Flannel Friday: The Cicadas are Coming

The cicadas are coming. I haven't seen any yet, but everyone tells me it's just a matter of time. I was pretty young the last time there was a big cicada season and I remember that they scared the bejesus out of me. The constant loud noises and the crunchy exoskeletons they left everywhere? I still get the shivers just thinking about it.

So I did what any rational person would do and I made a cicada flannel board for a story time about bugs. I think the end result is terrifying- cicadas should not be neon colors, but it also de-mystified the whole thing for the kids, and that's what it's really about. Also, I learned that cicadas had 5 eyes. How weird/cool is that?

We started with just a body...

And added the 6 legs, counting the whole time...

The two long upper wings for coverage...

And the two lower wings. Then we gave him the 2 big eyes on the sides of his head...

And the 3 small eyes in the middle. Then we laughed about what we would see if we had 5 eyes...

Finally we gave him his mouth sucker and made great slurping sounds to mimic how he would sound when he ate..

And just because we're not at all scared of this creepy crawly thing, we made him go away one piece at a time, Go Away Big Green Monster style.

Flannel Friday is hosted this week by Sarah at Read It Again! For more information on Flannel Friday, including where you can catch up on missed round-ups (I've been doing a lot of that lately) check out the official website.

Flannel Friday: And the Green Grass Grows

A few weeks ago, when I did a spring time themed story time, I came up with a flannel for the old folk song And the Green Grass Grows All Around. There were a few problems with scale, since the flannel pieces have to be small enough to fit a tree on the board and large enough so that a bug on a feather can be clearly seen.

I ended up telling the kids to pretend that I was the tree and then stood next to the flannel board so I could add the branch and have it look like it was a natural extension of my body. This is when the flannel apron that Cate at Storytiming came up with a while back would be super helpful.

We start with a branch...

 

 Add a nest...

And an egg...

The egg splits in half to reveal...

 The bird is attached to the bottom half of the bird.

What's a bird without a wing?

Or a wing without feathers?

A feather makes a perfect home for a bug.

And the green grass grows all around, all around. And the green grass grows all around.

Flannel Friday is hosted today by Kendra at Read Sing Play and for more Flannel Friday info, check out the official website.

Flannel Friday Round-Up

Happy Friday! Welcome to the very best part of anybody's Friday evening/Saturday Librarian morning shift- it's the Flannel Friday Round-Up!

Mrs. Shaia at Thrive After Three adapted Amy Krouse Rosenthal's Duck! Rabbit! That book is ALWAYS checked out at our branch and this is a great way to share it with a wider audience if that's the case at your library too. She even includes a bonus "same thing seen in different ways" flannel at the end!

Lisa from LibraryLand brings back her ever popular Pete the Cat flannel with lots of extra early literacy options. I love the shoes hanging from the clothesline.

Jane (and Piper) from Piper Loves the Library have another Pete the Cat flannel for us today. Her version of Four Groovy Buttons has a fantastic tie dyed shirt and some other add ons to supplement the patterns provided at the Harper Collins resource page.

Miss Tara at Storytime with Miss Tara and Friends has some great ideas for a spring themed story time. I have no idea what those adorable baby animals are and I'm super impressed that the story time kids did!

Kathryn from Fun with Friends at Storytime brings us two great ideas to use with one Mama Hen with a surprising lift-the-flap detail.

Better keep that Mama Hen away from K and Storytime ABCs! K gives us several ways to  use her very wiggly and colorful worms. Keep reading for more story time craft and snack ideas.

Bridget at What is Bridget Reading? celebrates National Poetry Month with a round-up of seven poems that she has previously flannelized. Make sure you stop by her blog and answer her challenge: How are YOU celebrating National Poetry Month?

Andrea from Librarian vs. Storytime brings us an I Spy game, looking for high flying things in the sky.

Linda at Notes from the Story Room has a version of The Fisherman and His Wife with the complete story (!) and suggestions for how to use the flannel pieces.

The Library Lady from Story Time with the Library Lady shows us a bunch of different ways to celebrate the wind and kites. She's got scarves and parachutes and crafts that fly!

Miss Courtney from Miss Courtney Loves Bobo has a flannel inspired by Byron Barton's My Car to pair with a Mother Goose on the Loose song.

Rachel from Rachel's Reading Room introduces us to a terrifying monster who just wants to eat shapes.

Abby at Abby the Librarian has a fun color sorting game using clothespins that also teaches an important safety lesson!

Miss Meg at Miss Meg's Storytime rings in spring (or at least asks spring to visit Wisconsin) with colorful butterflies AND a bonus flannel game a la Little Mouse featuring butterflies and caterpillars. 

And finally, I'm Lucy, this is my blog and I've got a colorful toolbox for you today with a flannelized version of Marilyn Singer's Let's Build a Clubhouse.

