the frogs would be alright.  The kids really loved the ending, and the parents/caregivers liked the part where the frogs are falling from the sky.  One caregiver even exclaimed, "It's raining frogs!"  

The Wide-Mouthed Frog: a pop-up book by Keith Faulkner

   Our library doesn't have this for check-out because it's a pop-up book, but it's in my storytime collection - so I use it.  The caregivers understand when I tell them it can't be checked out - and since I "perform" this book, I think the caregivers don't want to try.  I give the frog a kind of Kermit the Frog voice and the other animals all have their own voices as well.  There are always gasps and giggles when I read this book, so I love to pull it out.

Song time!

Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes
  I find this provides great movement for the kids.  This time, we did it once, then did it faster and then did super fast.  They love that - especially for super fast we get our bodies ready by shaking all our different parts, like this:
         Let's get our hands ready!
         Let's get our heads ready!
         Let's get our shoulders ready!
         Let's get our knees ready!
         Let's get our toes ready!
         Let's get our ... EVERYTHING ready!  (hilarity ensues for a moment.)

A Little Frog...and a life lesson

  I get a lot of my fingerplays and such from around the web.  One of my favorite places is Storytime Katie.  I got this from her, and it was a hit. We did it several times.

            A little frog in a pond am I
            Hippity hippity hop  (we did little hops here)
            And I can bounce in the air so high
            Hippity hippity hop  (huge big hops here)

I learned something today doing this poem...

  ****When crouching down to the floor and then leaping as high as you possibly can, hold on to the bottom of your dress.***  

I really apologize to my storytime moms, dads and caregivers...at least I was wearing nice red underwear.

More reading!

Poison Dart Frog! by Willow Clark

   Even though we already talked about the life-cycle, I thought that we'd do a non-fiction book about Poison Dart Frogs because they are so fascinating.  Everyone - children and caregivers - really liked learning about these interesting frogs.

Ribbit!  by Rodrigo Folgueira

  This was such a great read.  We all enjoyed saying "Ribbit" together and guessing why the pig is saying "Ribbit."  I would definitely do this again - and encourage the kids to "Ribbit" with me.

Stick by Steve Breen

  What a great story about a little frog who travels. It was a little hard to do for storytime because the pictures are small and my audience was a little too large to be able to see the detail in the middle to back of the crowd.

Kiss Me! (I’m a Prince!) by Heather McLeod

  Far more popular than I thought it would be.  Some of the girls came up after and wanted to talk about frogs becoming Princes.  I read it by opening the cover and showing the art at the very front and reading the "Once upon a time" then skipping all the title pages etc. and getting right to the story.  Then at the end, I show the end pages and read the "and they lived Happily Ever After."  I love when books have art and story on the end papers.

Goodbye!

I don't remember where I found my closing song. 

To the tune of "She'll Be Comin' 'Round the Mountain"
Now it's time to say goodbye to all our friends (goodbye!)
Now it's time to say goodbye to all our friends (goodbye!)
Now it's time to say goodbye
Wave a hand and wink an eye
Now it's time to say goodbye to all our friends (goodbye!)

Handout

I had a hand out to encourage cutting (fine motor skills) and coloring (fine motor skills and writing) as well as imagination.  I used images from around the web.  The first is from Chuck Does Art 

and the other side, I found a pattern to cut and color for the kids...but I don't know the source (I have lost it because I'm kind of disorganized). So, I'm not going to include it now.


I forgot to include the magnet board I made!

We sang Five Green and Speckled Frogs, and I used this magnet board: