Reading Rockstars–B is for Barn!

Bubbles

Opening Songs (with uke): Hands are Clapping/Hey Hey How are you?

Welcome Song (with uke): Willoughby Wallaby Woo

Letter of the Day–After the welcoming songs are sung, I introduce the letter of the day using my whiteboard and magnetic letters.  Then we brainstorm words that start with that letter.  I always have a few picked out ahead of time that I know will turn up during storytime.  I also include the names of any children in attendance that start with the letter of the day.

Book 1:  Farmyard Beat by Lindsey Craig and Marc Brown.  This one is so fun.  I explained/demonstrated what a “beat” is, then I read the story while patting out a beat on my leg.  The kids enjoyed predicting the next animal until Hank (the dog) shows up–then we laughed about how that was kind of cheating, Lindsey Craig.  Ha!

Song with book: I went to visit a farm today using Look Through Farm by Fhiona Galloway.  I love giving parents and caregivers permission to not read a book cover to cover or even use the words at all.  Before I became a children’s librarian I used to “power through” reading every word in books that my daughter wasn’t really interested in because I thought I had to.  This is a simple but powerful tool that can make sharing books a little less stressful and a lot more fun.

Song with puppets: When the (cow) gets up in the morning.  Ah, puppets.  Would would we do without you?

Book 2: Barnyard Banter by Denise Fleming.  In addition to brilliantly featuring the letter of the day (we got to talk about a wonderful uncommon word–“banter”), this book has gorgeous illustrations.  When the pigs are in the wallow, we laughed about how our puppet pig (see above) must have been playing with them.

Song with props: Over in the barnyard.  This song is sung to the tune of “Down by the Station.”  You can find the lyrics over at Storytime Katie.  My idea was to have each kid represent one of the three farm animals in the song, so that we had a “row” of animals.  You could do this with masks or headbands too, but I just used clipart and glued them onto paper plates.  I also made a farmer hat and assigned one kid to be the farmer, who pretended to “feed” the “animals” as they came up.  It was a little chaotic, but overall a cute and fun activity.

Rhyme Cube:  Roly Poly

Closing Songs (with uke): Old MacDonald/ABC

Goodbye Songs (with uke): Hands are waving/Bye Bye We’ll Miss You

Craft/activity: barns with animals.  These came from Oriental Trading.  Each barn folds out like a happy meal box and you can color the animals and keep them inside.  Again, it would be fun to do Old MacDonald or When (cows) get up in the morning or I went to visit a farm today using this craft as a prop.