owls and elephants

This week's storytime was all about owls (and elephants too). I've been wanting to do an owl storytime for awhile, and so I was particularly excited about this one.

My first storytime was a little more than full and a teensy bit bananas. My second storytime was reserved, younger, and had kind of an antsy but quiet energy.

Before we get started, I have to mention a possible solution to my hello song where all the puppets go back to sleep (they get stuffed back into the bag around my neck). Because this was an owl storytime I invited other bird puppets to help sing the hello song and gave them perches (various bottles I found). They were also kind of hidden behind a row of books on the counter so it was still a surprise each time a new puppet was introduced. I'm going to use this same method next week and see how it works.

I also borrowed my first puppet from my library system's storytime collection. We can now check out storytime things like puppets and big books, which I'll be using next week, and whatever storytime thing I need arrives with our courier. If someone had told me I'd be getting puppets in the mail when I was an adult I would have wanted to stop being a kid at that very moment.

So the puppet I borrowed is the snowy owl puppet, and its head actually turns, which was exciting for most kids, and a little scary for some.



I also want to apologize for not sharing any early literacy skills. Yikes! I've been taking a much more organic approach to early literacy skills this season and have been making a great effort to show rather than tell if that makes any sense at all. The skills that I'm demonstrating are still a part of my slide show though. We have the lovely 6 by 6 program here at my library for those of you who are new to blog. We focus on 6 early literacy skills, and they're each represented by an animal. I typically demonstrate one to three skills during each storytime.

Toucan: Talk, Talk, Talk
Goat: Take Time to Rhyme
Monkey: Have Fun with Books
Turtle: Tell Stories About Everything
Peacock: Look for Letters Everywhere
Kangaroo: Notice Print All Around You

Books we read:

A Book of Sleep by Il Sung Na



This book has one of my favorite covers ever. Anytime I look at it I have a little giggle. The book is quite excellent too. The text is simple and the illustrations are packed will all kinds of great things to talk with kids about. We talked about the patterns on each animal, numbers of some of the animals, how many of us could close just one eye or make a fish face etc. I like how this book is so versatile. My second group was younger and quieter so the grown-ups and I counted more than anything else. In the first storytime, we talked about pretty much everything and even counted the one-eyed birds. I believe there are twenty-three of them, and three kids were still counting with me by the end of counting all of them. 

Night Owl by Toni Yuly

We read this book in just the second storytime, and it was the winner of the day. The kids absolutely loved it and were memorized by it. I was able to incorporate our ASL sign of the day, which was "want," when I talked about how the night owl wanted his mommy. The kids crawled out of their shells just long enough to help me make all the lovely sounds AND they seemed fascinated by how the endpapers begin with an orangey-yellow color (daylight) and end in purpley-blue (nighttime). This book skyrocketed to the top of my list after this week's storytime.

Look Whooo's Counting by Suse MacDonald

Sadly, this book wasn't a winner. The animals are tough to guess and I read it at the end of storytime when all attentions spans were completely exhausted. I'll definitely try it again though in the future.

Magnetic Board Activities:

Last week a kid asked where the elephants were, so I brought out my five silly elephants for a successful and fun rhyme for the first storytime (and the kid was delighted). Everyone even helped me shout whoopee each time a new elephant hung on a string.

Five Hoot Owls Sitting in a Tree:

Five Hoot Owls


Five hoot owls sitting a tree
One flew away, how many do you see?

Four, three, two, one. 

I believe I got this from Sunflower Storytime. This was a lot of fun, but I'm going to make new owls next time I do this. Because each owl was multiple colors I couldn't really ask what color they were. And because I didn't use my scrap collage paper with patterns on it, we couldn't talk about shapes. Two missed opportunities.



Beanbag Activities:

We did the same beanbag activities as last week. Time-intensive but lots of fun. I even got to hear a kid say, "yellow," so I'm thrilled.

Cute Moment of the Day:

The shyest girl in the second storytime, who was horrified by all the puppets, and only quietly took everything in with no participation, toddled right up to me and held out her hand for a stamp. I nearly fell over with shock. I went from 'scary puppet lady' to 'possibly an ok person because, well, stamps.'