Activity: We're Going on a Bug Hunt

This past Friday, I shared some colorful and sparkly bugs for the Flannel Friday Round-up. I used them for several activities and songs during my Family Storytime on Thursday night and the little ones really loved them.

Here is one of the fun activities we did with them:

We're Going on a Bug Hunt!

Chorus:

We're going on a bug hunt!

We're going to catch a big one!

What a sunny day!

Are you ready? 

Okay!

Verses:

Oh, my! A ladybug!

A red and black ladybug

Crawling on a leaf.

Crawl, crawl, crawl!

Repeat chorus.

Oh, my! A firefly!

A brown and yellow firefly

Flickering in the sky.

Flicker, flicker, flicker! 

Repeat chorus.

Oh, my! A bumblebee!

A black and yellow bumblebee

Buzzing through the air.

Buzz, buzz, buzz!

Repeat chorus.

Oh, my! A grasshopper! 

A big, green grasshopper

Hopping through the grass.

Hop, hop, hop!

Repeat chorus.

Oh, my! A dragonfly!

A shimmery, purple dragonfly

Darting across the sky.

Dart, dart, dart!

Repeat chorus.

Oh, my! A butterfly!

A beautiful, orange butterfly

Fluttering through the air.

Flutter, flutter, flutter!

Repeat chorus.

Oh, my! A spider!

A huge, black spider

Spinning on its web!

Spin, spin, spin!

I think it is time to go home now!

Bye, huge, black spider!

Bye, beautiful, orange butterfly!

Bye, shimmery, purple dragonfly!

Bye, big, green grasshopper!

Bye, black and yellow bumblebee!

Bye, brown and yellow firefly!

Bye, red and black ladybug!

See you on our next bug hunt!

I hope you enjoy going on a Bug Hunt with your child/ren! For more learning with Bugs, be sure to check out the Bugs ABC'S Blog Hop. 

You'll find suggestions for Activities, Books, Crafts, and Snacks that are all about creepy-crawling BUGS and flying-through-the-sky BUGS!

Enjoy! And, as always,

HAPPY READING TOGETHER!

"Not a Flannel" Friday: Penguins, Penguins, Everywhere!

It is finally time for some Penguin Fun at my Family Storytime so I thought I would share some of the fun with you, too.

I actually have several penguin activities to share.
Let's start with a playful rhyme that allows you to use ordinal numbers with your little ones, as well as counting up and counting down with a little help from our cute black and white friends.

Five Little Penguins 



Five little penguins,

As happy as could be,

Standing on a rock, 

Looking out at sea.

Crash! Went the waves,

Oh, what a din!

Said the first little penguin,

"Shall we all jump in?"

Said the second little penguin,

"The water's like ice."

Said the third little penguin,

"That's not so nice."

Said the fourth little penguin,

"Let's bask in the sun."

Said the fifth little penguin,

"Hey, that's no fun!"

So the five little penguins

Take a leap and dive 

And splash into the water,

1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5.

Three seconds later, 

Out they all pop.

And stand once again

Atop the big rock.

5 - 4 - 3 - 2 - 1.

Yay!

Our second activity is a good one to use with a simple penguin puppet. It is easy to make a puppet for each child by photocopying a small penguin, cutting it out, and taping it to a popsicle stick. 

Or if you have a Ellison diecut machine and a penguin diecut, it is even easier to make a puppet for each storytime friend. ;-)

This activity allows you to demonstrate positional words with even the youngest storytime participants ~ just have the adult do the motions with the puppet for their child.

The Penguins

The penguins are here; the penguins are there.

The penguins, the penguins are everywhere.

The penguins are up; the penguins are down.

The penguins, the penguins are all around.

The penguins are in; the penguins are out.

The penguins, the penguins are all about.

The penguins are low; the penguins are high.

The penguins, the penguins all say "goodbye"!

Another activity that I use with my Penguins, Penguins, Everywhere storytime is the flannel set that I shared a few weeks ago: 

There Was a Little Penguin
(Click on the title for a link to my post.)

For our craft, we made Adorable Penguin Hats so that the children could pretend to be penguins and waddle around in our last two activities.

Adorable Penguin

I'm a little penguin

Black and white,

Short and wobbly,

An adorable sight!

