Emperor's New Clothes

My co-worker is the one to thank for suggesting pairing optical illusions with The Emperor's New Clothes. 

Outline:

Opening song: Put your hands up high 

Opening rhyme: Hands go up 

Story: The Emperor's New Clothes by Karen Wallace and Francois Hall 

Song: Fairy Tale Song 

Tune: Jingle Bells 

Once upon a time 

In a land so far away 

A princess kissed a frog, 

Well that just made his day 

Far across the town 

Red Riding Hood took fright 

She found a wolf in Granny's bed 

When she told her good night! 

Oh! 

Fairy Tales! Fairy tales! 

Read them every day! 

Oh what fun it is to hear 

How Goldilocks got away! 

Fairy Tales! Fairy Tales! 

Full of joy and laughter 

Do you know how this one ends? 

Why it's happily ever after! 

Source: First Grade W.O.W.

Song: Hat Song 

On my head, I wear my hat  

It is such a silly hat  

that my head wiggle waggles to and fro  

Where else can my silly hat go?  

Place hat on other body parts and sing the song again. 

Source: Jbrary

Story: The Emperor's Old Clothes by Kathryn Lasky 

Activity: Optical illusions

Craft time: Thaumatropes and/or Fashion clothes for the emperor 

Final Story: Dinosaur's New Clothes by Diane Goode

Goodbye Song 

How it actually went: 

The stories went over well. Not surprisingly, the kids giggled at the sight of a naked or underwear-clad emperor. In The Emperor's Old Clothes, even though the focus is not on the emperor, he does make an appearance. The children were convinced that the emperor's chubby hip, was his butt and freaked out, cackling hysterically. Nothing I could say would convince them otherwise. 

I talked with the children a little bit about optical illusions. I printed a few examples out, and taped them to the wall. Let me tell you, if you haven't tried using optical illusions with kids, do it. Their minds were blown. I loved watching their reactions to the pictures. One of the pictures was designed to look as though the black dot in the center was growing. I could not get the children to believe me when I told them it wasn't actually growing. 

The thaumatropes were a lot of fun. I enjoyed seeing the pictures that the kids came up with. The children also had the option of creating clothes for the emperor. Some kids chose just one of the activities. Others did both. 

Have you used optical illusions in your storytimes? How did the children react?


*Disclaimer* I link to Amazon, but am not an affiliate. I receive no compensation for any sales which may result. 

Little Red Riding Hood

I struggled a little bit with which STEAM activity I wanted to introduce with Little Red Riding Hood. As often happens, Pinterest came to the rescue when I saw that some teachers and librarians tie in zip line activities with this one. 

Outline:

Hello Song: Put Your Hands Up High

Opening Rhyme: Hands Go Up

Story: Peek Inside a Fairy Tale Little Red Riding Hood retold by Anna Milbourne

Song: Fairy Tale Song
Tune: Jingle Bells

Once upon a time
In a land so far away
A princess kissed a frog,
Well that just made his day

Far across the town
Red Riding Hood took fright
She found a wolf in Granny's bed
When she told her good night!

Oh!
Fairy Tales! Fairy tales!
Read them every day!
Oh what fun it is to hear
How Goldilocks got away!

Fairy Tales! Fairy Tales!
Full of joy and laughter
Do you know how this one ends?
Why it's happily ever after!

Source: First Grade W.O.W.

Song: Little Red Riding Hood
Tune: There Was a Princess Long Ago (London Bridges Falling Down)

Oh little Red Riding Hood, Riding Hood, Riding Hood,
Oh little Red Riding Hood went into the woods.

Off to visit her poor Granny, her poor Granny, her poor Granny,
Off to visit her poor Granny who was sick.

She didn’t see the Big Bad Wolf, the Big Bad Wolf, the Big Bad Wolf,
She didn’t see the Big Bad Wolf watching her!

The wolf wanted to eat her up, to eat her up, to eat her up,
The wolf wanted to eat her up, Big bad Wolf!

The woodcutter he saved them, saved them, saved them,
The woodcutter he saved them, Thank Goodness!

