Fall Craft, part 2: Electric Boogaloo

I was going through all my program photos on Facebook, when I found more of my fall crafts (most of these from last year). I don't know when the ones I showed you before were from.  Doesn't really matter.  Anywho, part 2.

Apples. We gave the kids paint (which is always scary) and loofahs to do the leafy parts of the trees.  Then we gave then toilet paper/paper towel tubes and those were the rings for the apples.  Anything else they wanted in the picture, we gave them crayons to draw in, and encouraged them to do that BEFORE painting.

Leaves. This was a totally crazy idea when I thought of it. Did I see it somewhere or did I modify something? I don't know.  We decided to give the kids different kinds of popcorn to glue to the trees to represent leaves. We tried getting the puffed corn pieces rather than popcorn, thinking it would stick better. It didn't. We used cheddar, regular, and caramel, so we'd have yellow, orange, and brown. It didn't turn out too badly.

Fall. This was a fall craft I did AGES ago. I have this small picture-frame die-cut, and I used to use it ALL. THE. TIME. I've calmed down a bit since then. I had made tamales with my friend recently, I think, so I knew they sold the corn husks at the grocery store.  I think the other things are Corn Nuts, and then there's scrapbooking paper that's popcorn print. The corn husks REALLY did not want to be glued down. And gluing the Corn Nuts on top? Not my best plan.  But this looks kinda cute, right?

Owls. Another paper towel/toilet paper roll craft! You just wrap it in paper (which you glue on, of course) and fold in the head.  We gave them stickers to make the eyes and let them draw in pupils. Glue on a beak and some feathers for wings, and you're done!

Pumpkins. This next craft was SO easy and it looks SO good. All you have to so is cut out the pumpkin shape in the paper, and then cut strips of scrapbook paper in whatever colors you want. We stuck with golds/oranges because duh, pumpkins. The kids may have been a bit confused as to which way the strips had to be facing, but it just took a second to show them and they got it. (Or they had a parent helping them).

Halloween/Bats. I can't remember which this was for last year. Could have been either. We've done some iteration of this craft many times. For polar animals, for Christmas, and now for Halloween. Pretty much you take your bat cut-out, color it with chalk, then place it on the paper, and smudge the chalk off the cutout and onto the paper, so you wind up with the outline.  Or you can do like this girl and take your cutout and make and outline around it, and then smudge that.  Either works. Coloring your cutout means that you don't have any hard lines.

Fall Crafts

I said I'd go back and add crafts to the themed posts, but instead I just decided to go ahead and make them their own post.  All of the ones shown are what's been salvaged from years past.  I still have yet to make what we're doing this year, so there may be another post coming up.

Apples.  This one was truly pulled out of thin air.  In the past, we'd done things like a wreath made of paper apple cut-outs, but I wanted something different.  I know the kids don't care, and I have different ones from year to year, but still. So I found this or came up with it at the last minute. We pre-cut the holes in the plates as well as cut out the leaves.  All the kids had to do was glue on the tissue paper to color the apple and glue on the leaves.

Owls. In NO WAY do I ever expect anyone else to be able to do this craft during a regular week, but we had the stuff sitting around, so we did.  I had all these pairs of kids sunglasses from something the department was going to do years ago. So popped out the lenses and then hot-glued cardstock in the shape of these giant owl eyebrows onto the top of the frames. The kids glued feathers onto the cardstock, and voila! Owl glasses. I love them, and my adult friends all wanted a pair. 

Pumpkins. Since we try to avoid Halloween and jack o'lanterns with this week, it's a little hard to do crafts with it sometimes. I love doing mosaics, so we've done that a couple years, giving them split peas, barley, and of course pumpkin seeds to use. A LOT of the pumpkin seeds never make it to the paper. Heck, a lot of the pumpkin seeds never make it to the kids. I have to buy an extra pack just for me to eat.

Halloween!  As stated before, I LOVE Halloween! So I'm giving you a two-fer.  First, the ghost.  I think it's pretty straightforward, but if you need directions, you can find them here. We simplified them a bit because we didn't want to cut out as many things, so the eyes aren't layered.

Cotton Swab Skeleton.  Again, to me this looks very self-explanatory.  If you'd like a guide to help you, click here. We did this with our elementary school kids because we felt it was a bit more difficult than the ghost.

Thanksgiving! Luckily, we have die-cuts to help us with this feat! :D A couple of years we've done a banner made of paper turkeys and fall leaves, and the kids wrote things they were thankful for on each.  Last year we decided to make a turkey hat.  Easy with our cut-outs. If you don't have one, ask around. We let people use ours as long as they bring their own paper.

HALLOWEEN DECORATIONS!!!

