Polar Animals

I know what you're going to say.  Polar bears and penguins aren't at the same pole.  I know that.  Even though it may be implied, I think I do try to make that distinction when we read these books.

Mama, Do You Love Me? by Barbara M. Joose. While not immediately obvious, yes, this does at least mention polar bears. A little girl mentions all these things that could happen and asks her mother if she'd still love her, and of course, the answer is still yes.  Sometimes I feel the need to translate these pages when I'm reading them to preschoolers because I don't think they quite get what it means for the characters when she asks "Would you love me if I poured water on our lamp?" So I ask them "Do you think your mother would love you if you broke every lightbulb in your house?"

Polar Bear Night by Lauren Thompson. It's about a little bear who wakes up in the middle of the night, feeling something special is about to happen.  The bear walks past all the other animals sleeping, and under the Northern Lights, and then she sees it - a meteor shower. I really like the simplistic, graphic style of the illustrations and that it at least shows the aurora borealis.  It gives me a chance to work a little science into the story time.  I LOVE the Northern Lights and it's one of my lifetime goals to see them.

Penguins by Liz Pichon. This book is too cute.  It's about a little girl who visits the penguin exhibit at the zoo and accidentally leaves her camera behind.  The penguins find it, figure out how to work it, and go to town taking pictures.  The next day, the zookeeper returns it to the little girl, and at the end of the book, you get to see all the pictures the penguins took.

Baby Polar by Yannick Murphy. Baby cub loves cuddling up to mama and hearing her heartbeat.  When it starts snowing, the cub wants to go play, and is soon so busy he gets lost in the blizzard.  He quickly finds a cave, burrows in, and when he hears a familiar heartbeat, it turns out the cave is mama's legs.

Tacky the Penguin by Helen Lester. This is one of THE BEST books to read aloud.  Seriously - so much fun! Tacky, as his name implies, is an odd bird.  He does NOTHING like the other penguins, which of course turns out to be his saving grace when hunters come.  He drives them away with his un-penguinlike behavior and saves the day.  I love to sing his songs as loudly and as off-key as I can, and even though the kids cover their ears, they love it.

Other books that are good for this theme:

And Tango Makes Three by Justin Richardson.

Pierre the Penguin by Jean Marzollo.

Over in the Arctic: Where the Cold Winds Blow by Mariane Berkes.

Winter/Snow

Since we live in Florida, it's always an odd thing doing a winter/snow-themed story time.  Most of the kids have never seen snow before, so it's a bit of a foreign thing to them.  They know it's cold, and they know it'll melt if they bring it inside, but they don't know what sledding or building a snowman is like.  Despite that fact, they DEFINITELY know what a snowman should look like that's why it's fun to read this first book:

All You Need for a Snowman by Alice Schertle.

This book is great because it trails off and baits kids into answering and participating.  "One big, cold, well-rolled ball.  That's all you need for a snowman..."  Of course the kids shout "Nooooo" and I ask them what else they need and the story continues.

Under My Hood, I Have a Hat by Karla Kuskin.  

This is one that I feel is a little lost on some of my native FL kids.  They have no idea what it is like to truly bundle up in so many layers that you can't move.  Here you may need a sweatshirt and a coat if it's *really* the depths of winter - which will last for a day.

Snowmen at Night by Caralyn Buehner.

This is my favorite book for this theme.  The illustrations for it are SO wonderful, and I love looking for the pickle-nose every page.  I usually wait til the end of the book to point it out to my preschoolers.  I did this at an elementary school and EVERY page they brought it up.  Even after the teacher threatened to move them to a different behavior color on their chart.  Pickle-nose has some kind of strange pull.

Here Comes Jack Frost by Kazuno Kohara.

A story about a boy and his dog who are lonely until Jack Frost appears.  They play all winter with Jack, but the second the boy mentions Spring, Jack disappears.

The Mitten by Jan Brett.