Flannel Friday: Let's Build a Clubhouse

Marilyn Singer wrote a pretty fantastic tool book called Let's Build a Clubhouse . Through rhyming text a group of kids go through the process of building their very own clubhouse using all sorts of different carpentry tools. The best, and most flannel-able aspect of her text is the fact that there is a common refrain throughout the book "Who's got the hammer (level, screws etc...)" followed by "(Child's name) has the hammer (level, screws etc...)!"

In the book there are specific names and illustrations of the kids coming through with the needed tool to save the day but when I do it, I pass out the flannel tools to the kids and have each one come up and put it on the board when it's their turn, substituting their name for the name in the book. If I don't know a child's name I simply go with "You've got the hammer (level, screws etc...)"

There are 11 tools in all, most of them are pretty common

like the hammer

or the screws

Others need a little introduction from me in addition to the text

like the level

 

and especially the plane (I explain it by saying it looks like a wonky shoe with two handles)

But eventually we get through it all and we have a wonderful, colorful toolbox on the board.

 

Since there are only 11 pieces and the book is a little long, this is best used as part of an outreach kit. I sometimes do it in bigger story times and then have kids who didn't get to put a piece up come take them down as we call out each tool and what it does one more time. 

I'm hosting Flannel Friday this week (it's my first time!) and as always you can find more Flannel Friday goodness at the official website.

Flannel Friday Place Holder

It's my first time hosting Flannel Friday and I am very, very excited!

      Leave a link in the comments below and I'll be sure to grab your entry for this week's Flannel Friday Round-Up!

Flannel Friday: Whose Hat is That?

I made this in about 15 minutes before story time on Thursday, I've had a bad procrastinating streak lately. When I get a chance I'll go back and make both a boy and a girl face so that there's a little more diversity in the dressing up- I realized after I had made it that there were 4 pretty stereotypical boy professions and 1 stereotypical girl profession (if you consider a witch a profession) and I'd like to switch it up a bit in the presentation.

Anyway we start with my friend Pete (aka Pete the Pirate from This Little Pirate) and I told the kids that Pete likes to dress up and pretend to be different people. He uses hats in his dress-up and we have to guess what Pete is going to be...

I run into fires to save the day, my bright red hat keeps me safe all the way!

Pete's a firefighter!

I ride a broom with a cat on the back, my hat is a triangle, pointy and black.

Pete's a witch!

I cook all day, I cook all night, my hat is big, puffy and white.

Pete's a chef!

And sometimes we know what Pete wants to dress up as, but we have to help him find the right hat.

I'm a king, I rule this town. I wear a special hat, it's called a....

CROWN!

Whether I'm catching a ball, or swinging a bat, on my head I've got a....

BASEBALL CAP!

And that's our hat game.

Flannel Friday is being hosted this week by Mollie Kay at What Happens in Storytime and as always, you can find more information about Flannel Friday (which just celebrated its second birthday!) at the official website.

Flannel Friday: Dig Into Summer Reading

Okay everyone, today we're going to dig a hole all the way to the center of the earth. Does everyone have their shovel? Okay good, let's get started. Dig, dig, dig.

The first layer we have to dig through is called the crust. It's what we're standing on right now. All the plants and grass grow on top of the crust and deeper down you'll find all sorts of cool rocks, fossils and precious stones like emeralds and rubies.*

Phew, now we're through the crust. Let me see those shovels because we're going to have to dig some more. Go on, let me see you dig.

Good, we're going to have to dig even more though because the next layer is called the mantle and it's the thickest. The mantle is 400 hundreds miles thick! Imagine if you got in a car and drove all the way to South Carolina**, has anyone ever been to South Carolina? It's a long ways away. Now imagine driving that far straight down. That's how thick the mantle is! So let's get out that shovel and keep digging...

YES! We got through the mantle! High five! But, uh-oh! The next layer of the earth is called the outer core and it's so hot down there that everything is liquid! It's like the molten lava that comes out of volcanoes but much much hotter. I hope you guys are wearing protective suits. You're not? Well, let's put them on now.

Suits on? Awesome. Okay, get out those shovels and keep digging. We have one layer left. Let's dig!

The last layer is called the inner core and it's even hotter than the out core! In fact, the inner core is as hot as the surface of the sun! Unlike the outer core, the inner core is completely solid because it's got everything else, the crust, the mantle and the outer core pressing in on it and making  it all stick together. Like when you're playing with play dough and you pack it into a really tight, tiny ball with your hands.

 Let's not stay here too long. I'm getting really hot. Now we could keep digging. And we'd go through the outer core and the mantle and the crust on the other side. But if we did that, do you know where we'd come out? Nope, not in China. We'd be in the middle of the Indian Ocean!*** I'm not that good of a swimmer though so let's go back the way we came.

