Five (Six) Little Apples

B & T box covered with construction paper.

Not one but two of my fellow Flannel Fridayers recently posted about this little ditty and how they use it-- Anne at So Tomorrow and Katie at Storytime Secrets--I guess this is an inspiring rhyme, because I've been using it regularly for a while too!

Both Katie and I found the rhyme on this site, and this is the text as written there:

Five Little Apples

Five little apples hung on a tree
The farmer didn't care
So guess who came to eat
A caterpillar... munch, munch
Four little apples hung on a tree
The farmer didn't care
So guess who came to eat
A bird... munch, munch
Three little apples hung on a tree
The farmer didn't care
So guess who came to eat
A pig... munch, munch
Two little apples hung on a tree
The farmer didn't care
So guess who came to eat
A horse... munch, munch
One little apple hung on a tree
The farmer didn't care
So guess who came to eat
A scarecrow... munch, munch
Now the tree is bare
There are no more apples there
But when next fall comes around
Guess who'll be there
The caterpillar
The bird
The pig
The horse
And the scarecrow
Yum, yum.

I thought this was a great opportunity to use some of the many puppets I inherited in this job. So I took a old B&T box with the flaps cut off (book boxes are great because of the flat bottoms). I covered the bottom with construction-paper and then reinforced with book tape.

Next, I used velcro dots, and placed them on the tree. I made six, because I want to free children from the tyranny of the number five...or because I just felt like it.

I spent a dollar on a package of six large pom-poms (oh, that's where the six came from) and attached the grippy side of the velcro dots to the pom-poms.

Crow, bee, bunny, raccoon, mouse, bear

When I use it in storytime I grab whatever six puppets I feel like using that day--sometimes I'll choose a silly one like the dragon or octopus if I can tie it into my theme, but these are the ones I have that make the most 'sense' (except maybe the bunny--I don't really think they eat apples, but I can imagine one taking a nibble).

When I use it in storytime, I put the box up on my lap or table and all the puppets are inside the back of the box mostly out of sight.  We say the rhyme with actions. When we get to "Guess who came to eat?" I pause, and then peek part of the puppet out or make a noise/action so the kids can actually guess. The puppet takes an apple, I make a munching noise/motion, and then say, "Bye rabbit!" and make the rabbit wave--the kids all wave/respond and then we go on.

I don't use the second part of the rhyme because I never memorized it, but I bring the animals back and we talk about them--which ones fly, which has long ears, etc. I should memorize it though! Next time.

Crow Puppet

The crow puppet steals the show. There's a squeaker in the beak that really does sound like a crow!--he's always the last one to come out and he flies and swoops cawing madly. I don't know where this puppet came from, but he's great!

posted from Bloggeroid

Time To Sleep Flannel Friday

Today's Flannel Friday is a story I did a fall or two ago. I don't often make picture books into flannel because I just don't really enjoy sharing most books that way.  I tend to find it awkward--do I read the book while attempting to move the pieces? Do I memorize or tell a simplified version of the story? As someone with an art background, I also feel weird about it, as though I'm undermining or undervaluing the illustrator. 

So I tend to use flannel stories that add to the book or extend the book. I like to share the book as written then share the flannel activity. But with this one, it's just the book over again.

Long story short, I made this and only used it once. Maybe looking at it now I'll come up with a new way to use it--or one of my lovely readers will have a great idea! Maybe just having the kids retell the story from memory to work on narrative skills while I put up the pieces?

The book is the delightful Time to Sleep by Denise Fleming.

And see how great her illustrations are?

The whole cast

"Bear sniffed once.
She sniffed twice.
'I smell winter in the air. . . .'"

Furry friends close-up

Friends with shells close up

Any ideas from library land? I'm all ears!

posted from Bloggeroid

State of the Union

New things are always sneaking up behind you

I feel like I've been going non-stop since about mid-March this year.  Really, we've been behind since last fall because my library went through a--dun dun dunnnnnnnnhhh--reorganization.  And, while entirely necessary for the running of the library, it was painful and hard and all around terrible in a lot of ways.  It came at a bad time (is there ever a good time?) at the beginning of the school year, and it threw my whole year three-months behind schedule--which was fine until we got to the rubber-hits-the road parts of SLP planning.