Jan Brett has GORGEOUS illustrations in her books, but tend not to use them sometimes because they're a little long for my younger audiences.  That said, this is a great book for elementary kids.  A grandmother knits a boy two white mittens and lets him go out to play, but he has to show his mittens to her when he goes back in.  He loses one, and the animals find it and one by one try to cram themselves inside.  In the end he gets it back, but it's not quite the same size it was before.

Flock of Shoes by Sarah Tsiang.

This is a weird book.  Cute, but weird. The girl in the story wants to wear her flip-flops long after summer's over. (A reality in FL) One day, her flip-flops fly off into the sky in formation with other pairs of flip-flops. So she buys fall/winter boots and has fun playing with those until Spring, when her flip-flops come back.  Again, cute, but weird.

Snow Dude by Daniel Kirk.

It's like the gingerbread man, but made of snow.  Instead of meeting a horrible end though, everyone in the story makes snow dudes of their own.  The repetition of the snow dude's rhyme is great, but otherwise it can be a little long. 

There's lots of 5 Little Snowmen fingerplays you could do.  This isn't the one I normally do, but it's cute in a macabre little way:

Five little snowmen standing in a row

(Hold 5 fingers; stand up straight like a soldier)

Each had two eyes and a carrot nose

(Point to eyes; point to nose)

Along came the sun and shone all day

(Form sun with hands; wipe sweat from brow)

And one little snowman melted away

(Hold up one finger; slowly "melt" to the ground)

Four little snowmen...

Three little snowmen.. etc.

Cooking with Kids: Sweet Tooth edition

After the semi-disaster that was my Asian theme, and needing a boost in my morale, I decided to do one devoted to all things sweet.  While this means a little baking at home on my part (because baking dozens of cookies in a toaster/convection oven is hell), it was worth it.

   The Seven Silly Eaters by Mary Ann Hoberman (Illustrated by Marla Frazee, who I LOVE).

This is about 7 children who all will ONLY eat one thing, and of course none of them are the same thing.  Their poor mother gets run ragged, and so for her birthday they decide to surprise her by all making her their favorite things.  It's all a disaster and they hide the mess in the oven.  Well, the 7 things they love all combined to make a cake.  The author has a recipe, which we linked, but ahhh anything that's a fraction doesn't show.  Soooo you have to look up other recipes and kinda fudge it.  It turned out well, but I will say that it helps to do a lemon glaze on it for extra flavor.

Then the Doorbell Rang by Pat Hutchins. 

Of course we made chocolate chip cookies to go with this book.  The kids were pretty good with following directions, and once they were cooked there were no complaints from anyone.

The Donut Chef by Bob Staake.

About dueling donut chefs who keep getting fancier and fancier, and when someone comes in asking for glazed, one realizes just how far afield he's come.  We made donuts, and if you think I brought hot oil into a room full of kids you are CRAZY.  Y'all - there is no shame in a biscuit donut, especially one that is baked, and that is EXACTLY what I did.  But were these shaken in a bag with powdered sugar?  Oh no, they were glazed.  Did they still taste like biscuits?  Yeah.  But did the kids care? Of course not.  This recipe is easy enough that you can have 2 and 3 year olds help you too.

Other books you could use for this theme:

Amelia Bedelia by Peggy Parrish.

Really, you could use any Amelia Bedelia book.  Seriously - pick one.  I guarantee you she bakes in it.  In fact, it frustrates me that in the book where she gets fired they hire her back because she bakes so well! (spoilers)  Why not give her the money to start up her own bakery?!  *sigh*

Cupcake by Charise Mericle Harper.

Whopper Cake by Karma Wilson.

Cooking with Kids: Asian edition

The first 3 times I did my Cooking with Kids program went SO well, I had the *brilliant* idea of doing it 7 MORE TIMES.  3 before my summer programs and 4 after.  From here on out, I'll just do one post per program.  The first one I decided to do was Asian themed.  Why?  Because I'm absolutely crazy, that's why.  This was such a hard program to do - 1. Because I just don't have the skills to pull this stuff off the way I wanted to. 2. Because it wasn't well attended. 3. I was asking kids to eat stuff they may have never tried before - and that's always an interesting prospect.  Let's just get to the books.

