Flannel Friday: 5 Little Cookies

A quick-and-easy flannel Friday for y’all today, because that’s all I had time for. I made cookies for this same rhyme a while ago, but decided I don’t like them anymore. These took me about 15 minutes yesterday – just 5 circles of tan felt, with puffy paint “icing” (I like the way it looks more like icing than felt, but you can certainly do that too).

And here’s the rhyme:

5 little cookies, with frosting galore,

Mother ate the white one, and then there were 4.

4 little cookies, 2 and 2 you see,

Father ate the green one, and then there were 3.

3 little cookies, but before I knew,

Sister ate the yellow one, and then there were 2.

2 little cookies, oh what fun!

Brother ate the brown one, and then there was 1.

1 little cookie. Watch me run!

I ate the red one, and then there were NONE!

So – we have colors, we have counting, and we have cookies. 3 of my favorite things. I’ll be breaking out the cookie-related stories this month, as well as using one of my favorite chants, “Who Stole the Cookies from the Cookie Jar!” for a good sweet-tooth storytime.

The roundup today will be hosted by Linda at Notes from the Story Room. It’s a holiday EXTRAVAGANZA so get all your winter holiday flannels planned in one fell swoop!

Now there’s a phrase we don’t use often enough: ONE FELL SWOOP.

Happy flanneling.

 

Flannel Friday: 5 Bears in the Bed

I do Bear storytime every fall – my bear puppet’s getting ready to hibernate so we read him some bedtime stories.

The song “Ten In the Bed” (or 5, in this case) is a staple for my bedtime stories theme, but also works great for this storytime. I had a flannelboard already made up for this one, but it was looking pretty sad and careworn, so I decided to re-do it.

For anyone not in the know, here’s the song (and you can find the tune here):

5 bears in the bed (hold up 5 fingers) and the little one said:

“roll over! roll over!” (roll hands)

So they all rolled over and one fell out! (1 bear falls out of bed)

4 bears in the bed… etc.

The kids especially enjoy if, when a bear falls out, he actually flies through the air and lands on the floor. Flying felt is ALWAYS a hit.

I got the bed pattern from Making Learning Fun. The bears are a result of a clipart search for a pattern.

Today’s roundup will be hosted by Anna, our Future Librarian Superhero! And click the icon to the right to see all past flannels, organized visually by categories.

Happy flanneling!

Flannel Friday: Make a Robot!

Here’s a flannel idea that includes vocabulary learning (shapes, sizes), print awareness (shape names) and a whole lotta fun! We’re gonna build a robot!

I cut a bunch of different-sized shapes out of felt. I stuck to square, rectangle, triangle and circle (because my portable flannelboard is small) but you could certainly add more. I also made labels for the four shape names in felt with fabric paint.

The first thing we did was organize our robot “parts.” I put up the shape names and then I asked the kids the name of the shape I held up and put it with its name. I only asked them about 2 or 3 of each shape, because I made lots and it would have taken too long. But we did talk about if the new shape was “bigger” or “smaller” than the other, and I mentioned that we had small, medium and large sizes.

Then the kids selected a piece for the body (if you have a small enough group you could ask individuals to come up and pick; we just did it by consensus). I asked what other parts we needed (head, legs, arms, feet) and we selected those shapes. Finally, we needed eyes, and I had a special set of those: two large googly eyes with velcro on the back. The result was something like this:

Or this:

Wheel feet!

All-in-all I think the kids had fun and if you do crafts with your storytime it would be fun to then allow the kids to put together their own robots with paper shapes and glue.

The flannel Friday roundup today will be hosted by Lisa at Libraryland. To see all past flannels organized into categories, click on the icon to the right for our Pinterest page.

Happy flanneling!

Flannel Friday: (No Sew) Monster Finger Puppets

Oh boy, do I LOVE how these little monsters turned out!

I was inspired by this owl finger puppet post* from playingwithwords365.com to make these monsters.  As you can see in that post, the puppets are a rectangle of felt, rolled into a tube with ends glued together. She then folded over two edges of the tube to create the owl “ears.”

I did the same for a couple of my monsters (fuschia, although it’s covered by pompom, and dark blue) but for the other three I improvised the tops, gluing each in a slightly different way. I then attached pompoms and googly eyes, and gave each a puffy paint smile.

Silly little monsters!

I found several different “5 little monsters” poems to use (see link), but this one was my favorite:

5 little monsters sleeping in my bed,

1 crept out from under the spread

I called to mama and mama said,

No more monsters sleeping in your bed!

4…3…2…1…

No little monsters sleeping in my bed

None crawled out from under the spread.

I called to mama and mama said,

There are no monsters! Now go to bed!

This week’s roundup will be hosted by Mollie Kay! And if you’d like to see all of the past flannels, helpfully organized into categories, click the icon to the right to visit our pinterest page! To learn more about Flannel Friday (and to get more involved) visit our website!

Happy flanneling!

*I’m totally making the owls too.

Book Review: The Monsters’ Monster by Patrick McDonnell

It’s been QUITE A WHILE since I posted a book review. Perhaps that’s because I’ve not felt inspired to do so in a while? Maybe, maybe not. At any rate, I felt VERY inspired to write about Patrick McDonnell’s (he’s the creator of the Mutts comic and several other lovely picture books) new story, The Monsters’ Monster.