Mid-March is when things really started getting crazy for me--and that's about when I started this blog, joined Twitter, and decided to participate in Flannel Friday.  Perhaps not the best timing, but next year will be better!

My summer program ended on August 4th and I immediately went into a two week vacation (completely funded by comp. time that I accrued since March) and crashed HARD.  I ended up having to come in to work during my vacation to do interviews because the week before I left we had a retirement and a resignation.  This week I came back Tuesday and jumped right into spending 4 hours of each day training our new afternoon Library Clerk.  Next week I'll start fresh with the new evening clerk and there goes all my glorious planning and catch-up time! I'm sure that's a familiar story to many people. 

At this point I haven't even set a date for fall storytimes to resume, but my plan is to start writing a series of detailed posts about how storytime works at my library and how I do my planning.

Until next time!

Flannel Friday Round Up

Hello duckies! I'm excited to host all of this week's lovely storytime creations. This is later than I planned, but I spent the afternoon with my favorite six year old (who was so excited to see me that she cried), so I'm sure you understand.

If by some chance you're reading this and don't know what Flannel Friday is, Anne has a full explanation/summary of what it is and a list of all the past round-ups on her blog, So Tomorrow.

I'm extra excited about the newest facet of Flannel Friday--Pinterest! Pinterest is a visual social bookmarking site--think bulletin boards where you 'pin' pictures that inspire you from the web.  With Pinterest, you can browse past Flannel Friday creations without sorting through a bunch of links.  Check it out here.

And, without further ado, may I present this week's contributions.

Edited to Add: Looks like we missed Sarah at Read Rabbit Read twice in a row! Here's her adorable Make a Snowman 1, 2, 3 and last week's Five Shiny Stars. 

Anne of So Tomorrow starts us off with a clever way to tell an old story, Round and Round with the Three Little Pigs My mind is already racing to come up with more ways to use this idea!

Next Mollie Kay of What Happens in Storytime shares Five Little Doggies. Cute little clip-art pups with a song she made up herself. Yay! You can only sing so many versions of Frere Jacques, right?

The ever-inspiring Melissa at Mel's Desk expanded on a previous post about color and counting sets with a set of Color and Counting Fish. AND she included the file so all you have to do is print and cut.

Nicole at Narrating Tales of Preschool Storytime shared her version of one of my favorite stories--with a twist--The Pancake Man. I love that sassy pastry.

Katie at Storytime Secrets shares the song and files she used for We're Going to the Beach, a great rhythmic song that builds vocab and is endlessly adaptable.

Sharon at Rain Makes Applesauce made some awfully cute penguins to go with an online story she found, Pippa's Penguins.  I'm going to have to poke around that story site some more when I have time.

Mary at Miss Mary Liberry has a slew of boards that she's made inspired by past Flannel Friday posts--makes me feel like a bit of a slacker seeing how many she's done!

Over at 1234 More Storytimes Tracey has a delightfully silly matching activity involving Animal Noses.

And finally, I have my first 'Inspired by Flannel Friday' post, Make a Pig.

Did I miss anyone? Any latecomers?  I'll be happy to continue adding to this post--just comment below and tell me where to find your post.  

Thanks for looking, it's such a pleasure to be part of Flannel Friday.

Inspired by Flannel Friday

Make a Pig! Inspired by a previous Flannel Friday post by Sharon at Rain Makes Applesauce here's my version of that delightful story. I won't reinvent the wheel though--check her post to see how to present the story.  Go on, I'll wait.  Ok, ready? Here's my version:



My pig was inspired by a cute pig found using Google image search. Everything else I just cut free-hand.




Here are all the pieces that I made for my version. I made a hat instead of a wig/toupee to make the kids laugh at the end.



Legs. I'm sure people in the library were wondering what I was cackling about in my office while I was making this.  I am particularly delighted by the human legs.  First I put up the blue pig feet, which prompts them to request pink feet and, BAM! Out come these suckers. It looks awesomely ridiculous and the kids were rolling with laughter.



Ears!



Close up of the mouse/nose options.



My tails.  I love sticking the 'pigtail' on the pigs head.

This flannel was a delight to make (seriously: cackling) and just the kind of thing I like to share in ST.  It's endlessly adaptable and I won't feel like I need a reason/theme to use it.  All in all, this sort of thing is exactly why Flannel Friday is so great!

posted from Bloggeroid