Last year we decided to switch up our decorations a bit. We used to have these giant Martha Stewart fans hanging in our picture book section. (See below) In junior fiction, we had gigantic spiders and spiderwebs everywhere, and in young adult we had huge scary bat wall clings. So we decided to make everything a bit nicer and prettier and not so scary. (Though I love the scary, trust me)

In our YA area, I decided to do a Dia de los Muertos banner.  I made all these little skull cut-outs, and then my coworker and I had a blast decorating them!

For the picture book section, I found a couple of banner tutorials to try out. The "Happy Halloween" banner I did based on this tutorial I found about using coffee filters. The one in the back (which is hard to see, I know) is mainly using our cutouts of a cat, owl, and jack o'lantern against different backgrounds.  If you want a tutorial, I found one here, but that person gets REALLY in-depth on the process.  I think I may have used it just for the measurements.

Finally, in our junior fiction section, we decided to keep it simple and just went with a ton of hanging bats.  Also - some bats taped to the windows for depth of field or something.  Who is it by?  Martha Stewart, of course.  Though if you look at the bats on her page, and the ones on ours, you can see a noticeable size difference.  I don't know why you'd want them as big as she has them.

Hope you enjoy and maybe use some!  I plan on posting more crafts soon! 

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!

HALLOWEEN!!!!

Just saying the word Halloween makes me a little giddy! :)  Other people may not agree with our idea, but our Halloween story time basically became our monster theme.

Go Away, Big Green Monster by Ed Emberley.  I mean, COME ON.  Could you really do monsters without doing this book?  It's the best!  So much interaction with the kids, it's ridiculous.  I love it.

Over in the Hollow by Rebecca Dickinson. So you covered colors with Green Monster, now you can do numbers!  And sing!  And make scary noises! You know the old song Over in the Meadow, well just apply it to this.  But it has mummies, vampires, spiders, and werewolves.  I love it!

Trick or Treat Countdown by Patricia Hubbard.  Ok, another counting book - I know.  This one you don't have to sing, and it's not as long.  You can still make all sorts of scary sounds and motions.  I especially love the fact that it emphasizes that all the things it mentions - skeletons, witches, werewolves, etc. are all make-believe on Halloween.  You'll love it - just be creative!

The Three Bears' Halloween by Kathy Duval.  Whenever I do one of Kathy Duval's new 3 Bears stories, I always review the classic one with the kids first.  Sometimes - as with the Christmas one - it tricks some of them into believing it's Goldilocks the whole time.  Other times, it doesn't work, and they insist it's a witch the whole time - like with this one.  It's the same formula as the classic, just updated for a different holiday.  

My Beastly Brother by Laura Leuck.  Pretty much just a book about how brothers are, but with monsters.  The kid goes through all the ways his brother tortures him, but he's really there when it matters most.  It mentions underwear, so of course kids giggle at that.

Crankenstein by Samantha Berger. While *teeeechnically* not a monster book, we still used this one this past year.  Working with kids, we ALL know a Crankenstein when we see one, and this made the parents laugh as much as the children.  The children enjoyed making the "Meeerrrgh" noises more.  I have to say, now that I've been doing this for 5 years, I'm identifying favorite authors/illustrators more, and Dan Santat is def. one of them!

Vampirina Ballerina by Anne Marie Pace and Zombelina by Kristyn Crow.  Look at how cute these are!!! I think I ordered these after Halloween last year, so I didn't get to use them, and they're probably too long for preschool, but elementary age might enjoy them.  They make the little goth part of my heart smile.

The Hallo-wiener by Dav Pilkey.  Not really a monster book, but we do it at Halloween, so it needs to be mentioned.  It's too long for me to use with my younger children, but the elementary age loves it.  Of course, it's about a dog who gets picked on, but in the end, it's the very reason he gets picked on that saves everyone.  Who doesn't love Dav Pilkey?

Where's My Shoggoth? by Ian Thomas.  If you're a fan of the Old Ones, this is the book for you.  I can't say that I'd EVER use it in story time, but it is one heck of a cool book!  It features a lot of Lovecraft's creatures in these fantastic illustrations by Adam Bolton and the rhymes in it are great!

Wow!  SO many monster/Halloween books, and I'm sure I could name TONS more.  Seriously.  Favorite holiday!  I don't really do a fingerplay or song with this one (other than my regular opener and get-up-and-move in the middle).  A several of the books are so interactive, I don't really feel as pressured to do so.  HOWEVER, if you *really* want one, there's always 5 Little Pumpkins.

Five little pumpkins sitting on a gate

The first one said, "Oh my, it's getting late!"

The second one said, "There are witches in the air!"

The third one said, "But we don't care!"

The fourth one said, "Let's run and run and run"

The fifth one said, "Isn't Halloween fun?"

Then Ooooooooh went the wind 

And out went the lights 

And five little pumpkins rolled out of sight.

Owls

Honestly?  If I could, we'd do Halloween all month long.  Buuuut I have a few parents who wouldn't appreciate that.  And so?  We do owls.

