Family Storytime: Building

For this storytime I figured we’d try to keep in line with our Summer Reading theme of Build a Better World and focus on all things building and construction.

Here’s what we did:

I always start with just about the same warm ups:

• Song – Top of the Morning
  • This is a good song to warm up with because we stretch all the parts we will be using in storytime. Eyes, arms, legs, mouth, nose.
• Rhyme – Say Hello
  • I love this rhyme. Everyone claps along and at the end we say hello how ever I tell them to. Loud, soft, quick, slow.
• Song – Tap Your Toes and Follow Me by Susan Salidor
  • This is just a easy song with simple movements to get us warmed up.
• Movement Exercise – Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes
  • Now that we are warmed up we get moving with this classic. Do it three times faster and faster each time.

From here we get into our theme.

• ASL – Summer. Read. Build.
  • I like to teach my my kids a few American Sign Language signs at the start of every storytime. This helps foster communication and with a large deaf community in our town it’s a great tool to have.
• Movement Exercise – Cranes
  • We pretended we moved like cranes; reaching up high and low and all around. You can find the words at: Jen in the library.
• Story – Rex Wrecks It! By Ben Clanton
  • Kids can always relate to building things and then knocking them down. I love this one because you know what’s coming and so do the kids.
• Song -Shake my Sillies Out
  • By this time we were ready to get our wiggles out so I played this classic and we shook out all the sillies.
• Rhyme w/ Prop – Five Little Nails
  • I made my own version from Mel’s Desk. This was such an easy and awesome prop!
    
• Flannel Board – Construction Countdown by K.C. Olson
  • I actually created my own flannel board using the vehicles listed in the book. We counted 10 dump trucks, 9 cement mixers, etc. Counting is popular with this crew.
• Game – Sleeping sleeping sleeping all the children were sleeping
  • This is a game my mom uses when she nannies. Basically, you put the kids to sleep:
    • Sleeping, sleeping all my friends were sleeping. And when they woke up they were… (name an animal to act out).
  • Don’t forget to turn them back to good boys and girls at the end!
• Story – Goodnight, Goodnight Construction Site by Sherri Duskey Rinkey and Tom Lichtenheld
  • This is a longer one then I normally do but I cut down on how many vehicles we say goodnight to.
• Movement w/ Scarves – Toss Your Scarves
  • Simple rhyme and lets us use our scarves more than once.
• Song w/ Scarves – Let’s Go Fly A Kite (yes the Mary Poppins song 🙂
  • I pass out scarves and we pretend they are kites while we sing along.

Finally, I always end with the same three things:

• Movement Exercise – If You’re Happy and You Know It
  • I tell the kids that I want to know how happy they are.
• Rhyme – Say Goodbye
  • This is the same rhyme we started with, so the new guys are familiar with it by the end of storytime.
• Song – Goodbye, So Long, Farewell my Friends by Music Together
  • I always put this one on as I go to open the door. Its a nice, slow, peaceful song to wind down on.

How’d it go: This one started off really great. We got a little fussy toward the end so I barely read any of Goodnight, Goodnight Construction Site and pretty much went straight to the scarf song. With a big crew like this it is good to have lots of songs and movements ready just in case we can’t sit still.

That’s all for now!

-M-

Author: MarandaLee

Children's Librarian. Connoisseur of all things bookish. View all posts by MarandaLee