October 29, 2013 Tuesday Morning Storytime

Since I do two storytimes with a limited number of planning hours, I pretty much do the same storytime for both sessions.  With Black Squirrel Night last Thursday evening and Halloween this Thursday evening, we have no storytimes on those evenings, but still have the Tuesday morning storytimes.  Because I don't want to get one storytime too far ahead of the other, today and next Tuesday will be different themes, away from the alphabet activities we've been doing. 

Since Halloween is this Thursday, we did a small Halloween storytime including some Fall and Autumn theme.  I brought some small pie size pumpkins in and the kids decorated them with a variety of craft items, i.e., foam letter stickers to make name, feathers, pom poms, markers, glitter pens, etc.  It does get a little messy, but it's fun. 
This photo isn't from what we did, but just an example of being very similar to what my kids did :)

Today we read about Mouse's First Halloween, which is just darling books for little kiddos, about some things that might make us scared, but they turn out to be just normal, friendly, everyday items. The kids especially enjoyed joining in together saying, "Eeeek!"


The fingerplay we did today is an oldie but goodie. 

Five Little Pumpkins

Five little pumpkins sitting on a gate.
The first one said, "Oh my, it's getting late!"
The second one said, "There are witches in the air."
The third one said, "I don't care."
The fourth one said, "Let's run, let's run!"
The fifth one said, "It's only Halloween fun."
Then Woooooo went the wind And OUT went the lights.
And five little pumpkins rolled out of sight

Since I had the pumpkins for the craft available, I had 5 volunteers (plus really whoever else wanted to hold one) get a pumpkin and hold it on their lap.  When it said "the first one said," we would point to the first child, and so on.  When the pumpkins "rolled out of sight" we put them behind our backs to hide them.  It was a fun different way to do the actions.

The second book I read was All About Autumn.  It is a nice book, but not generally that engaging for little kids.  However, it is a nonfiction book and includes "real" photos in it instead of illustrations.  I think it is important to share nonfiction books with kids as well.