What's this layer called? And this one? And this one? The last one? Good job, you guys, we traveled all the way to the center of the earth and back again! And now that we're back here on the surface, the crust, let's sing a song.

* You can use any facts that you want when talking about the different layers of the earth. This one is aimed at the interest/attention span of toddler and preschool. If I was going to take it to outreach, I'd get a little more technical.

** Northern South Carolina is about 400 miles from us and a lot of our kids have family in North and South Carolina. So pick whatever works for you to convey a very long distance. Driving for 6.5 hours would also work. Assuming an average speed of 60 mph.

*** There are some cool google map hacks that let you type in your zip code and then see where you'd pop out if you could dig a hole through the middle of the earth. But everywhere in continental North America puts you somewhere in the Indian Ocean. Alaska and Hawaii are more interesting.

Flannel Friday: Dig Into Summer Reading special edition is hosted today by Lisa at Libraryland and as always you can get more information about Flannel Friday at the official website. 

Flannel Friday: We're Going to the Zoo

We had a zoo themed story time a few weeks ago and using mostly pieces that I already had I was able to do an approximation of Rod Campbell's Dear Zoo, a book that I love and that we only have as a Chinese board book.

I started by telling the kids that I'd written the zoo a letter to ask for a pet. Then I described each animal that they sent me and asked them to guess what the animal was before I out it on the board.

The first animal they sent me was soooooo tall and he ate leaves all day long.

It was a... giraffe! But he didn't fit in my house so I had to send him back.



The next animal they sent me was big and heavy. He had a long trunk and big flapping ears.

It was an.... elephant! But he kept eating all the peanuts from the kitchen so I had to send him back.



The third animal they sent me had a loooooong tail and great big teeth that went CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP. 

It was an... alligator! But he scared my mom so I had to send him back.

So the people at the zoo thought long and hard. And the last animal they sent me was small and wriggly with a wagging tail and he went woof woof woof.

They sent me a... dog! And he was just right for me so I kept him!


I also used flannel versions of the elephant, a bear, a seal and a monkey to talk about all the animals that are in the Peter, Paul and Mommy version of Tom Paxton's "Daddy's Taking Us to the Zoo Tomorrow." We went over animal sounds and actions so that they would know what to do when we danced to the song.

Flannel Friday is hosted this week by K Leigh at Storytime ABCs. For more information on Flannel Friday visit the official website.

Flannel Friday: Mitten Mates

 The weather here has been sporadic; it's almost spring, but winter is still holding on with everything its got. So while it's still chilly enough outside for coats and gloves and hats I wanted to share one of our favorite flannel games- mitten mates.

I start with a bunch of single mittens up on the board, then I hand out their pairs to kids in the room and give everyone a good chance to see where their mate is.

The we sing the song. It's to the tune of Farmer in the Dell and goes like this 

"Each mitten has a mate

Each mitten has a mate

Can you find the pair?

You're looking here and everywhere,

Can you find the pair?"

If I know all of the names for the kids who are holding mittens I'll substitute their name into the song, inviting them to come up and put their mitten with its match. Otherwise pointing works just fine.

 

 When the song gets boring (sometimes you have to go through a few rounds to make sure everyone who wants to gets a chance to come up) I'll hand out all the mittens and start asking specific questions about the color and shapes of the mittens. So I'll ask for all the mittens with stripes on them and the four kids with these will come up.

Flannel Friday is hosted this week by Katie at Storytime Katie. Information on Flannel Friday (and the upcoming birthday celebration!) is at the official website.

Flannel Friday: A King Lives In a Castle

I really love Mary Ann Hoberman's A House Is a House for Me. I spent hours with that book when I was a kid, going through every single page and always finding something new in Betty Fraser's incredible illustrations and Hoberman's deceptively simple text. But as much as I love it, it's not a great story time book. It's too long for my crowd and the illustrations that I love get lost when viewed from a  distance. Still, I couldn't do a house themed story time without some nod to this favorite so what follows is my flannel homage.

A King lives in a castle

A ghost in a haunted house 

 And this little burrow deep in the ground

Is the perfect place for a mouse

 In the city people live in apartments

 

A bird makes his nest out of yarn

And all sorts of animals like cows and horses

Make their home in a barn

 

A hermit crab stays in his shell

An owl lives up in a tree

And a house, this very pink house,

Is the perfect place for me!

 

 This flannel set is also the champion of reusing previously made pieces.

The mouse and the pink house are from Little Mouse

The cow is from I Had a Rooster

The horse is from Book! Book! Book!

The owl is from Summer Night/Spooky Night

The tree is from Fall is Not Easy

Flannel Friday is being hosted this week by Anne at So Tomorrow. More information on Flannel Friday, including how you can get involved, can be found at the official website.