Bunny Stories

Oh my goodness, there are so many wonderful bunny stories to tell. Obviously, the rabbit books are popular with little ones at Easter, but how about reading Guess How Much I Love You for Mother's Day, or Muncha Muncha Muncha in late spring when the garden starts to sprout?  Finish up the story hour with a cute wiggle-ear toy paper rabbit.

Owl Babies

I've tried checking books out to students for the summer, and with my school population, it didn't work out too well. Too many of my kiddos move unexpectedly, or travel long distances between family members. As a result, I must find interesting and meaningful activities for the kids to complete during the times when they would ordinarily be browsing. One such project is making these cute Owl Baby puppets out of envelopes. The kids love puppets of any kind, and these are fun to color and personify. I use them with the following books:

And here's how to make the owl handpuppets:

You can download the envelope file for printing HERE (microsoft Publisher) or HERE (PDF)

Abc Order

I have so many favorite Alphabet books! At this point in the year, I like to think that most of my kindergartners have mastered the letter names and sounds, and are ready to master other skills related to the alphabet, namely putting the letters in alphabetical order.

 To this end, today we will play an active little whole-brain game that I call Too far, not far enough...
The Rules:
 Post an alphabet strip on both sides of the room. (Older kids won't need this)
 Choose one child to be "it". They turn their back to the whiteboard(to start, choose one who is pretty confident with ABC order)
 I write a letter on the whiteboard (eg; "F")
 "it" guesses a letter. (eg; "S") Class jumps up. (S is "too far")
 "it" guesses again. (eg; D) Class squats down (the guess is "not far enough" or occurs too early in the alphabet.
Play continues until "it" guesses the correct letter.


I also use an ipod app that has draw-by-number AND draw-by-ABC order connect-the dot puzzles.
 It's called Kids Connect.  The kids love a chance to play with the ipods.  The letters and numbers are teensy weensy, but that doesn't seem to be a problem for anyone but me!

Pancakes For Supper : A springtime story

I love the first day of spring.  It's my anniversary, and When the winter has been particularly dreary, the Vernal Equinox reminds me that summer will be right around the corner. 

A great story for the first day of spring is Pancakes For Supper by Anne Isaac's, with fantastic illustrations from Mark Teague.. It's early spring and the sap is running.  Poor Toby has been bounced off the wagon and is lost in the woods, where wild animals want to eat her up.  She manages to trade various items of her new clothing for her freedom.  Ultimately, the animals argue over which one looks the best in the finery.  They chase each other around a tree so fiercely that they melt.  The maple tree wakes and the maple sap begins to run.  Toby is able to get all her new clothes back and the family enjoys a big pancake supper with maple syrup.

This story is a cute retelling of Little Black Sambo, a story that has been exiled from most library shelves long ago, due to its racial insensitivity.  Isaac's version is well-told, and more suitable. It is especially appealing to my audience, since the animals involved are all Montana residents.  It has all the elements I love in a read-aloud story: repeating phrases, embedded songs, and lots of different characters for me to make up voices for!

I plan to have my kindergartners make animal spinners as a special story-time prize to take home. They will cut out the animal "wheel" and glue it to the top of an old CD that I have prepared ahead of time.  Making a spinning toy from an old CD and a penny is a trick I learned from this wonderful website from India. They will love playing with their spinning animals! 

PDF for Pancakes for supper

All the Ants Wear Green Pants on St. Patrick's Day.

(Illustration from Stephen Sheen's delightful story: Miggie Gets Some Pants)

One of the more ridiculous and amusing activities I roll out every March is my kindergarten rhyming emergent reader about animals getting dressed for St. Patrick's Day.  I like to sing the rhymes to the tune of (Mary Had a Little Lamb)
I have a "big" flannel board version of the rhyme that I made.  The kids love dressing the animals as we sing.

All the ants wear green pants, wear green pants, wear green pantsAll the ants wear green pants for St. Patrick's Day

The ants wear green pants...
The pigs wear green wigs...
The cats wear green hats...

and... you get the idea.