Yoko by Rosemary Wells.  It's a about a cat named Yoko from Japan, who now lives in the United States and is going to school. The kids make fun of her lunch, so the teacher sets up a world food day.  Still, no one touches the sushi they bring, until one little boy tries some and they become good friends.  It's such a cute little story.  I've been eating sushi since I was 8 or so.  My parents thought it would gross us out like a lot of the food they made, but we loved it!  I was in NO WAY prepared to make sushi for my patrons, BUT a few of my regular patrons own a restaurant called Wasabi and were awesome enough to donate some for me!  The kids loved it (we did shrimp tempura and maybe some spicy tuna) and so did the parents, of course.

Dim Sum for Everyone by Grace Lin.  It's a good thing I got the sushi donated, because this next one killed me.  If you've never had dim sum before, this just talks about a family that goes to a restaurant and they all get little plates and share.  A lot of the time you go, and there's lots of little dumplings.  I decided I was going to make some steamed pork dumplings - from scratch.  This is actually not that impressive because I've been making them for years, but normally I've been boiling them.  STEAMING IS A TOTALLY DIFFERENT BALLGAME, PEOPLE!  I'm talking hockey vs. tennis.  Whoa.  I totally ruined half my dumplings before I gave up and boiled them.  Ugh.  What I managed to salvage were tasty though.

Bee-bim Bop! by Linda Sue Park  A simple rhyming book about a kid trying to help cook bibimbap.  There's a recipe in the back that details out instructions for the kids and the parents.  It's great!  This dish turned out the best, and I think people liked it, though I def. had enough leftover to have as my lunch the next day.  The dish doesn't take long to make, you just have to cook everything separately.

Other books I'd recommend for this theme (but I just didn't have the resources to cook):

Cora Cooks Pancit by Dorina K. Lazo Gilmore.

The Ugly Vegetables by Grace Lin.

Round is a Mooncake by Roseanne Thong.

Christmas

It seems really early to be doing a Christmas post, but you know they'll have Christmas decorations up in the stores in like, a week - so why not? Besides, if you're like me, you plan your story times waaaay in advance.

Merry Christmas, Merry Crow by Kathy Appelt. This is about a little crow who spends the whole story gathering things.  For what?  A Christmas tree of course!  I like to make the kids try to guess, and they're all usually totally baffled.

The Three Bears' Christmas by Kathy Duval. I mentioned the other book in this series in my Halloween post.  This follows the same formula as the original Three Bears story, but it's a different visitor this time.  The kids get SO EXCITED at the end and are screaming "IT'S SANTA!!!!!" (uh, spoilers).

A Creature Was Stirring by Carter Goodrich.  This is my FAVORITE book to do at Christmas.  It's a play on the old Clement C. Moore poem - in fact, that's on all the left-hand pages of the book.  On the right-hand ones is a new poem about a little boy who is also awake in the same house that night.  The illustrations are fantastic and it's a great way to introduce a classic poem to kids.

How Do Dinosaurs Say Happy Chanukah? by Jane Yolen. (Illus. by Mark Teague who is AMAZING)  I know.  You're going, "Ummmm...that's not Christmas." Yeah, I know.  I feel really guilty doing a Christmas-only story time though, so I do this one too  (even though really, all the books are secular. It's complicated, ok?).  I live in a Southern bible-belt town, y'all, so if I don't tell them what Hanukkah's about, who will?  Ok - so this doesn't really go into the whole Maccabees and the miracle of the oil or anything, but it does let me show kids that Hanukkah isn't that different from Christmas in some of the celebrations they do.

Santa Baby by Janie Bynum.  Ugh.  This is SUCH a cute story, but good luck finding it!  Last time I looked, it was out of print. :/  This is a story about a baby and mom getting things ready on Christmas Eve.  As baby is going down to sleep, they hear things outside.  Is it Santa?  No!  Daddy's home.  You sing the whole book to the tune of the old song by the same name.  It's great.

