We're Hopping at the Library!

I didn't really have a theme for today's storytime, but we had a hopping good time, reading Who Hops? and If You're Hoppy and You Know It. Both these books have big, bright, lively illustrations and fun texts that pull the kids in. Both of them were fun to read. "If you're growly and you know it you're a dog, or a bear, or a tummy over there . . ."

As long as we were reading about hopping, we got up and did some hopping of our own, hopping along to the rhyme "I Saw a Little Rabbit Come Hop, Hop, Hop."

I saw a little rabbit come hop, hop, hop.
I saw his long ears go flop, flop, flop.
I saw his little eyes go blink, blink, blink.
I saw his little nose go twink, twink, twink.
I said, "Mr, Rabbit, won't you stay, stay, stay?'
He looked at me, and then he hopped away!

We also sang "Shake My Sillies" and "Shoo Fly, Don't Bother Me." The flannelboard story was "The Hat" from Days with Frog and Toad, in which Frog gives Toad a hat for his birthday. The hat is too big and falls over Toad's eyes, but Frog solves the problem by telling Toad to go to sleep thinking big thoughts, while he secretly shrinks the hat. Toad is delighted, thinking that his big thoughts have made his head grow larger to fit the hat.

For a craft we decorated old CDs. I know two things to do with otherwise useless CDs, like the ones you used to get from AOL, or the ones from outdated software. One thing you can do is hang them in your fruit trees to scare the birds away from your ripe cherries or plums. The other thing you can do is make decorations with them. 

If you have enough of them, glue two CDs together so that you have two shiny sides instead of just one. Then glue on anything shiny or pretty---stickers, jewels, stars, foam shapes---whatever you like. String a ribbon through the hole and voila!---pretty, shiny doohickey.