I can't fly at all,

But I love to swim.

So I'll waddle to the water 

And dive right in!

For this rhyme, I teach the sign for penguin, black, and white. We also do motions for "short and wobbly", "fly", "swim", "waddle", and "dive". This particular activity gets numerous requests for repeating it. I usually plan to do it 2 to 3 times. The repetition will help the little ones remember the rhyme so that they can continue to "be penguins" at home. I also send home a flyer with the words and I post them on my library's Facebook page for easy accessibility.

Our last rhyme was also fun to do together with lots more waddling and diving.

Penguin Cheer

I like fishies.
Yes, I do!
When I want fishies,
Here's what I do.
One, two, three...
SPLASH!

And finally, here is a picture of one of my storytime friends in her Adorable Penguin Hat. 

She is so precious!

HAPPY READING TOGETHER!

Here’s Flannel Friday information for this week:

This week’s Flannel Friday roundup is hosted by Katie.

Round up archives and host schedule is at So Tomorrow.

Visually scan all the Flannel Friday posts at Pinterest.

Talk about storytime and flannelboards at the Flannel Friday Facebook Page. Be sure to checkout my Flannel Friday Comment Challenge on the facebook page. This is the fourth week and I am offering an incentitive!

Follow Flannel Friday on Twitter with the #flannelfriday hashtag. (You don’t have to be on Twitter to check this out.)

And, last but not least, if you’re a contributor, there is an awesome blog button from Melissa and you can grab it from the right hand menu at Mel’s Desk!

Flannel Friday: Magical Rainbow Stew

Rainbows are MAGICAL ~ in and of themselves ~ but this activity will have your storytime friends asking, "How did you do that? Is it magic?"

This week's Flannel Friday is my version of:

 Rainbow Stew

Items needed:

Flannel or Magnetic board

Cauldron or "pot" of some sort

Spoon 

(for stirring)

Colorful fruits 

(made from felt, fun foam or a set of artificial fruit)

Rainbow pieces

(made from felt or fun foam)

We will get to the song in a few minutes but, first, let me explain how I set the activity up and present it ~ in as magical a way as possible...

Before the storytime starts, I place the rainbow pieces inside the "pot".

I start the activity by asking the children to help me name the different fruits
as I add them to the board. 

We then practice our color signs for each fruit.

The children should see only an "empty pot" with a stirring spoon throughout the song.

Now we are ready for the song. Please click on the song title for a copy of the words without the pictures.

 Rainbow Stew

(Sung to: "Jimmy Crack Corn")

"Take an apple"

"Put it in the pot."

"Stir it, stir it, stir it a lot."

"Take it out now. What will it be? The prettiest red you ever did see!"
(Place red rainbow piece on the board with dramatic flair.)

Continue the song ~ taking one fruit at a time off the board, placing it in the pot, stirring with the spoon, and then placing the appropriate rainbow piece on the board. 

"Take the grapes and put them in the pot. Stir it, stir it, stir it a lot."



"Take it out now. What will it be? The prettiest purple you ever did see!"


By this time, the children are wide-eyed and usually yelling, "It's a rainbow!" So I congratulate them on helping to magically make a beautiful rainbow from our Rainbow Stew recipe. Then we finish up with this rhyme:

Rainbow Colors

Rainbow purple,

Rainbow blue,

Rainbow green,

And yellow, too. 

Rainbow orange,

Rainbow red,

Rainbow smiling overhead.

Come and count the colors with me.

How many colors do you see?

1-2-3

Up to green

4-5-6

Colors are seen.

I also have a magnetic board version of this song. The rainbow pieces are made from Fun Foam.

The foam pieces have several magnets on the back to make it easier to place them together as a rainbow.

The fruit pieces that I use are artificial fruits that can be found at Michael's or Wal-Mart. I prefer to buy them at Michael's with a 40% off coupon. *Wink*

I have yet to find a blueberry so I made my own by painting a small wooden ball. It has worked just fine. (If you look closely, you can see it by the pear and grapes in the picture above.)

As you may have noticed in the picture, I use this activity with the book, Lunch, written by Denise Fleming. I have several learning activities for this book that I will be sharing in the near future. One is a cute mouse puppet or hat ~ depending on how you want to use it. 