Mrs. Wishy-Washy's Christmas by Joy Cowley.  This one is a sometimes book for me.  It's great for younger kids, but I don't use it all the time.  Mrs. Wishy-Washy's animals sneak into her house so they can have a nice, hot bath.  She gets angry, but she forgives them, gives them their Christmas presents, and agrees she'll put warm water in the tub.

Others that are also good:

Bear Stays Up for Christmas by Karma Wilson.

The Santa Trap by Jonathan Emmett.

Llama Llama Holiday Drama by Anna Dewdney.

Cookies!

A whole theme around cookies? You betcha!  The week before we do Christmas stories, we do cookies - because baking them is something almost everyone does around the holidays and it's still secular enough that my moms who are Jehovah's Witnesses can attend if they want.

Ginger Bear by Mini Grey. A story about a cookie that comes to life, but is lonely, so he makes other cookie friends!  Most of them come to their demise at the hands of a dog.  This is when I remind the children that they're what?  Cookies!  And what happens to cookies?  They get eaten!  None of them have been too traumatized yet.

If You Give a Mouse a Cookie by Laura Joffe Numeroff.  You *had* to see this one coming.  I mean, who hasn't used this in a story time before?

Then the Doorbell Rang by Pat Hutchins.  A great story about something everyone loves (ok - almost everyone.  I don't get you non-chocolate chip cookie lovers) and what happens when more and more guests show up and you have to share.

Who Ate All the Cookie Dough by Karen Beaumont.  Set up like a Brown Bear, Brown Bear book, this is a story of a mama kangaroo trying to figure out who ate all her cookie dough. 

The Duckling Gets a Cookie?! by Mo Willems.  Mo Willems is one of my favorite authors.  I LOVE doing the pigeon books because I can yell and stomp and act weird and the kids love it.



I have a fingerplay I do with this one and the kids just LOVE it.  Mad props to the librarian Christine over in Keystone Heights (I think) who showed this to me at a FLYP workshop forever ago.

5 Little Cookies

5 little cookies in a row (hold up 5 fingers)

"I'm going to eat you", I say, sooooo (point to yourself)

Grab a cookie (mime holding a cookie)

Grab a glass of milk (mime holding a glass of milk)

We're going to dunk our cookie 5 times

1, 2, 3, 4, 5 (mime dunking)

and we're going to eat it in 5 bites

1, 2, 3, 4, 5 (mime eating)

and we're going to wipe the crumbs away (wipe mouth)

How many do we have left?

4 little cookies in a row (hold up 4 fingers)

"I'm going to eat you", I say, sooooo (point to yourself)

Grab a cookie (mime holding a cookie)

Grab a glass of milk (mime holding a glass of milk)

We're going to dunk our cookie 4 times

1, 2, 3, 4 (mime dunking)

and we're going to eat it in 4 bites

1, 2, 3, 4 (mime eating)

and we're going to wipe the crumbs away (wipe mouth)

How many do we have left?

And so on.  I go faster on 3, slower on 2, and then make them do a super sky-high dunk into their milk on 1.  After, most of them want to drink their milk, so we do. :)







Box of Lies

If you haven't heard of Box of Lies, then HAVE YOU BEEN LIVING UNDER A ROCK?!  Admittedly, I hadn't heard of it until our FLYP training in November, and as far as late-night television goes, yes - I do live under a rock.  I go to bed at 10:30.  The world could end and be resurrected again, and unless it pops up in my FB feed the next morning, I would probably have no idea.  That said, I'm usually pretty good at keeping up with Fallon.  

Anywho- I was getting off topic.  Do yourself a favor and take a few minutes to watch a few of the videos.  Melissa McCarthy and Jennifer Lawrence are good ones, as is Tina Fey - who helped test out the game.  If you're too lazy to go watch those videos (really?), then here's the basics:

1. The contestants sit across from each other at a table, with a barrier blocking them from seeing anything but each other's faces.

