Flannel Friday: Bippity, Boppity, Boo, There’s a Teddy Bear On My Shoe!

A short post for y’all today, but a good one! I’ve been doing this with the kids this week and they’ve been enjoying it! I got this from Pubyac (someone sent out a compilation of teddy bear storytime ideas).

I give every child a picture of a bear. If you have enough teddies on hand to give them each a real one, great, but I do not. I made 24 of these – just clipart images of teddies, covered in contact paper (so they can be wiped off if necessary), and cut out:

We then recite this rhyme, moving the bear around to the body parts indicated:

Bippity, boppity, boo, there’s a teddy bear on my…shoe!

Bippity, boppity, bee, there’s a teddy bear on my…knee!

Bippity, boppity, belbow, there’s a teddy bear on my…elbow!

Bippity, boppity, bose, there’s a teddy bear on my…nose!

Etc…continued for as long as you can find rhymes!

This is very similar to “Willoughby Walloughby Woo,” in fact, I almost said elephant instead of teddy bear several times. I guess you COULD use almost any animal for this rhyme! I just happened to be doing a bear storytime right now.

That’s all for now, folks! Most flannel friday-ers will be taking the next two Fridays off since we’re all so busy around the holidays, and I’m no exception. See y’all again in the new year! And THANK YOU for your love and comments throughout the year! I appreciate you!

Visit Linda at Notes from the Story Room later today to see the full roundup. Click on the link to the right to visit our Pinterest page and see all the flannels nicely organized and pictured!

Flannel Friday: Moo! Tweet! Meow! Animal Sounds

One of my go-to storytimes for the new school year is an animal sounds theme. There are a plethora of good books (I’ll post my storytime plan soon – can’t believe I haven’t done it yet!), and it’s a good topic for new preschoolers (who are on the younger, closer-to-3-years-old side). So when planning my storytimes for September, I naturally gravitated toward this tried-and-true theme. For flannelboards, I got out a set of felt animals I made several years ago. Thinking about how I could use them, I decided to incorporate some print awareness and make a “sign” with each animal’s sound on it. The kids could then help me figure out each animal’s sound, and I could show them how that sound is written in print:

This was super easy, obviously, but incorporates an extra element that just adds to the early literacy experience the kids are getting in storytime. I think that perhaps, later in the year, I will show them the words again, ask them about the first letter, make the letter sound, and then have them figure out the sound. It might work really well!

The question mark, by the way, is for the fish.

Visit Tracey at 1234 More Storytimes later today for the full Flannel Friday roundup!

Sing a book! Jump! by Scott M. Fischer

Not the Van Halen version

Recently I chose a bunch of fun, recently-published books to share with the preschoolers. One of those was Jump!, by Scott M. Fischer.  When I read it silently, to myself, the first time, I heard it as a kind of twangy bluegrassy song.  It would be a perfect book to sing rather than read, and the children get to help out with the JUMP! refrain.

Singing in storytime (or anytime), whether you’re singing a book rather than reading it, or sharing an old favorite song, helps young children develop their phonological awareness.  Kids become better able to hear the smaller sounds that make up words, which is useful when sounding out words later.

After inventing my own tune for Jump!, I learned that Scott Fischer originally wrote it as a song.  Here, he performs it for a group of kids, and, oddly enough, it sounds very close to same song I heard in my head when I first read the book!

I especially love the Australian accent for the croc. After seeing this performance, I think Scott Fischer and I would be good friends.  Does anyone else think the cat looks like that little white kitty from the Aristocats?

One tiny quibble, though: on the “Sploosh!” page, if I hold it up so that the whale is at the bottom and the animals are splooshing up out of his blowhole, the word is upside down. The kids have noticed. But if I turn it over so the word is right-side up, it looks like the whale is upside down. Help!

The best way to combat illness: a storytime!