I have also used this activity for a storytime on Spring, Weather, Colors, Fruits and Vegetables, or even Leprechauns and St Patrick's Day. Each time I use it, the children have a BLAST!

I also like to change up how we stir so that I can include sizes and following directions as part of my storytime learning. For example, when it is time for the blueberry, I talk about how small it is. I ask, " Do you think we can get any color from something so small?" We try and it doesn't work. Instead of the blue rainbow piece coming out of the pot after stirring, I just take the blueberry out and act sad and curious. "No blue! It's just the berry. How can we get the blue out? Maybe if we stir really fast? Are you ready? Can you stir fast, fast, fast?" I re-sing that verse and stir fast. Then when the blue rainbow piece appears, we all clap! So much fun!

No matter how many times a child has seen this activity, s/he still participates and has fun.

Thank you for stopping by my blog for another Flannel Friday post. I hope you find many opportunities to share a little Rainbow MAGIC with a child in your life!

HAPPY READING TOGETHER!

By the way, here’s Flannel Friday information for this week:

Andrea has the round up at Roving Fiddlehead Kidlit.

Round up archives and host schedule is at So Tomorrow.

Visually scan all the Flannel Friday posts at Pinterest.

Talk about storytime and flannelboards at the Flannel Friday Facebook Page. Be sure to checkout my Flannel Friday Comment Challenge on the facebook page. This is the second week and I am offering an incentitive!

Follow Flannel Friday on Twitter with the #flannelfriday hashtag. (You don’t have to be on Twitter to check this out.)

And, last but not least, if you’re a contributor, there is an awesome blog button from Melissa and you can grab it from the right hand menu at Mel’s Desk!

Flannel Friday: There Was a Little Penguin

My love affair with penguins began  years ago when I was teaching my very first preschool classes. I used to visit my local library every week  to collect new books (on our weekly themes) for my class to enjoy. 


This particular day, I was looking for books on individuality. 

Boy, did I find the perfect one! 
It was:

I was IN LOVE from the very first page! Tacky was AWESOME! He was cute and cuddly but, best of all, he was DIFFERENT! 

I took Tacky to my classroom and he soon became everyone's favorite. We read about Tacky and then we read about real penguins. We pretended to be Tacky ~ waddling all around the playground and singing our own made-up songs. We counted our penguin friends; we played in the "snow" at the water table; and we even made our very own Tacky to take home ~ each one delightfully different from all the others!

It was a glorious week of learning about penguins but also about learning to be happy with being ourselves ~ just like Tacky!

Ever since I first read those final words on the last page of the book ~ "Tacky was an ... " ~  Oh, wait! If you haven't read the book, I don't want to spoil it for you. Just take my word for it! Tacky the Penguin is a true one-of-a-kind, there-is-noone-else-like-him kind of friend! 

I hope you will check him out at your library and share him with your own budding individualist(s).

In the meantime, I would like to share a fun flannel board activity with you: 

There was a Little Penguin

(A penguin version of "There was a Little Turtle")

(Click on the title above for the words without pictures.)

There was a little penguin

Who waddled when she walked.

She swam in the ocean,

And she climbed on some rocks.

(Before placing the penguin on the board, make her waddle, swim, and climb.) 

She snapped at seagull.

(After placing the seagull on the board, snap hands together one time.)

She snapped at a seal.

 (After placing the seal on the board, snap hands together one time.)

She snapped at a fish.

 (After placing the fish on the board, snap hands together one time.)

Mmmmm, what a meal! 

(After moving the fish over to the penguin, rub your tummy.) 

(I am thinking about making my fish smaller but for now he is one ENORMOUS, yummy meal. ;-)

Since my first meeting with my wonderful friend, Tacky, there are been several more books written about him. They are all fun, silly adventures that I wholeheartedly recommend sharing with friends...

But MY favorite will always be the original,

Tacky the Penguin!

  

**This post is brought to you in celebration of Flannel Friday! 

It is being hosted this week by Anne at So Tomorrow. Thank you, Anne! 

Be sure to visit the beautiful Flannel Friday Pinterest account. So Tomorrow has past roundups and future hosting schedule, as well.

HAPPY READING TOGETHER!