Last Minute Spider Craft

My theme for Halloween was Spiders, I read : Very Busy Spider by Eric Carle, There was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly by Nadine Westcott, and Little Miss Spider at Sunny Patch School by David Kirk.

For some reason, I was behind in preparing my crafts for Halloween. I had to pull together a craft quick. Here is my:

Crazy Spider

We used a big black oval for the body, huge googlie eyes, an orange piece of construction paper and glitter glue. I cut out the wiggle spider legs from the left over pieces when I cut out the ovals. Since it was Halloween, I pulled out the glitter glue to make this craft a special treat.

The kids enjoyed the craft. They always love glitter glue. I saw lots of colorful sparkle spider dance out of the room as the kids left. The craft turned out great considering it was last minute.

Owl Story Time

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

My foray into kids crafts continues on:

For the Owls themed story time, we read  I’m Not Cute by Jonathan Allen, Whooo’s There? by Mary Serfozo, and Little Hoot by Amy Krouse Rosenthal.

During craft time, we made paperbag owls using DLTK templates http://www.dltk-kids.com/animals/mbagowl.htm to make the individual pieces. This craft took a lot of prep time cutting out all the pieces but made the cutest paperbag puppet. It was an easy craft for both the toddlers and preschools. It took a negligible amount of help from parents. This craft is also a great teaching tool. It can help to familarize kids with the use of several shapes. All in all, this a great craft for story time.

Hispanic Heritage Month Craft

For Hispanic Heritage Month, we read Let’s eat! By Pat Mora, Counting Ovejas by Sarah Weeks, Uno, Dos, Tres = One, Two, Three by Pat Mora,  Adios, Tricycle by Susan Middleton Eyla, Marimba! Animales from A to Z by Pat Mora. I love Pat Mora. She is a great hispanic author who writes great books for non-spanish speakers to use in story time. I also did a traditional hispanic tale Cockroach Martina as a flannel story.

For craft time, we made a paper plate maraca. This required one paper plate folded in half, dry rice, a stapler, markers, and streamers. First, the kids colored the bottom of the plate with the markers. Then, the parents stapled streamers to the edge of the plate. Finally, the parents stapled the plates edges to each other leaving an opening at the top for me to pour rice in and then staple shut completely.  Finally, we all used our paper plate maraca to dance as we listened to "La Raspa" by Jose-Luis Orozco on his Diez Deditos/ Ten Little Fingers album. Lots of fun!!!!

Best of Denise Fleming

For my Best of Denise Fleming story time, I read Barnyard Banter, Lunch, Count, and The Cow that Lost Her Moo. The books covered subjects like numbers, colors, and animal sounds. The kids were very interactive counting, making animal noises and naming colors.

I found the Lunch Mouse on Denise Fleming website: Denise Fleming's Lunch Mouse Activity

She allows use of this image for personal use or nonprofit groups: i.e. libraries. As I read Lunch, I put up pictures of the foods that the mouse ate during the story.

After the story, I handed out the "Lunch Mouse" with the flap (as seen in the link above). I asked the children to color the colors of the food the mouse had eaten in the story on the mouse's tummy. I left the pictures of all the food on the felt board so they could remember the colors to use. All the kids were very excited to show me their colored mouse at the end of story time.

(Note: The food images above were taken from Microsoft Office images. Some of the colors have been altered to better fit the story.)

Best of Audrey Wood Story Time

Audrey Wood is one of my favorite children's authors. She writes great books for toddler and preschool story times. I chose the following titles to read: Ten Little Fish, Oh my Baby Bear, Quick as a Cricket, The Deep Blue Sea, and Piggies all by Mrs. Wood.

For craft I decided that we would make piggies to go along the Piggies.

The preschoolers were allowed to cut out their own piggies with their parents help. This was a great opportunity to practice their scissor skills. Each child made ten rings by taping the small black strip of paper to fit their fingers. Then they taped a piggy to each black ring.

We ended up with the perfect piggy finger puppets. We finished story time by reading the book and using our puppets with the story.

This craft did take some time to prepare for the toddlers because of all the cutting prior to story time. However, I was surprised at how quickly the preschoolers assembled them. They did really well cutting with scissors. Ultimately, this craft was not messy and fun to use with a great book.

Note: Pig image is an altered image from Microsoft clipart.  You can use any non-copyrighted image of a pig to make these finger puppets. Some of the books mentioned above were coauthored by Don Wood.

Fall Favorites Story Time - Aug 2009

My first story time this fall included a few of my favorite fall books: If You Take a Mouse to School by Laura Numeroff, Mouse’s First Fall by Lauren Thompson, Spot Goes to School by Eric Hill, and Fall Leaves Fall by Zoe Hall. For craft time we made fall wreaths. I tried using a christmas wreath die cut and an oak leaf die cut.

I cut the bow out of the center of the wreath and saved it to be attached to the bottom of the wreath as the kids made the craft. When I made my example, I realized that the wreath was to small for the look I was wanted. So, I reverted to the tried and true paper plate with the center cut out. I stapled my leaves to the paper plate ring and stapled the bow cut from the wreath at the bottom.

This ended up being a parent/child joint craft with the parents stapling the leave as the child told them where to place them. We could have used glue for the craft but stapling made it less messy. The kids were very proud of their creations and everyone had a beautiful fall wreath to take home.

End of the Fall Story Times Season

Well, I have finished story time for the fall. Now I get to start my blog in earnest. I will be posting my crafts for this past semester and how each of them went. Currently, I am working with toddlers and preschoolers. We had lots of fun this fall.