2.  They select one of the boxes lined up next to them.

3. They open the box, and then describe the contents of it.  They can choose to tell the truth or lie.

4.  The other contestant has to decide it they are lying or telling the truth.  If the are right, they get the point.  If they are wrong, the other contestant gets it.  They play until someone gets two points.

Sounds easy, right?  Well the thing I love about the show is they put some of the most bizarre things in the boxes!  Rubik's cubes in jello, an egg roll in a bird's nest, a Jane Fonda workout video in a loaf of ciabatta bread.  Stuff like that.  Really easy to trip people up if you tell the truth.  As you'll see in the videos though, sometimes people try to get even crazier with their lies and that's what messes it all up in the end.

SO - I decided to play this with my teens.  I went through my house grabbing all sorts of weird stuff and then raided the library too.  They loved it!  We had things like a lizard puppet wearing mardi gras beads, or two wooden troll dolls and a box of cake mix, a bag full of jellybeans with lip gloss, etc.  The problem was, they wanted to make the boxes, but couldn't do it if they wanted to play again.  I had all my stuff in one box, and then they'd see my stash and know if someone was telling the truth or not if they happened to see it while they were filling a box for someone else.

The next Fallon game I want to try?  Egg Russian Roulette. 

Thanksgiving

It used to be that we would do food books with Thanksgiving to help fill it out, but now I think we have enough, that we do it as a stand-alone theme.

One Little, Two Little, Three Little Pilgrims by B.G. Hennessy.  Yes, like the song and yes, I actually sing it - and try to get the kids to sing with me on the easy parts about Pilgrims, Indians and turkeys.  There are expositional parts talking about gathering, farming, and hunting all the food for the first Thanksgiving that I sing by myself.  I also talk a bit about the first Thanksgiving, in an effort to remind the kids that it's not just about trying to eat until you puke.

Turkey Trouble by Wendi Silvano.  Turkey knows that he'll be served up for Thanksgiving dinner unless he comes up with a great disguise, so he tries dressing up like all the animals (each disguise worse than the last). Finally he comes up with the perfect one to save the day.  It can be a bit long, but if you ask the children questions and have them make the animal noises, it keeps them engaged.

Thanks for Thanksgiving by Julie Markes. Yet another book I use to try to remind the kids that Thanksgiving isn't just about a ton of food.  I usually ask them what their thankful for - or what they're glad they have.  After they all answer toys, and maybe one or two other things, I read this to give them an idea of other things they're probably thankful for.

Twas the Night Before Thanksgiving by Dav Pilkey.  I love this book, but I've decided I just can't read it to my preschoolers anymore.  Not because of content - but because of the length and that I kinda have to lead them through the end of the book to understand what happened.  The children visit a turkey farm, make friends with the animals, and find out the turkeys are all going to die the next day.  So they hatch a plan to rescue them and take them home.

There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Pie by Alison Jackson. A great take on There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly.  And yes - I sing this one too.  Though I stop and ask kids what the foods are she's about to eat and if they could do that and what they think will happen to her.  Of course all of them answer "She's gonna pop!" or "She's gonna explode".  She does neither, and unfortunately I sometimes have to explain the end of this one too.  Sometimes my children are too young to have really seen the Macy's parade and the giant balloons they use, so it's a bit lost on them.

I actually have a couple of songs I do for this theme too!  It's just a song-filled week!

Albuquerque the Turkey

(I have a turkey puppet I use and I just sing this by myself)

Albuquerque is a turkey, he is feathered and he's fine

He wobbles and he gobbles, and he's absolutely mine

He's the best pet that you can get, better than a dog or cat

He's my Albuquerque turkey, and I'm awfully proud of that

Albuquerque, the turkey, is so happy in his bed

'Cause for my Thanksgiving dinner I had scrambled eggs instead.

