bugs! Bugs! BUGS!

BUGS!

Books shared or recommended:

Ant and the Caterpillar by Emberley
Bustle in the Bushes by Andreae
The Itsy Bitsy Spider by Trapani
There was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly by Taback
Two Bad Ants by Van Allsburg
Very Hungry Caterpillar Pop-Up by Carle

 

 We found bug parts in our storytime apron this month!

 

What is it?  Could it be an egg?  Is it a light bulb?  I don't know!

 

Is it a flower?

 

hmmmm...

 

Look!  It has six legs.  What has six legs?  Right!  A BUG!

What's missing?

 

Yes, the head with the two feelers.  Did you know that the feelers help bugs to see?
 

Let's sing and read a story about a spider.  They have eight legs, but we don't care!

 

 

 

 

 

The itsy bitsy spider climbed up the water spout.

Down came the rain and washed the spider out.

Out came the sun and dried up all the rain,

And the itsy bity spider climbed up the spout again.

The itsy bitsy spider climbed up the kitchen wall.

Swoosh! Went the fan and made the spider fall.

Off went the fan, no longer did it blow.

So the itsy bitsy spider back up the wall did go.

The itsy bitsy spider climbed up the yellow pail.

In came a mouse and flicked her with his tail.

Down fell the spider. The mouse ran out the door.

Then the itsy bitsy spider climbed up the pail once more.

The itsy bitsy spider climbed up the rocking chair.

Up jumped a cat and knocked her in the air.

Down plopped the cat and when he was asleep,

The itsy bitsy spider back up the chair did creep.

The itsy bitsy spider climbed up the maple tree.

She slipped on some dew and landed next to me.

Out came the sun and when the tree was dry,

The itsy bitsy spider gave it one more try.

The itsy bitsy spider climbed up without a stop.

She spun a silky web right at the very top.

She wove and she spun and when her web was done,

The itsy bitsy spider rested in the sun.

 

Then it's time for a flannel.  I flannelized the new book  Bustle in the Bushes and use it as a sort of guessing game for the children.  I read the poem and ask them:  "Who am I?"  Here goes:



My eyes are big and orange

And my body's black and fuzzy

And I fly around your house all day

Just being very buzzy!

Who am I?

 

A Fly!

 

Good guess!  The next one is really hard, but try!

We've got these two feelers

On top of our heads,

Which wiggle and help us to see,

And we scuttle around

Without making a sound.

Can you scuttle as quickly as me?

Who am I?

 

A Beetle!

I'd rather not be eaten

So I've got this brilliant trick.

I cling to leaves and branches

And pretend that I'm a stick!

Who am I?

 

A Stick Bug!

We like to work as an army

Which means that we do things together

Just watch as we carry

These leaves to our nest

You must admit that's pretty clever!

Who are we?

ANTS!

How many spots have I got?

Look at my back and you'll see.

I know that I've got...

Well, I've got quite a lot.

Why don't you count them for me?

Who am I?

 A Ladybug!

There's nothing better than being me.
You may think that sounds a bit funny.
But you'd shout hooray!
If you lived all day
In a hive full of heavenly honey!
Who am I?

 

A BEE!
I munch on the leaves in the garden.
Then slowly I spin a cocoon.
But now I must sleep
As I'm going to be beautiful soon!
Who am I?

 

 

 A CATERPILLAR!

 

 

 AND A BUTTERFLY!





 

So here are all of the bugs:

 

Then I bring out the rug and hide a bug:

 

 

Bug in the Rug

Put one of each kind of insect on the flannelboard, and put the rug at the top. Have the children look at and name all the bugs, then tell them to close their eyes.  (Sing:  Everybody close your eyes, close your eyes, close your eyes, everybody close your eyes, We’re not peeking.    Everybody keep them closed, keep them closed, keep them closed, everybody keep them closed, no one’s peeking!  Sung to the tune of London Bridge)  While they are not peeking, slip one of the bugs under the rug. Tell the children to open their eyes, and have them try to figure out which bug is missing. You could say a quick chant like, “Under the rug, under the rug, which little bug is under the rug?” Repeat this a few times with different bugs. Try sneaking two bugs under the rug!