Given that we’re all paying extra attention to staying germ-free right now, I thought it was time for a “sick” storytime.  No, I’m not reading those books my former boss and I always joked about including in an “inappropriate stories” storytime (Don’t Call Me Little Bunny, anyone?), but rather stories about feeling ill and getting better.

We start with my little gorilla puppet, Frankie, who has a tissue attached to his hand by a poorly-hidden rubberband.  Frankie sneezes a few times, covering his sneeze with his kleenex.  This is the perfect time to remind ourselves that we cover our coughs and sneezes with our elbow!

On to the books: I use a selection of these (again, the larger number is so that I have a options based on attention spans, amount of settling time, ages of group, etc.).

• Yolen, Jane.  How Do Dinosaurs Get Well Soon? Can’t go wrong with dinosaurs.  Plus, I get to whine.
• Wilson, Karma.  Bear Feels Sick. I love all of these bear books.  The refrain “And the bear feels sick” allows the kids to join in, building narrative skills.  I do a LOT of question-asking during storytime (dialogic reading!) and we talk about why bear’s friends get sick (did you notice he doesn’t cover his sneeze in one illustration?).
• Charlip, Remy.  Mother, Mother, I Feel Sick, Send for the Doctor, Quick, Quick, Quick! An oldie, but a very goodie.  Mom calls the doctor because her son has a stomach ache and looks like he’s swallowed a beach ball.  Turns out, he HAS swallowed a ball, along with a bunch of other non-food items!  There’s lots of opportunity for the kids to interact with the story here, as they get to figure out what the boy ate based on the sillouette-shadow-puppet illustrations.
• Rostocker-Gruber, Karen.  Rooster Can’t Cock-a-dooodle-doo. When Rooster develops a sore throat he’s unable to wake the other animals and the farmer.  What will they do?  While the illustrations (totally silly, by the way) are a little smaller than I would usually choose for storytime, the story is so cute — especially when Farmer Ted sets Rooster up in a lawn chair with a cup of tea.
• Tankard, Jeremy.  Boo Hoo Bird. I am a big fan of Bird, even though he is a bit of a drama king.  When playing catch with Raccoon, Bird gets bonked on the head.  His friends try all kinds of things to make him feel better — hugs, kisses, cookies, even a band-aid — but nothing works.  Not even the COOKIE, my friends.  What will they do to stop his crying?  A longer review I wrote can be found here. While techinically, this is not a book about being sick, it IS a story about getting well.  My storytime, my rules.

As a break in between the stories we share this action rhyme, which I found in the listing for the “Feeling Sick” box from the King County Library’s Books to Grow On service.  Sometimes, if the kids aren’t too young or too wiggly, after we say the rhyme we talk about the words in it that rhymed.  Practicing rhyming words is a great way for young kids to learn to hear the smaller sounds made up in words, which will help them sound out words when they start to read on their own:

Miss Polly had a dolly who was sick, sick, sick [hold hands over stomach as if ill]

So she called for the doctor to come quick, quick, quick [pretend to call]

The doctor came with her bag [pretend to hold bag handle] and hat [hand on head]

And she knocked on the door with a rat-a-tat-tat [knock on door]

She looked at the dolly and she shook her head [shake head]

She said, “Miss Polly, put her straight to bed.” [shake finger]

She wrote on the paper for a pill, pill, pill [pretend to write on paper]

“I’ll be back in the morning with my bill, bill bill [hold out hand]

I feel better already!  What are your favorite “sick” stories?

Feltboard, flannelboard, whatchamacallit – that thing you stick stuff on.

• I use a flannelboard (feltboard? I never know which term to use)  a lot in my storytimes, and the kids really seem to enjoy anything I stick on the blue felt.  I carry a big red portable flannelboard and I often have kids point at it and say, “can we do that now?”   I have couple of ones that are particularly successful:
• BINGO.  Obviously, the song alone is fun.  But the way I’ve modified it for my flannelboard really (I hope) reinforces phonological awareness — the ability to hear the smaller sounds making up words. We start with the 5 letters, each on a bright colored square.  As I put each on the board, we say the letter, but also say the sound it makes: “What letter is this? B.  What sound does it make?  Buh. Buh.”  We go through the letters and sounds again, and I tell the kids that as we put the sounds together we make the word: “Buh, Ih, NN, Guh, Oh.”  I say it faster and faster until we’ve got the word “Bingo!”  I run my finger under the word each time, from left to right.
  