I'm Glad Thanksgiving Time is Here

(sung to the tune of This Land is Your Land, and I just have them repeat after me)

I love the turkey,

I love the stuffin, 

I love the gravy, 

I love corn muffins, 

I love my family,

gathered all together

I'm glad Thanksgiving time is here!

Cooking With Kids

Since I brought it up in the last post, I thought I should go ahead and start the series of posts about this.  This all started about a year ago, when I was cleaning out my office and found a book of recipes that were to be paired with children's stories like Goldilocks and the Three Bears and the Little Red Hen.  At the time, I was desperate for programs to fill the gap between my summer and fall programs and something that would help fulfill some goals on my 5 year plan.  I really like to cook, and we'd had cooking programs for adults, so voila!  Cooking with Kids was born.

The first one we did was nursery rhymes and stories.  We made a quick wheat bread (source: here) for the Little Red Hen, Pigs in Blankets for the Three Little Pigs, and a snack platter for various nursery rhymes, including; Humpty Dumpty, Three Blind Mice, and Curly Locks.  We really tried to emphasize literacy for all ages, from reading the recipe aloud, to picking out the correct measuring cup.  We had the kids tell us the stories, and then chose a few to come up and help us make the recipes.  It was good, but the kids got restless, so we changed the format.

Little Red Hen's Quick Wheat Bread

Ingredients

½ c white whole wheat flour

1 tsp salt

½ c sesame seeds (optional: extra for top)

½ c flax seeds (optional: extra for top)

1 tbsp sugar

4 tsp dry active yeast

2 tbsp balsamic vinegar

2 ½ c water, warm to the touch

Directions

Prepare a bread/loaf pan by lining with parchment paper. Perfectly fitting to the an is not necessary as the dough will help weigh it down and expand to fill out the pan.

Combine flour, salt, sesame seeds, flax, and sugar. Make a small well and add yeast. Mix vinegar and water, and pour into flour mixture. Stir until well

combined. The dough will be sticky, no need to knead.

Spoon the dough into the loaf pan. Smooth the top with the back of a spoon. Top with extra seeds, if desired.

Place loaf pan into a cold oven. Set oven to 350° F (Yes! You will preheat the oven with the bread inside). Bake for one hour, or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Let cool and slice.

The next one we themed around princess stories.  This one we decided to make interactive for ALL the kids, so we made a sign-up sheet and had enough for every kid to make some.  The problem with that?  Some who signed up didn't show, and some who showed up had never signed up.  Doesn't seem like that much of a problem, but I had like, 15 people who hadn't signed up show up and I turned them away, they left, and then it turned out I could have accommodated them. :/

We did Snow White - again, having the kids tell me the story- and then we made dip for apple chips (found here). (You'll find other recipes for apple dip that also have granulated sugar and toffee chips, but for children?  Less is more, right?  Do you really want children hyped up on sugar in your library?)  I had them tell me the story of The Little Mermaid, and then I let them try kale chips I had made. (Almost all of them tried it and wanted more!) Finally, they told me about Alice and Wonderland, and we made cucumber sandwiches together.  This one I had a couple of kids less than thrilled about.  One wanted it without the cucumber.  Or without the cream cheese.  I can't remember.

Finally, we tweaked it one more time.  We decided to do a picky eaters edition, and this time we read the books (which was a way more viable option than before).  The first book we read was The Sandwich Swap by Queen Rania Al Abdullah.  A wonderful story about two friends who have a little disagreement over a hummus pita and a PB&J sandwich.

I've done this book before and we made PB&J sandwiches and I had premade hummus to try, but with allergies nowadays, I just decided to try and make my own hummus.  One of our kids' cookbooks had a recipe for pizza hummus, so I went for that.  It came out a little grainy, but overall tasty.

The second book we read I featured in my food-themed story time.  I Will Never Not Ever Eat a Tomato by Lauren Child.  I was planning on making mashed potatoes to go with this book, because that's one of the first things my grandmother let me help cook.  We have VERY LIMITED cooking resources at our library, however, so I just read the story and told that little anecdote, encouraging parents to do the same with their children.