Grump, Groan and Gloom ‘n Doom are monsters. At least, they THINK so. The like to SMASH, BASH and CRASH, and they live in a gloomy castle on a hill above a monster-fearing town. However, they can’t decide which of them is the MOST monsterly. All of their debates on the subject end in a brawl (these are two of the glorious vocabulary words used in the book: debate and brawl). So, Grump, Groan and Gloom ‘n Doom decide to solve the problem by making the BIGGEST, BADDEST monster EVER. They gather supplies (like gunk, glue, and a smelly old shoe) and, in true Frankenstein fashion, raise their monster up to the heavens for a jolt of lightning. When their monster is lowered to the ground and begins to tear off his bandages, they cheer “It’s alive!”

And then the monster utters his first words: “DANK YOU.”

Wait, what? Who is this BIG, BAD monster saying thank you? Monsters don’t say  that! But Monster finally plows through a wall and heads toward the village to the bakery. Grump, Groan and Gloom ‘n Doom  cheer and follow closely behind, hoping to hear the “howls and yowls” of the bakery’s inhabitants. But when Monster emerges, having NOT smashed up the bakery, with a small white paper bag, what will they do?

This is JUST the right kind of not-so-scary story that’s right for young kids. It’s a bit long for toddlers, and introduces lots of great new words to add to a preschooler’s vocabulary. And the message of happiness at simply being alive? LOVELY. McDonnell’s illustrations are silly and filled with detail, but the muted shades of green, orange and grey are just right for the slightly-eerie tone. Add this to your Halloween or Monster storytime ASAP. You WON’T regret it – and neither will the kids who get to enjoy it!

DANK YOU! 

Flannel Friday: Counting Sheep

In the fall I always do a bedtime-themed storytime. It just feels like the right time of year to be thinking about long winter naps, so I break out the cozy (and silly and crazy and chaotic) stories about going to sleep. One book that I think is particularly gorgeous (and works great with my bilingual crew) is Sarah Weeks’ Counting Ovejas, illustrated by David Diaz. Bilingual text plus gorgeous, multi-colored sheep is a win in my book.

I decided to make a flannel board of it. However, I realized that as each sheep comes and goes on the same page, it would be like “drive-by flanneling.” None of the sheep stay on the page very long. Also, for the higher numbers, I’d be making multiples: 10, TEN! yellow sheep. So, the flannelboard very quickly morphed into something like my monster guessing game flannel.

The kids count with me as we put each one on the board. Then, I ask them “what color is sheep number 6?” So they’ve got to recognize the number, and then put the color with it. The teachers actually really liked this idea and I gave my pattern to a couple so they could recreate the activity.

After identifying all the colors, I turn the board around and take one off (no peeking!). The kids then have to tell me which color, or number, or both, is missing. They had fun!

Also: when I asked the kids what animal some people count when they can’t fall asleep, one young lady said: “I want to count zebras!” Hmmm…

This is an original pattern of mine, and I’m sharing it with you here. Feel free to make your own sheep! However, if you post the pattern on your site, be sure and give me credit.

Today’s roundup is hosted by Sarah at Read, Sarah, Read! And if you’d like to see all past flannels, click on the icon to the right.

Happy flanneling!

SNOOOORRE! Bedtime Stories Make Me Sleepy.

There are SO MANY good bedtime stories to choose from.  I think the ones I use skew toward the lively, as otherwise I’d be putting myself to sleep. Here’s what we’re reading (more than needed for a standard storytime, but I always have extras):

• Stein, David Ezra. Interrupting Chicken. Oh, how I love this book. Little Red Chicken is supposed to be relaxing and falling asleep while Papa reads her a story, but she can’t help…interrupting. Great way to introduce this new word!
• Yolen, Jane. How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight/¿Cómo dan las buenas noches los dinosaurios?  A new classic. And you get to fake cry! Bonus!
• Dewdney, Anna. Llama Llama Red Pajama/La llama Llama rojo pijama. I love it when great stories like this are translated into another language AND it still rhymes AND the story hasn’t changed much. Occasionally the English and Spanish versions of a story will be completely different! Not here. The story of little Llama’s bedtime drama is the same.
• Fingerplay (or fingerpuppets or flannelboard): 5 Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed! Here’s a printable flannelboard or magnet version.
• Root, Phyllis.  Creak! Said the Bed. Mama lets everyone into the bed on a cold, blustery night. Dad says no to letting one more family member in, but he jumps in anyway – to disastrous results.
• Flannelboard (or action rhyme): 10 in the bed
• Bardhan, Sudipta. Chicks Run Wild! Mama wants her chicks to go to bed. But when she leaves the room, they run WILD!

Other books I like:

• Chaconas, Dori. Can’t Sleep Without Sheep! Ava needs the sheep to keep jumping the fence in order to fall asleep. But when they quit the job, can any other animal replace them?
• Fore, S.J. Tiger Can’t Sleep. The boy can’t sleep because there’s a tiger in his closet…eating potato chips! Boy implores Tiger to be quiet as tiger continues to engage in all kinds of noisy activities.
• Wood, Audrey. Napping House/La casa adormecida. A fun cumulative tale with lots of sleep-related vocabulary.
• Wilson, Karma. Bear Snores On. On a cold night, the animals gather in bear’s cave and have a party. But bear misses it – he’s too busy snoring!
• Martin jr., Bill. Kitty Cat, Kitty Cat, Are You Going to Bed? A rhyming story about kitty’s activities at bedtime.
• Weeks, Sarah. Counting Ovejas. A bilingual story of a boy counting colorful sheep. A lovely concept book!

*Yawn* I think I need a nap now. Read me a bedtime story?