Sheep A-Leaping

The sheep were leaping at storytime today.  We read Sheep in a Jeep, by Nancy Shaw, and Where's the Green Sheep, by Mem Fox. We also read Here Are My Hands, by Bill Martin, but that had nothing to do with sheep. On the flannelboard we had Baa Baa Black Sheep, which I made several years ago based on the pattern in The Flannel Board Storytelling Book by Judy Sierra.

We've been singing A-Hunting We Will Go every week.  Each time I pick out four animals from my collection of about 20 laminated animal + rhyming thing collection.  This week it was sheep-jeep, duck-truck, goat-boat, and dragon-wagon. Then we talked about which animals they might see on a farm around here, and which one didn't fit on the farm.

Here's a fingerplay rhyme, slightly altered from Hubbard's Cupboard.  Sing it to the tune of Five Green and Speckled Frogs:

Five fat and fluffy sheep (hold up five fingers)
In the pasture fast asleep (hands under head, lean over)
Their wool kept them cozy all night long (hug yourself)
Snore! Snore! (make snore sounds)
The farmer slipped away with one (hold up one finger)
And clipped the wool till he was done (clap)
Then there were 4 fat fluffy sheep (hold up four fingers)
Baa! Baa!

For a craft we made the ever-popular cotton ball sheep. Luckily I had a teen helper to cut out the bodies, heads, and legs. Just add cotton balls and two eyes!

Hoppy September!

Today we had a hopping good time at the Library and at Head Start. Once a month I take my show on the road and go to Orland's Chapman Head Start site to do two morning sessions and two afternoon sessions. In between I do the regular library pre-school storytime. It's great practice!

Our books were:

Who Hops?/Quien Salta? by Katie Davis.  When I ordered this book I didn't know I'd be getting a bi-lingual version, but I'm happy I did. At one of the Head Start session a teacher read the Spanish while I did the English. Great!

Boing! by Nick Bruel. This is a fun story about a little kangaroo, who fails at hopping until she cleans out her pouch, which is overloaded with ribbons, marbles, toys, buttons, and assorted other stuff. Once she gets that taken care of she can Boing! with the best of them.




Of course, we did some hoppy songs, like "I Saw a Little Rabbit" and "One little, two little, three little bunnies."  Here's the words for the first one:

I saw a little rabbit come hop, hop, hop.
I saw his long ears go flop, flop, flop.
I saw his little eyes goes blink, blink, blink.
I saw his little nos go twink, twink, twink.
I said, "Mr. Rabbit can you stay, stay, stay?"
He looked at me, and then he hopped away!

On the flannelboard I did a great new game: Miss Mouse in the House. I thought that I got the idea from Mel's Desk (she has lots of flannelboard ideas), but she doesn't have a pattern, so I borrowed my mouse from Rain makes Applesauce.  Or here's another version.  Mine looks like this:

Hide Miss Mouse behind one of the houses as you put them on the board, then chant:
Miss Mouse, Miss Mouse, Are you in the ____ house?
 Look under the house, she's not there?, try again.  Kids LOVE this.  It was an enormous success.  I did three rounds of hiding Miss Mouse with each group, which means I played the Miss Mouse game 15 times. Or maybe more---I'm not sure.

Make your own Miss Mouse, and have a fun time at storytime!