Craft Website

http://ourcraftsnthings.com/

This website is a great resource for craft projects for toddlers and preschool age children. The blogger is a former preschool teacher turned stay-at-home mom. She has a whole curriculum of lesson plans and does a craft with her daughter every day. They cover letters, transportation, holidays, weather, etc. using an assortment of stuff.

Ideas

A patron at Peninsula told me about this book yesterday. I just read it. It's really cute! It's about two kids who have done everything and are so bored. Finally, they decide to do....nothing! But nothing always turns into something. There's a lot of fun illustrations that shows them using their imagination. It would make a fun read-a-loud and I'm sure would get the kids laughing. It's also easy to relate to. 

Another idea I just had would be to do a remake of Stone Soup, one of my favorite tales. While there are many good picture books illustrating the tale, it would be fun to do on our own, with the kids acting out. One idea would be to have a big pot and cut-outs of ingredients that each kid could drop in. They can then come up with their own ingredients, using their imagination. Or, maybe make a flannel board and do it that way. It could also be a good memory exercise, to have everyone reiterate what each kid put in before putting in their own. Hopefully I'll get to try it one day!

How Many Ways Can You Wiggle?

A patron at work was just reading this to her two boys and it sounded adorable! It shows all different ways you can wiggle. This would be great for storytime, as it gets the kids moving! :)

Cute Cat Back

This book looks very promising for storytime, though I haven't gotten a chance to read it yet. It's a book of opposites with rhyming text. Apparently, parts of the sentence are actually left off to leave room for the kids to jump in. Normally the librarian would have to pause and let kids jump in, but this really does the work for you :p

 

"Keba Keba wa...."

I bought Keba Keba years ago when I saw the Murakami exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum. It's a cute story with bright, graphic illustrations, about this creature called Keba Keba who decides to share all his wonderful colors with objects and nature. In the end, he is all white and transforms into a cloud, floating away, watching over everyone and everything. My copy has english next to the Japanese kanji. I'm sure most kids have never heard of it and the story is very  reminiscent of Rainbow Fish and the Elmer series. It would be fun to read Keba Keba during storytime and pair it with the aforementioned titles.

Dooby Dooby Moo~ *sings*

Mary Ellen just told me about this book. I read it at the desk and it was soooo cute! She used it at her school; I believe the teachers helped act it out for the elementary school kids as she read it aloud. The Principal of her school, who has a good voice, sang in the background. She said it was a huge hit! I would love to do this with a group of kids sometime and maybe even have them take turns acting it out if we have time.

Two Great Cat Books for Future Use

Ellen and Joann both told me about a cute cat book they used for their respective storytime groups.


The first one is Pete the Cat: I love My White Shoes by Eric Litwin. The story is about a cat who takes a walk in his white shoes, but as he steps in different things (ie: water, strawberries, etc.) his white shoes change colors to reflect what he's been in. There's also a song refrain "I love my ___ shoes" for each color.

The other book is called Cookie's Week by Cindy Ward, which is about a cat named Cookie who gets into all sorts of trouble every day of the week. It's a good book to introduce days of the week. Joann used it for her two-year-olds, so even though they didn't get the days of the week, they really loved Cookie and the chaos he got himself in to.