I completely forgot about the Valentine’s Day Extravaganza, so here are a few winter ideas. I’ll post Valentine’s Day next week so hopefully those interested will still have time to make their felt board sets before Valentine’s Day storytimes begin.
This week I did winter stories for my programs at the library. Back in December when I began planning my themes for January and February a winter/snow theme seemed like a good idea. Of course we’ve barely had any snow this winter (a crazy novelty here in the outer Cleveland suberbs where we find our selves subjected to lake effect snow every winter and into the spring).
We started by talking about things that are white, like snow. I was excied to use my new color themed sets for this activity. I put up a picture for the toddlers and they told me what it was. For the older crowd I had them suggest things that were white like snow and added the felt piece if I had it, or gave them hints to lead to an answer that I did have a felt version of.
Then we did a 5 Little Snowmen counting poem and feltboard to get the storytime started.
Five Little Snowmen
5 little snowmen standing round my door,
This one melted and then there were 4.
4 little snowmen beneath a tree,
This one melted and then there were 3.
3 little snowmen all have mittens blue.
This one melted and then there were 2.
2 little snowmen standing in the room,
This one melted and then there was 1.
1 little snowman wanted to run.
But he melted away and then there were none.
After reading a book about snow, I got out a large 12×12 sheet of white paper and folded it daigonally a few times. Then I grabbed my scisors and asked the kids to tell me what they had to wear to keep warm when they went outside in the winter. So hey suggested hats, mittens, snowpants, scarves, jackets, sometimes I get ear muffs as a suggestion. So as they say these articles of clothing I cut them out of my folded paper and layout the cut out shape on the floor in front of me. Afterwards I say, “what do you hope to see coming down from the sky after you get all bundled up to go outside, so you can play in it?” Then I open up the folded paper to reveal a snowflake. This is such a simple activity to do but it is always recived with so much enthusuasim and amazement by the little ones.
After our last book I did a feltboard called Snowman Snowman What Do You See? obviously inspired by Brown Bear Brown Bear What Do You See? there are many different versions of this. I based mine off an old card I found in our library poems stash of index cards. I begin by putting the plain snowman on the felt board and ask the kids what we need to do to make him fancier. They say something like a carrot nose or arms. Then we start the poem.
I made this snowman several years ago, when I was still kind of new at making felt boards, Someday I will update him to do the details in paint instead of permanent marker, but for now here he is 🙂
Snowman Snowman What Do You See?
Snowman, snowman what do you see?
I see brown branches comming towards me. (add as arms to snowman)
…I see a green hat…
…pink mittens…
…red boots…
…a yellow scarf…
…a purple pipe…
…an orange carrot… (add as nose)
…a blue broom
So at least the kids had a chance to “make” snowman in storytime even if they can’t do it outside. I did see one valiant attempt at building a snowman a few weeks ago when we had a light dusting. The snowman creator actually managed to make a decent sized snowman although it was all brown and mostly made of mud!
You can find the rest of the Flannel Friday ideas at Anna’s blog Future Librarian Super Hero
Busy Crafting Mommy 