Burnham Bunch: Owls (again)

Whooooooo! Owls (again)

Read: Little Owl Lost by Chris Haughton and Wow! Said the Owl by Tim Hopgood.

Story extender/ Story board: Using Wow! Said the Owl display color-appropriate story-pieces as the story progress. Give children the chance to "shout" the color that coordinates with the text.

Decided to do owls again, because I love owls and they are super-popular and there are TONS of great owl ideas out there in the blogosphere. So, I modified a craft that I found via Pinterest from a blog from Lisa Storms. She has some great ideas!

Craft: Owl

• Need: Paper lunch-size bag. Brown, white, and black craft/construction paper and white copy paper. Glue sticks.
• Prior to storytime, cut out 3 sizes of circles for the eyes: large = brown, medium = white, small = black. Also cut some smallish sized triangles for the beak (I used brown). I used the copier to copy text from a book, and then cute a half-oval for the owl's belly. Finally, I trimmed the top of paper bag to form a triangle.
• Lay all the bits and bops at each craft seat.
• I find the craft to run more smoothly, if I call out the shapes (in turn) and have the kiddos glue on accordingly. I "quiz" them ... "Ok, lets find the large brown circles. How many do you have? Ok, let's glue those first." and etc.
• After all is glued into place. Fill the bag with some crumpled newspaper and staple shut.
• Super owl-cuteness!

Burnham Bunch: Fall

It's Fall Again!!

Read: Let It Fall by Maryann Cocca-Leffler and There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed Some Leaves! by Lucille Colandro

Flannel board: There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed Leaves. Using the story to prompt the kiddos to place flannel pieces on our Old Lady's apron as the story progresses. I LOVE these books. I use them for almost every season/holiday. I have an Old Lady flannel figure and for each book, I change up the pieces. I simply copy the pages, color, laminate, and apply a Velcro-dot. I make as many pieces as needed for every child to have a turn. So, for this story I had to copy out and extra 2 leaf bushels and an extra 1 hay bushel.

Craft: Fall Tree

• Need: Poster paint in brown, green, yellow and orange. Paper plates. Sturdy construction paper for background and brown for tree trunk. Sponges and/or foam stamper.
• Prior to story, I cut a tree trunk shape out of the brown paper and glued it to the background paper.
• Lay out the tree shape at each craft seat along with paper-plate of paint and sponges. I bought a few sponge and cut it into squares for the older children. For the little ones, I gave them foam stampers because they have little wooden handles which make it easier to hold.
• Show the kiddos how stamp their sponges into the paint and then onto the paper. As you fill your paper, show them how you create different colors and shades as you layer one color on top of the other.
• Really fun. Easy. And very little clean-up. The end....

Burnham Bunch: Welcome Back 2011

Burnham Bunch 2011

We're Back! So, I am just returning from a two-week (that's right!!!) vacation. And I am trying to get into storytime mode, but it is really difficult! I like to begin the new storytime year with a library/book theme. I found our book choice via another storytime blog and thought it would be fun to try it out. I also decided to incorporate a song from the author's website to get us in the mood!

I have a few new faces this session. So, I am hoping that the singing (and animal sounds that go with the book and the song) will "break the ice."

My friend Shelley made the suggestion to add a photo of the book we are reading to my blog. I will try to do this in the future!?

So, here we go! Burnham Bunch Fall/Winter 2011 begins now ......

Begin with our Welcome Song

Introduce our animal flannels: pig, goat, horse, hen, duck, cow and frog. We will sing Sing A Song.

Read: Book! Book! Book! by Deborah Bruss using our animal flannels to prompt the children to neigh, oink and etc.

Craft: I think I "cheezed-out" on the craft for this one. But, it is hard to gage the attention level of a new group of kiddos. So, I decided that they will make bookmarks. I put out a ton of stickers and let them go for it.

• Need bookmark template (I just used a bit of clip-art and wrote each child's name on the bookmark), crayons, stickers and a bit of ribbon/yarn.
• After they have completed decorating their bookmark, my faithful assistant will laminate them and punch a hole for a bit of yarn.
• That's it!

Well, as is usual, the less complicated the better! The kiddos loved choosing, peeling and applying their stickers. Because of time constraints, we decided to laminate them and hand them out week. But, in the end a success. Now for next week .......