flannel friday round-up for 12/9/2011...

12/12/11 -
WHEW! This is harder than it looks! :)
I think I FINALLY have all the awesome contributions from last week here on the round-up.
Thanks to everyone for their patience - I appreciate it!!

It's Flannel Friday, y'all! I am so happy to be hosting this week... I've only been blogging for about three months and Flannel Friday was my inspiration to get started. Thank you all so much for sharing your ideas and experiences in addition to your awesome flannel artwork - this newbie YS librarian remains forever in your debt!

Without further ado, here's this week's fantastic round-up (in no particular order - because I'm random like that) ;D :

Andrea at Roving Fiddle Head takes inspiration from Storytiming to create her own version of Ouch! - hedgehogs = super cute, people.

Megan at Busy Crafting Mommy shares her Animals in Winter storytime plan with an awesome flannelization of Time to Sleep. Her bear hibernation craft alone is worth the click. ;)

Melissa at Mel's Desk gets her carpentering skills on with "Five Little Nails". It's a storytime engineering masterpiece, if you ask me.

Allison at Miss Allison is Blogging! takes expandable wallets to a new level with There Was a Cold Lady Who Swallowed Some Snow.

Linda at Notes from the Story Room shares the story of "Crow's Great Gift". If you've had a bad opinion of a crow since you first watched Dumbo, you may have a change of heart after reading this one.

Katie at Story Time Secrets throws the door wide open to welcome all sorts of family visitors in her original tune, "Who Is Knocking At My Door?" - perfect for the season of family gatherings!

Mollie from What Happens In Storytime...  replaces monkeys with snowmen for some (medical emergency) fun in "Four Little Snowmen". I always wondered why that mom didn't encourage the monkeys/snowmen to do something else... :D

Natasha from Natasha the Artsy Librarian brings snowman building indoors with "Let's Build a Snowman" ... and she has a BOATLOAD of awesome stories picked out for a snowy storytime!

Cate from Storytiming gets her kids bibliobopping with a Jellybean Countdown! What's a bibliobop? Only the funniest sounding library program I've heard of in a long time!

Katie from Recipe for Reading has cooked up her own penguin tale (that I believe I will be using this coming storytime!!) in "A New Color for Mr. Penguin". If you've been dying to try out a box story, this may be the one for you!

Mary from Miss Mary Liberry brings a classic to flannel - The Mitten by Jan Brett. She even tells us how to get all Brett's animals illustrations in one fell swoop. ;)

And finally, I - Liz/Mrs. D, here at Putting Smiles on Faces - am sharing my flannel version of a NickJr. online/animated story, Rumble, Grumble, Gurgle, Roar! by Jonny Belt.

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Next week's host is Linda at Notes from the Story Room! 

Don't forget!

We are taking a winter break and there will be 

NO Flannel Friday round-ups

on the 12/23 or 12/30!

The round-up archives and host schedule is at So Tomorrow.

For our visual learners, we also have Flannel Friday posts at Pinterest - grouped by theme!

You can talk storytime/flannelboards shop on the Flannel Friday Facebook page.

And don't forget to follow Flannel Friday on Twitter with the #flannelfriday hashtag. (You don’t even have to be on Twitter to check this out!)

Last but not least, if you’re a contributer, grab the blog button in the right hand menu at Mel’s Desk!

flannel friday: rumble, grumble, gurgle, roar!

Woo-hoo! It's my turn to host Flannel Friday!

In anticipation of this ocassion, I got my butt in gear and finished my flannel and picture taking tonight so that I can dedicate myself to my round-up post tomorrow. Here goes:


This coming week is the last week of our second session of storytime. The theme is penguins and I want to try to tell a story with the flannel board - so far, it's been all rhymes and games for me. I found this story while searching "penguin stories" and flannelized it - which was pretty easy to do given how adorable the animation was. (NOTE: I did NOT hear Whoopie Goldberg read the story since my work computer does not have speakers; I am glad because I am afraid it would have influenced how *I* told the story.) The story is abbreviated here in the captions:


Little Penguin was swimming in the icy blue sea when she heard a funny sound - rumble, grumble, gurgle, ROAR! It was her tummy and it meant she was hungry!

So she hopped out of the water looking for something good to eat... and she spotted something white and fluffy!

It was a polar bear!