 

IDEA:  Spider on the Floor Raffi song with scarves

Play the song and let the kids tickle themselves with the

“SPIDER SCARVES”

 

The Fuzzy Wuzzy Caterpillar

Fuzzy Wuzzy Caterpillar

(Wiggle your finger)

Into a corner creeps

(Make your finger creep)

He’ll spin himself a blanket

(Spin hands around each other)

And then fall fast asleep

(Mime sleep)

Fuzzy Wuzzy Caterpillar

(Wiggling finger)

Wakes up by and by

(Open eyes and stretch)

To find he has wings of beauty

(Wrists together, hands flap)

Changed to a butterfly!

(Fly away flapping)

(Use with a puppet if you like)

 

Use with a bee puppet:

Baby Bumblebee Song

I'm bringing home a baby bumblebee,

Won't my mommy be so proud of me,

 [Cup hands together as if holding bee.]

 I'm bringing home a baby bumblebee,

 Ouch! It stung me!

[Shake hands as if just stung.]

 I'm squishing up the baby bumblebee,

 Won't my mommy be so proud of me,

 ['Squish' bee between palms of hands.]

I'm squishing up a baby bumblebee,

Ooh! It's yucky!

[Open up hands to look at 'mess'.]

 

I'm wiping off the baby bumblebee,

Won't my mommy be so proud of me,

[Wipe hands off on shirt.]

 I'm wiping off the baby bumblebee,

 Now my mommy won't be mad at me!

[Hold hands up to show they are clean.]

 

ARR!!! We be Pirates!

Ahoy!  Pirates!

Books recommended or used:

Half Pint Pete by Bardhan-Quallen

Pajama Pirates by Kramer

Pirates don’t change diapers by Long

Pirates Go to School by Demas

Sloop John B:  A Pirate’s Tale by Jardine

Tough Boris by Fox

 

 

We find a pirate outfit in the apron pockets:  treasure map, scarf, earring, eye patch, treasure chest, binoculars!  I put it all on and then we read:

 

 

 

This is just a fun little book about young pirates!  Then we read:

 

 

Then it's time for a finger action rhyme:

Ten Little Pirates

Ten little pirates stood in a row

(Hold up ten fingers)

Their bowed their heads to the captain so!

(Lower and raise fingers)

They marched to the left;

They marched to the right.

They shouted “Yo Ho!”

(Cup hand by mouth)

And gave their captain a fright!

(Hands over heart)

 

 

 And then a sea-shanty-like action song:

The Day I Went to Sea Song

When I was one (hold up one finger)

I sucked my thumb (mock sucking it)

The day I went to sea.

I jumped aboard a pirate ship. (Jump)

And the captain said to me (point to self)

We’re going this way (lean, sway, right)

And that way (lean, sway, point left)

And forward and backward

Across the deep blue sea. (spin in circle)

When I was two, I tied my shoe,

When I was three, I scraped my knee

When I was four, I shut the door,

When I was five, I learned to dive…

 

 

Here's the flannel board :

 

 

 

 

This Old Pirate Song

This old pirate, has a hat

Where a skull and crossbones sat.

With an Aye, Aye, Aye, and an AARGH Matey!
(Salute three times, then fist in the air)

This old pirate sailed the sea!
(Make a wavy motion with your hand)

Additional verses:
This old pirate has a shirt
Wears it with a little dirt.

This old pirate has a hook,

Uses it to hold a book.

This old pirate has a map,

Keeps it handy in his lap.

This old pirate has a bird,

Barely knows a single word.

This old pirate has a ship,

Travels the world in a single trip.

This old pirate looking for treasure,

More than anyone can measure!

 

Polly the Pirate Parrot Puppet visits:

 

 

She teaches the children how to speak 'Pirate'!

All of the letters start with an A:  Ahoy!  Arrgh!  Avast!  Aye Aye!

Yay!  We're Pirates!

This storytime was boatloads of fun!

 

We're Goin' to the Zoo!

Books Shared or Recommended:

Color Zoo by Ehlert

Dear Zoo by Campbell
Elephant’s Wrestling Game by Sierra
From Head to Toe by Carle
Life-Size Zoo by Komiya
May I Bring A Friend? By De Regnier
Wild About You by Sierra
Zoolooking by Fox

We find Five little monkey finger puppets in the story time apron this month.  Where can we go to see monkies?  Yes, the jungle!  But, is there some place closer?  Yes!  The zoo!