The kids have trouble with the crows (bows) and the ewes (shoes), but they love learning new words.
Print the poem in a fold-able quarter-page sized book here:
odd pages  even pages


Other activities related to the holiday include
3rd/4th grade: writing "Green Poetry" in Word, then formatting and adding clip art.
2nd grade:  drawing leprechauns according to a glyph

The Little Orange House- A story to cut & tell

Storytelling is a lot of fun, but when a child tells a story, there are important skills being developed, such as sequencing, oral expression, fluency, memory, and vocabulary. Additionally, sharing stories grows confidence and builds relationships. I try to offer many varied opportunities for students to tell stories in the library. I learned the story of the Little Orange House when I was young, and have retold it many times over the years, to the delight and surprise of the kids. They practice telling the story to each other, and then (with any luck) they will retell the story enough times outside of school to make the story their own. I made the template below so that my littlest students can get a little help from their grown-ups. Even kindergartners can tell this story if they get started cutting on the folded end of the paper! To download a template, click HERE. You will notice that the instructions are printed upside down, this is an effort to get folks to cut UP from the FOLD.

Kindergarten Writing Folders

I have two little groups of Kindergarteners who visit me for half an hour each. I am supposed to be offering enrichment activities. I've been having them practice their writing. The invented spelling they use is so adorable. For inspiration on best practices, Ive been using Marvelous MiniLessons for Teaching Beginning Writing, k-3 (Rog) I wanted an idea board inside each child's folder, so I made the one you see above.

Kindergarten Computer Skills

The Kindergartners LOVE to use the computers. I have a number of sites that I direct them to from my webpage, but I mostly like to teach them creative skills. I start the year by reading Lunch, by Denise Fleming.

This is a fun, simple and quick story about a little mouse who makes a colorful mess. I then show them how to make a "Mouse Mess" of their own using TuxPaint on the computer. I encourage them to use a lot of different colors and brush styles, jsut to practice using the mouse. For many of them, thisis their first experience using a computer.

I give them each a little paper mouse to take home... a computer mouse on one side, and a storybook mouse on the other. The dots you see represent the stickers I place on the Left Click side of the mouse, so the kids know where to rest their index finger.

A pdf of the mouse pattern can be found HERE.

Treasure State Nominee Voicethread

Every year, librarians and teachers all over the state share 5 special books with their students. These books are the nominees for the Treasure state Award, given by the Montana Library Association with the help of thousands of little students in the primary grades who vote on their favorite.
I like to create a Voicethread, where students can record their thoughts about the books as we go along. I feel that it is very good practice for students to use technology to develop their thinking and speaking skills. This project is open to the public, so if you'd like to leave a comment on the thread, we would welcome your addition!
I have found that Voicethread also has a nice app for ipad or ipods.  It's super easy to record video on the mobile gadgets.  I have found however, that one must create the original thread on their regular website, or the audio might not save properly for some reason.  Not a problem, but I had to find out the hard way.

Martin Luther King Day

Sometimes I wonder if its a good idea to have a break from school on this important date. I worry that it will go unmarked by schools, much like Labor Day or Veterans Day. This year, I needn't have worried. Quotes from Dr. King lined the hallways, student art marked the occasion, and volunteers from the Jeanette Rankin Peace Center came to read to the children and lead discussions.

In the library, we read "The Sneetches" by Dr. Seuss. Even my youngest listeners can connect this story to the injustice and prejudice that they have learned about in the classrooms. I have asset of Sneetches made of soft yellow plush for the children to cuddle. One has a star, and one is without ( I had to give it a Star-ectomy after I bought it)

Older kids use the ReadWriteThink "Found Poetry" tool from the National Council for Teachers of English. With this tool, students take the words of Dr. Martin Luther King's "I Have A Dream" speech, and create original poetry from them. The older kids can do a screen capture, then crop the poem for their blogs, assuming the testing schedule will allow us to use the lab!

There is an iPhone app version of this tool, but I don't know if I want to do the downloading. It's going to be a busy week, with my upcoming SPACE NIGHT CELEBRATION. Stay tuned!