  The letters to the song "Bingo" on my flannelboard.

  We sing the song the first time through, saying each letter.  Then, I turn over the first letter to reveal…. a dog!  The next time we sing, I explain, instead of saying the letter B, we’re going to Bark.  One time — for one dog.  And then say the rest of the letters.  Singing commences…

  

  Bingo flannelboard with 1 dog showing

  We continue singing, turning over one letter to reveal a different dog each time.  We count the dogs to see how many times we will have to bark.  I ask the kids to guess what animal will appear next, giving them outlandish ideas like “octopus!” and “hippopotamus!”, while they continue to insist it will be another dog.   Finally, our last time through the song is all dog barks.

  

  All dogs!

The letters are felt, hot-glue-gunned onto felt squares.  The dogs were taken from Microsoft Word clipart, printed out, and attached to the felt with contact paper (not the best, most-sticky way to do it, but they’re okay).

• WHICH MONSTER (DINOSAUR, WHATEVER) IS MISSING? This one is less about early literacy skills and more about colors and memory.  I have 10 monsters (complete with googly eyes), each in a different color.  I put them all on the board, singing:

“One little, two little, three little monsters.  Four little, five little, six little monsters.  Seven little, eight little, nine little monsters.  Ten little monsters roar.  ROAR!”

We go through and name all of the colors, and then I tell the kids to take a good look, as I’m going to take one away and they’ll have to tell me which one is missing.  I turn the board around so only I can see it, hide behind it, and tell them not to peek (they always try to peek!).  I make a big show of “hmmming” and even sing a little song to myself: “I’m taking away a monster, a monster, a monster.  I’m taking away a monster, which one will it be?”  Occasionally I peek over the edge and glare at the kids as if I know that they’re peeking (this always gets a BIG laugh).  I remove a monster and ball it up in my fist.  Turning the board around I ask the kids to guess which color is gone.  We do this several times, with me eventually taking away two or three at a time.

This game has been a big hit.  The teachers are also able to evaluate which kids need help with their colors, and which have it down!  It can be done with lots of different themes — I have a set of 10 dinosaurs as well.

I don’t have any pictures of this one, but will try to take some and post them soon.  What are your storytime flannelboard (feltboard) hits?  And what the heck do you call that thing?

The Great Nursery Rhyme Disaster by David Conway

Miss Muffet is bored: bored of curds and whey, bored of the scary spider, bored of being in the same old nursery rhyme.  So what does she do?  She goes off to find another rhyme to try, of course!  She tries out “The Grand Old Duke of York”, but doesn’t like all the marching (and she completely messes up the rhythm of the rhyme).  Jumping into “Hey Diddle Diddle” is treacherous, as she greatly angers the dish when she tries to run away with the spoon herself.  She feels completely silly climbing up a clock in “Hickory Dickory Dock”.  Soon, the entire nursery rhyme world is in chaos.  Whatever will Miss Muffet do?  Melanie Williamson’s bright, silly, stylized illustrations create just the right chaotic tone. Reciting nursery rhymes is a great way to reinforce phonological skills (the ability to hear the little sounds that make up words, including rhyming sounds).  Little listeners can help the reader with the rhymes, and perhaps play at inserting Miss Muffet into other rhymes not in the story.  “Mary had a little Miss Muffet, its fleece was white as snow…?”  While the ending is a little abrupt and unsatisfying, this is, overall, a delightfully creative story.

Conway, David.  The Great Nursery Rhyme Disaster.  Wilton, CT: Tiger Tales, 2009.  ISBN: 9781589250802