I start out by reading Dear Zoo by Campbell.  This is a pop-up version and the children seem to love it as they often say, "Again!  Again!"  I point out that it's a made up story.  We don't go to the zoo to get pets!  We go to the zoo to look at animals and leave them there.  Then I show them Life-Size Zoo a book which is full of facts, and not made up (non-fiction).  We look at some of the life size photos of animals and I point out some of the facts. 

Then it's time for an action rhyme:

The elephants goes like this and like that.

He's terribly big (Hold hands up high)

And he's terribly fat!  (Hold hands wide)

He has no fingers, He has no toes!  (Wiggle them)

But, oh!  My goodness!  What a nose!

(Make your arms into the elephant's trunk)

Flannel Board Story:  Lou from the Zoo

I show the children the photo of the habitat of an animal.  Then I say, "My name is Lou.  (Point to self.)  I work at the Zoo.  (point south or wherever your zoo may be.)  I feed all of the animals.  (I point to the children!)  Can you guess who? 

Then I give them clues such as, I live in the trees and have a long tail and eat bananas.  I keep giving the clues even when a child guesses correctly so that everyone is on board.

Here is a picture of the 'habitats' which were randomly taken from an old book:

Here are the animals:

I actually hold up the animals, covered by their habitat, one at a time.

Puppet time!  I get the five monkies onto my fingers and have the children show me their five monkies and the other hand becomes 'Mr Crocodile' or 'Mr Alligator', whatever they are used to calling the animal in this rhyme:

Five little monkies swinging in a tree.

Teasing Mr. Crocodile, 'You can't catch me!'

Along came Mr. Crocodile, quiet as can be,

And SNAPPED that monkey right out of the tree!

Now it's time to say good-bye!  Say good-bye!   Say good-bye!

Now it's time to say good-bye!  I'll see you in the bookmobile!



Frogs!

Frogs!  Frogs!  Frogs!

Books Shared or Recommended:

Burris           Five Green and Speckled Frogs

Faulkner      The Wide-Mouthed Frog
Kalan            Jump, Frog, Jump
London        Froggy Gets Dressed
Seeger         The Foolish Frog
Whippo       Little White Duck

We find frogs, a fly, and a log in the storytime apron this month!

One of the frogs lost a goggly eye, so we call him 'Winky'! 

Five Green and Speckled Frogs

Sat on a hollowed log,

Eating some most delicious bugs.  Yum!  Yum!

One jumped into a pool,  

Where it was nice and cool.

Then there were four green speckled frogs.

Glub, Glub!

Repeat until there are no more frogs.
The children can make their forearms into logs and five fingers of the other hand into frogs.
 

 Then I read the pop-up book, The Wide-Mouthed Frog.

 

 

Little Frog

A little frog in a pond am I, (Form frog with fist)

Hippity, hippity, hop.  (Jump that fist!)

And I can jump into the air so high, (up it goes)

Hippity, hippity, hop.  (Repeat jumping motion)

 

 

IN THE POND
Tune: "The Farmer In The Dell"
 
The frog lives in the pond,
His tongue is oh so long.
It reaches high to catch a fly
And then he sings this song.

Ribbit, ribbit, ribbit
Ribbit, ribbit, ribbit
High, ho just watch him go
His tongue is oh so long!

 

Little Froggy

See the little froggy swimming in the pool.
The water is great, It's nice and cool.
When he gets all cleaned up, out he'll hop.
Squeaky clean from bottom to top.
(point to your head and toes)
See the little froggy on the lily pad.
Trying to catch flies, she's getting sad.
When she catches one she'll gobble it up.
Back in the water she'll go KERPLOP!

 

 

Then it's time for a visit from the puppets!  I tell the story of The Princess and the Frog.

A princess loves to play catch with her golden ball, but it falls into a well.  She cries.  A frog says that he can help her but what will she give him?  The frog doesn't want her dresses, her jewels, or her ball.  He wants her to love him and be his friend always.  She promises.  Anything to get her ball back!  But when the frog brings it up, the princess runs away.  She didn't even say 'thank you'!

Next day, the frog comes to the castle.  The King, her father, makes the princess do as she promised.

You can find this complete story in the 398.2ish section of your library.

Then the frog turns into a handsome prince and they are so happy that they get married and live happily ever after! 

 

The End!

 

Fourth of July Parade!

We marched in our city's Fourth of July Parade!  It was a blast and easy to do!  I would encourage you other bookmobile librarians out there to give it a try!