That was the end of the Big bad Wolf, the Big bad Wolf, the Big bad Wolf,
That was the end of the Big bad Wolf, good riddance!!

Source: Let's Play Music

Story: Pretty Salma by Niki Daly

Game: Little Red Riding Hood Puzzle Game

Craft/Activity: Engineer a path / zip line activity

Final Story: Little Red's Riding 'Hood by Peter Stein

Goodbye Song

How it actually went: 

Even though board book/lift the flap/peek inside books are typically marketed to toddlers and preschoolers, I love the Peek Inside books from Usborne, so I decided to use this one for my traditional version. My kids had a lot of fun with the flaps and being able to see the wolf hiding from one page to the next. 

Pretty Salma is an African version of the story with Mr. Dog taking on the role of the Big Bad Wolf. I really like that in this version, Pretty Salma figures out that her grandmother is in danger and works with her grandfather and others to save her. 

The Little Red Riding Hood song was a new one for all of us. The site that I found the song on (linked above) was helpful enough to have a video with the tune from "There was a Princess Long Ago". It sounded similar enough to "London Bridges" to me that that is pretty much how I sang it. 

I ordered the puzzle game off Amazon because it looked like a lot of fun, and I was curious about it. I also like that you can vary the difficulty depending on who's playing. It's a 1-player game, but we worked on it as a team. Admittedly that can be a challenge when one of your teammates is only 4 and would rather take the pieces and engage in some dramatic play than actually solve the puzzle. 

Originally, when I planned my Little Red Riding Hood storytime, I created a map, that I was going to have the kids use to create a new route through the forest. Once I decided to switch it up to a zip line, I used the same map as the base. 

In creating the sample, I quickly discovered that the paper was too flimsy to hold the zip line. I had to tape the map down to large pieces of cardboard. I gave the kids tp rolls and craft sticks for each end of the zip line, with fishing line to string between the two. I used fishing line and bottle caps, to create baskets to send from Red to Granny. The final material needed was paper clips. 

The kids had fun, as they usually do. I left it up to their imaginations whether Red was just sending supplies via zip line, or if she was riding in the basket all the way to Granny's house. The children figured out pretty well on their own, that those who had a stronger angle wound up with a faster ride than those who with less of a height difference in point A and point B. 

We finished off with a transportation themed version of Little Red. It's really cute and definitely a different take on the whole fractured fairy tale thing. 

Now it's your turn. Have you tried a zip line project before? What materials did you use?

*Disclaimer* I am not an Amazon affiliate, so even though I include links to Amazon, I do not receive any compensation for any sales which may result. I am an independent consultant with Usborne Books & More, so I do get a commission from orders placed through my Usborne Books & More website. 

Rapunzel

When I decided to do a Rapunzel storytime, I went back and forth over which STEAM project to do with it. Rapunzel provides a lot of options. I saw suggestions for zip lines, pulleys, or marble runs. In the end I went with catapults. The idea behind it was that we were catapulting supplies up to Rapunzel to aid in her escape. 

Outline:

Opening Song: Put your hands up high

Opening Rhyme: Hands Go Up

Story: "Rapunzel: A German Fairy Tale" in Rapunzel Stories Around the World by Cari Meister

Song: Fairy Tale Song
Tune: Jingle Bells

Once upon a time
In a land so far away
A princess kissed a frog,
Well that just made his day

Far across the town
Red Riding Hood took fright
She found a wolf in Granny's bed
When she told her good night!

Oh!
Fairy Tales! Fairy tales!
Read them every day!
Oh what fun it is to hear
How Goldilocks got away!

Fairy Tales! Fairy Tales!
Full of joy and laughter
Do you know how this one ends?
Why it's happily ever after!

Source: First Grade W.O.W.

Song: Rapunzel's Hair is Falling Down
Tune: London Bridge is Falling Down

Rapunzel's hair is falling down
Falling down, falling down,
Rapunzel's hair is falling down
My fair lady

Madame Gothel locked her up,
Locked her up, locked her up,
Madame Gothel locked her up
My fair lady

Rapunzel will escape the tower,
Escape the tower, escape the tower,
Rapunzel will escape the tower
Happ'ly ever after!

