Fall Storytime Session Begins == ABC

This fall I decided to do an all year theme.  I am doing the ABCs at least until Christmas Break and then see where I am, and in the new year I will do colors, shapes, and numbers.   I was an early childhood/early elementary teacher in my previous life.  Can you tell I miss it?

This is the bulletin board I made for the meeting room that we use for storytime. I like to decorate, but for the entire year usage, it is hard because the room is used by so many different groups.  Included in this, is this year our library will be beginning to do a renovation of the main area of the library, so our room will become office space DURING the renovation.  I don't get to do TOO much decoration. 

I have seen variations of this bottle done different ways. I called it an ABC Discovery Bottle.  The staff all saved their clear water and soda bottles for me.  We washed them out and made sure the inside was dry before we used them.

The night of our first storytime, this was our craft activity.  I had the alphabet sorted out for all of the kids so that they all for sure got beads in the entire full alphabet.  Some of the kids did go ahead and put extra alphabet beads in also, but it was important to ME that each kid did actually get at least one of every letter of the alphabet.  (Call that my anal side.)   The kids then were able to put in their choice of different colored beads and sequins, and some had some colored rice mixed in with the plain white rice.  After filling with plain white rice (leaving a space at the very top for room when shaking), I then hot glued the lid to all of the bottles for each kid.  There was a lot of shaking going on at this point. :)

*A note about the clean bottles pre-filling....I waited until the last moment to take all the labels off of the bottles.  This was a no-no.  The particular brand of sparkling water for the majority of the bottles had a label that left a really sticky residue on the side.  I really didn't have time or resources to use a goo remover on all of the bottles, so I took a white label and put it over the sticky party.  This worked pretty well because then we wrote each kid's name ON the label!   It made it look like I meant to do it! :)

 I saw this idea on Pinterest (what DON'T I see on Pinterest?)  I like to sew and quilt in my home life, so this was a natural attention grabber idea for me!   I drew these letters by hand but you could very easily use a purchased stencil and draw around it on fabric; just be sure to leave enough room on the outside for stitching and cutting with a pinking shears.  I cut through double layers of fabric and put batting in between before I cut so it was like little mini-letter quilts :)    The kids are enjoying playing with them, and I just used scraps of material from home.

I personally do not have a good knowledge of sign language, but I think it is important to at least be familiar with it.  Initially, I wanted to include teaching the kids sign language alphabet each week, but time became a factor, so I now just hang up the cards that I printed off of the website below onto white cardstock.  Honestly, I don't know that anyone is really paying attention to them this year, but I keep putting them up.  I would like to focus on the sign language a little in the future, hopefully.

 http://www.abcteach.com/directory/subjects-sign-language-bulletin-board-cards-689-2-1

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These are the cards I printed off of the Sharing Kindergarten website onto cardstock also.  I hang them up on the book table each week (one week I forgot and one of the little girls caught me!).

 http://www.sharingkindergarten.com/2012/11/dr-jeans-letter-limericks-and-poems.html

I printed off all of the alphabet coloring pages, and I set copies out each week of the letters we are talking about, and kids and their families can pick them up on their way out. Kids love to be able to take something home with them. This fits the bill perfectly.
http://www.mrprintables.com/alphabet-coloring-pages.html