Here's what we did:We decorated the bookmobile, of course.  That is, we added crepe paper, flags and literary characters such as the wild things you can barely see in this photo:

 



We had about 15 people total.  A few were volunteers but most were library workers.  Several dressed up as fictional characters.





The Cat in the Hat pulled Thing 1 and Thing 2 (his two daughters) in a wagon--until one of the wheels fell off one block into the parade.  The wagon was thrown into the bookmobile, along with Thing 1 and Thing 2.  Thing 1 eventually walked with her Papa, but Thing 2, being only two years old, rode shot gun with my daughter and eventually fell asleep.  Here is a photo before the wheels fell off:



Here is a photo of my daughter and our dog Pearl, riding shotgun:



Little Red Riding Hood passed out library bookmarks.  The evil witch teased people with her poisoned apple.  Snow White was part of the library book cart drill team of which there were four total.  They did not rehearse until just before the start of the parade.  They had four moves which were started with the blast from a whistle.  Very easy and fun, except you need a little physical stamina!

  Here is a photo of my husband dressed up for his book cart drill team fun:

 

This was such a blast!  The only problem was that the parade went too quickly!  Try to get into a parade if your community has one.  It's great outreach for the library.  I can't tell you how many kids shouted out "Miss Leslie!"  or "Library Lady!" or plain old "Bookmo!".  A great time was had by all.

 





Gardens!

Used and Recommended Books:

Flower Garden by Eve bunting

Isabella’s Garden by Millard
Jo MacDonald Had a Garden by Quattlebaum
My Garden by Henkes
Over in the Meadow by Langstaff
Pickin’ Peas by MacDonald
Planting a Rainbow by Ehlert
Swirl by Swirl by Sidman
Titch by Hutchins
Up, Down, and Around by Ayres

We found flowers and vegetables in the Storytime Apron's pockets this month.  I ask, "Where do you find these things?"  One response was, "Your pockets!"  Clever children.  One also said, "The grocery store!"  The answer I was looking for was, of course, the garden!

 

I start by reading Pickin' Peas by MacDonald.  This is a fun story about a little girl who grows peas in her garden and a rabbit visits.

 

Action Song:  Plant a Little Seed

I plant a little seed in the cold, cold ground.

Up comes the yellow sun, big and round.

Down comes the rain drops soft and slow.

Up comes the flowers, grow, grow, grow.

 

Flower Garden Action Rhyme:

One little flower growing just for you!

Up pops another and then there are:  two!

Two little flowers growing by a tree.

Up grows another and then there are:  three!

Three little flowers, growing more and more!

Up comes another and then there are:  four!

Four little flowers!  Look, they're alive!

Up grows another, and then there are five!

 

Then it's time for a pupet to visit!

I tell the story of Gail, the Snail.

Gail the Snail

This story is about Gail the Snail.  Can you say hi to gail?  Tha snail carries her house on her back and that’s one reason why they go so slow.  It’s a lot of weight.  Imagine if you had to carry your house on your backi?  Or even your bed…How heavy that would be!

Well, Gail was an ordinary snail.  She lived in the garden and she liked to look for things to eat like rotting flowers and green leaves.  Well, one day she wanted to go to the pond so she creeped along because that’s what snails do, they creep along.  Can you help her creep along?  Creep creep creep.

 

Well, along came her friend Chuck the Duck, who was waddling along.  Hi let’s go down to the pond.  Come waddling with me!  Gail says that she can't waddle!  Chuck likes waddling so much that he sings a song, waddling to the pnd:  "I'm waddling, I'm waddling, I'm waddling and singing my song!"

 

The Myrtle the Turtle walked along and the same thing happens (Let's walk!   I can't walk!  I'm walking... and believe it or not, Myrtle was faster than Gail the Snail!").



Then Lady the bug flew  by with the same story line.



All of gail’s friend were down at the pond. 

Then over head came a big shadow…It was Joe the Crow.  What a tasty snack!  But Gail went into her shell and Joe said…where’d she go?  All I see is a rock!

 

 Gail peeks out and asks the children, "Is he gone?"  "Oh good!  I guess I'm glad that I carry my house on my back!"  Then Gail sings, " I’m creeping!  I'm creeping!  I'm creeping and singing my song!"  She made it down to the pond and had a pond party with all of her friends!