Owl Babies by Martin Waddell. This is my ABSOLUTE FAVORITE book to do for this theme.  I love screaming/crying/whining Bill's line of "I WANT MY MOMMY!" - which happens often enough, that by the end of the book, the kids are doing it too.  

This is one of the newer books we've added to this theme.  It's a cute book about an owl that stays up during the day and gets to see all sorts of colors he doesn't normally.  This past year was the first year that we really used it, and I don't really remember the response.

Ok.  I might have lied.  This one is at least tied for my favorite for this theme.  I LOVE doing the temper tantrum that Baby Owl does at the end of the book.  The kids all laugh and it's super-cute.

Good-Night, Owl by Pat Hutchins.  This is one that I like to do with older kids, assigning them different noises to make during the story.  This *sometimes* works with younger kids - esp. our in-house story times where the parents will do it.

I actually have a fingerplay for this one!

5 Little Hoot Owls

(which is confusing because it starts with one)

1 little hoot owl looking at you, 

1 flew up, and then there were 2

Hoot, hoot, hoot, what a scaaary sight

Hoot, hoot, hoot on Halloween night*

2 little hoot owls high in a tree, 

1 flew up, and then there were 3

Hoot, hoot, hoot, what a scaaaary sight

Hoot, hoot, hoot on Halloween night

3 little hoot owls on a barn door, 

1 flew up, and then there were 4

Hoot, hoot, hoot, what a scaaary sight

Hoot, hoot, hoot on Halloween night

4 little hoot owls by a beehive, 

1 flew up, and then there were 5

Hoot, hoot, hoot, what a scaaaary sight

Hoot, hoot, hoot, on Halloween night

5 little hoot owls sleeping all day, 

along came a cat, and scared them away!

Hoot, hoot, hoot, what a scaaary sight

Hoot, hoot, hoot on Halloween night.

*I have recently started changing this to Hoot, hoot, hoot on such a dark night because I've had quite a few families who don't celebrate Halloween and I've tried to not alienate them as much as possible.

There is a tune I use for this little fingerplay, but it's not the one traditionally used with it, and I have no idea how to write that out for you, and I am NOT recording myself doing it - at least not yet.  It doesn't have to be sung.

Fall Leaves

You can't do fall story times without talking about the fall leaves.  Here's a selection of the books that are our favorites:

Leaf Man by Lois Ehlert. This book has fantastic illustrations made using real leaves, and encourages children to use their imaginations to see the different animals in the pictures.  Sometimes they have a hard time telling what they are, but for the most part, they're spot-on and they love it.

I Know It's Autumn by Eileen Spinelli. This book covers all the things that make fall special besides the leaves changing color.  I like to read it to my Florida children because they don't have these experiences, since autumn doesn't exist in FL.

Fall Leaves Fall! by Zoe Hall.  A good simple book about the changing of the seasons.  My favorite part is that it shows the leaves of different trees

Footballs and Falling Leaves: A Fall Counting Book by Rebecca Fjelland Davis. The book counts fall items, up to ten, and has a rhyme on each page.  The back has a section that shows different clusters of the items and the children have to count them.  A lot of times, they remember the number from earlier in the book and just shout that out, and then we count it together.

Oliver Finds His Way by Phyllis Root. A little bear gets lost in the woods while chasing a leaf. This book can lose a younger child's attention at times, but I always get them back when I have them roar with me.  Also - I cry when Oliver does and that quiets them down in a hurry.

Apples

Come Fall we always have the same themes that we do every year: apples, leaves, owls, pumpkins, and then Halloween.  Here is our apple-themed story time:

The Apple Pie that Papa Baked by Lauren Thompson.  In case you can't tell from the title, it's like the House that Jack Built.  Really cute, but I found I kinda need to do motions to keep the kids with me.

Ten Red Apples by Pat Hutchins.  Good counting book, but it can get a little long for kids.  As long as you ask them plenty of questions about the animals, have them make the sounds, and count along, they stay engaged.

Tap the Magic Tree by Christie Matheson.  Oh. My. Goodness.  For small children?  This book is magic.  They love blowing and tapping the book.  And in large groups?  We have them count along and tap the floor or mime tapping the tree with me.

Apple Farmer Annie by Monica Wellington. A good, simple book about an apple farmer that harvests her apples, makes recipes with them, and sells them at the farmers' market.  It has recipes in the back, which we've used for a kids' cooking program before.  

All for Pie, Pie for All by David Martin. It's a little long for my preschool story time, but I *have* used it before.  My coworker usually uses it for her elementary aged children, as well as Tucker's Apple-Dandy Day by Susan Winget.

The final one I'll mention is The Apple Pie Tree by Zoe Hall. It's great because it has a bit of fact in with the book, talking about the seasons and the cycle of the tree.

When we do our story times, we're doing good to do 3 books and a couple of songs or fingerplays.  I don't have any fingerplays ready to post for this theme.  If I can find ones we really like, or normally do, I'll post them.  For now, most of these themes will just feature books.