Little Penguin couldn't eat a polar bear... and the polar bear went back to sleep. But Little Penguin was STILL hungry!

And she saw something plump and brown...

But it was a walrus! 

But Little Penguins can't eat walruses - and the walrus went back to basking in the sun. Little Penguin was still hungry!

Ah-ha! Something shiny and orange - looks so yummy!

Daddy Penguin! If she can't eat a polar bear, or walrus, or a Daddy Penguin, what can she eat? Little Penguin was still SO HUNGRY! 

How about those silver, shiny fish! 

First, I think I am going to need to work on the whole "iceberg" environment - I think I need to add a sheet of white felt to the sheet with the hole so that it goes across the board. Second, I need to pick up some brown felt so I can redo the walrus. The polar bear is in white felt and his head is double-sided so that he can change his expression... which is super fun. :) The walrus is made out of construction paper so I had to use velcro on him. 

NickJr. suggested having kids guess what Little Penguin is trying to eat before advancing through the story - I think I will add a layer of felt to the "snow covers" for the characters so we can do that in storytime, too. 

You can find the rest of this week's round up... oh, wait! Right here! With me! :) You can also view past round-ups with Anne at So Tomorrow, or click the Flannel Friday button to the right to view the flannel board on Pinterest.

Happy Flannel Friday! 

here fishy, fishy, fishy...

Does anyone else remember this sketch from Sesame Street?



It always cracks me up because it slayed my mother... and she's hard to get laughing. :)

This week, we did a Fish storytime. This is a particularly awesome theme for us because we have a large saltwater fish tank that takes up one corner of our storytime room. The tank also looks out onto the circulation area, so kids often visit it as their parents are checking out. We have a Marlin and a Nemo (clownfish) and a Dory (blue tang). We also have baby starfish (like TEENY, TINY babies), snails, and an assortment of other tropical fish.

In a way, every storytime is a fish storytime!

Here's our setlist*:

'Hello Everybody'

Wiggles

Hooray for Fish! by Lucy Cousins

I didn't do this book with my 4-K group, but I should have. Both the 2-3 year-olds and the drop-in kids (mostly 2-3 year olds) really liked it. Little Fish introduces us to all kinds of fish on his way to say hello the the one he likes best. I reminded the kids to pay attention to all the beautiful colors and patterns so they could use them as inspiration for their own fish (the craft).

Song: 'I'm a Little Fish'
to the tune of 'I'm a Little Teapot'

I'm a little fish, I like to swim. (Point to self; put hands together and move them side to side)

You can't catch me 'cause I have fins. (Point to others; put hands under ribcage and flap)

When I swim by my friends I hear them say: (Front stroke; hand to ear)

'Stop your swimming and come and play!' (Hold hand out to 'stop'; shake your hips side to side)

NAF*: Mitch the Fish
All props to Katie at Storytiming - this was her FIRST Flannel Friday way back in May! Apparently it is akin to Dr. Jean's Scat the Cat (which Melissa alluded to in her comment on 'Tom Turkey's Colorful Tail Tale - which Dr. Jean had made a file folder story on her blog earlier that week - I swear I didn't know! :D)... color changing animal who decides that being yourself is best.

Kids LOVED this. I want to do LOTS more file folder stories!!

The Three Little Fish and the Big Bad Shark by Ken Geist

I have so much to learn when it comes to sharing stories. When I saw this, I was sure kids would be like, 'YAWN... know this one - except it's pigs and a wolf... weirdo.' But NO! They LOVED this story... and you know what? Me, too! How can you NOT love a story where the villian's teeth fall out in the end?

Craft: Make a Fish!
We have a fish Ellison die (which I used for Mitch, too), so I had that cut out in a rainbow of colors. Each kid got a fish, a popsicle stick, a googly eye, five "sparklies" (self-adhesive jewels, and access to a bunch of small construction paper shapes.

Not Norman: A Goldfish Story by Kelly Bennett
The craft didn't actually take as long as I thought it would, so rather than sending families home 5 minutes early, I read this story. Norman is a super cute fish and a really good pet - it just takes awhile for his owner to figure that out.

This week was SUCH a lift from last week... the kids loved the stories and so did I. I also removed some distracting objects (stacked chairs) from our room and I think that made a big difference for the drop-in families as well.

Now, I've got less than 24-hours to come up with a holiday flannel to share... so I gotta run! :D