Finally, we read D.W., the Picky Eater.  A classic book, and one I'm sure many of my parents of picky eaters could relate to.  D.W. has an EXTREME hatred of spinach and acts up SO much, that she's banned from eating out with her family.  The finally relent for her grandmother's birthday, and she chooses something off the menu in a hurry.  When she tries it, she likes it - and it turns out to be essentially spinach pie.  

So I made spanakopita! And because I'm a total glutton for punishment, I made the little triangles, and not the pie.  Remember - people were trying samples, so it was easier to give them a triangle than a slice of pie.  It just took waaaay longer for me to make.  The kids were not so thrilled with it - especially since I wouldn't tell them what was in it at first.  The adults kept coming back for this.  The kids?  The pizza hummus.

I will be doing more of these posts! From now on, however, each one will probably be devoted to the different themes we did.

Food, glorious food!

There are SO many books about food.  Really.  We made a whole program series called Cooking with Kids because of that fact (also because I like to cook and I thought it would be a good idea - there will be upcoming blog posts about this).  I'll try to keep it to the ones that we actually use for our food-themed story time.

Eat Your Peas by Kes Gray.  The tale of a mom who offers her kid more and more outlandish things in a desperate attempt to get her to eat her peas, to which she replies "I don't like peas".  I get the kids to do that part when I read the book - and by the end when I'm going through this mile-long list of all the things Daisy would get if she'd eat the peas, they're screaming "I don't like peas".  It's great.

Gladys Goes out to Lunch by Derek Anderson.  A gorilla smells something AMAZING, so rather than having boring old bananas, she goes out.  She tries pizza, French food, and ice cream, but none of it is what she wants til she goes back to the zoo and finds it at a food cart.  Honestly?  I've never seen this at a food cart, but ok.

I Will Never Not Ever Eat a Tomato by Lauren Child.  Lola is a fussy eater, and Charlie has to feed her, so he tricks her by telling her all the foods she refuses to eat are really these other things.  The book is long, and I sometimes wonder if my young kids really get it, but I love the book, and they do well listening to it as long as I ask them questions.

Gator Gumbo by Candace Fleming.  I love this book, but my coworker refuses to do it because she can't do a Cajun accent, lol.  It's a twisted take on the Little Red Hen, and I would definitely recommend it more for elementary age children.

Stone Soup by Heather Forest.  There are many authors who have done versions of this story, I just like the illustrations in this one.  We tend to do this as an interactive story, where all (or a lot of) the children get some sort of vegetable they can come up and throw in the pot when we get to it in the story.

Today is Monday by Eric Carle.  While this is a fantastic book, we actually don't use it during this story time.  Rather, we have developed a song based on the book.  We pull out a whiteboard, write out the days of the week with spaces next to them, and then ask the children what their favorite foods are.  Then we do it like the book.  Ex:

Monday: Chicken nuggets

Tuesday: Hot dogs

Wednesday: Carrots

Today is Monday. Monday, Chicken nuggets.  All you hungry children, come and eat it up.

Today is Tuesday. Tuesday, Hot dogs. Monday, Chicken nuggets. All you hungry children, come and eat it up.

Today is Wednesday. Wednesday, Carrots. Tuesday, Hot dogs. Monday, Chicken nuggets. All you hungry children, come and eat it up.

And finally, I *do* have a fingerplay I do with this theme.

5 Fat Sausages

(place one hand on top of the other and wiggle fingers to "sizzle")

5 fat sausages sizzling in the pan, 1 got hot and it went BAM! (clap)

4 fat sausages sizzling in the pan, 1 got hot and it went BAM! (clap)

3 fat sausages sizzling in the pan, 1 got hot and it went BAM! (clap)

2 fat sausages sizzling in the pan, 1 got hot and it went BAM! (clap)

1 fat sausages sizzling in the pan, it got hot and it went BAM! (clap)

No fat sausages sizzling in the pan.