Source: Me

Story: Falling for Rapunzel by Leah Wilcox

Motion Activity: Action Dice with Rapunzel Song from YouTube

Final Story: How the Library (Not the Prince) Saved Rapunzel by Wendy Meddour

Activity: Catapults

Goodbye song

How it actually went: 

I structured this one a little differently because I knew the kids were going to have so much shooting their catapults that they wouldn't want to come back together for our final story. So this week, we finished all of our stories and songs before beginning our project. 

Falling for Rapunzel was a huge hit that had the children laughing hysterically. When it came time to play music with our action dice, I could not find the Rapunzel song that I had previously found on YouTube, so I wound up using a cd that I keep on hand for storytimes. 

For the catapults I modified the design I learned from the Heathers at STEM in Libraries. I had the pleasure of hearing them speak at the ILA conference in 2015, so I still had the catapult project from their presentation. Instead of using a plastic spoon, I hot-glued plastic bottle tops to popsicle sticks. I had a bunch of the tops on hand and I had seen it done this way. As it turns out, I should have stuck with the plastic spoons. The hot glue kept coming loose and the tops would fall off. Ah well, live and learn. At least I had plenty of replacements available. 

I made some targets for the kids to shoot at. Since the idea was that we were catapulting supplies up to Rapunzel, I made a tower out of an old cardboard tube. I also made a smaller one out of a cardboard box. Then, just for the heck of it, I set several small buckets out for the kids to aim for also. The kids had absolutely no trouble spending a half hour building and shooting their catapults. 

Have you built catapults with your kids before? Which design did you use? 

*Disclaimer* I am not an Amazon affiliate and do not receive any compensation from any sales which may result from the links above. 

Humpty Dumpty

I'm so glad that there are actually several books out there about Humpty Dumpty. I knew I wanted to have a Humpty Dumpty storytime with an egg drop, but until I started looking, I really wasn't sure what was available since Humpty Dumpty is technically a nursery rhyme rather than a fairy tale. 

Outline:

Opening Song: Put Your Hands up High

Opening Rhyme: Hands go up

Rhyme: Classic Humpty Dumpty

Story: Ode to Humpty Dumpty by Harriet Ziefert

Song: Fairy Tale Song
Tune: Jingle Bells

Once upon a time
In a land so far away
A princess kissed a frog,
Well that just made his day

Far across the town
Red Riding Hood took fright
She found a wolf in Granny's bed
When she told her good night!

Oh!
Fairy Tales! Fairy tales!
Read them every day!
Oh what fun it is to hear
How Goldilocks got away!

Fairy Tales! Fairy Tales!
Full of joy and laughter
Do you know how this one ends?
Why it's happily ever after!

Source: First Grade W.O.W.

Song: Humpty Dumpty Fell Down
Tune: Frere Jacques

Humpty Dumpty, Humpty Dumpty
Fell far down, on the ground
Call the king's horses, call the king's men
What a mess! What a mess!

Source: Me

Story: Humpty Dumpty by Daniel Kirk

Craft/Activity: Egg Drop

Final Story: Humpty Dumpty Climbs Again by Dave Horowitz

Goodbye Song

How it actually went: 

I opened up storytime with a short discussion about the rhyme itself. I had intended to read some other versions of the rhyme, but since I'm prone to forgetfulness, I forgot to print and bring the earlier versions to storytime with me. We did, however, talk a little bit about the idea that "Humpty Dumpty" was once a riddle which is why he is often depicted as an egg, even though the rhyme never states that he is. I did not discuss some of the other, more violent theories with them. 

The books all went over pretty well. The children weren't familiar with any of these stories ahead of time. I think Humpty Dumpty Climbs Again was the definite favorite, particularly with its depiction of Humpty climbing in his underwear. 

The highlight of the night was the egg drop. I gave each child an egg in a sandwich baggie, and I told them they could use as much tape and paper as they felt they needed to protect their egg from a fall off the back staircase. I gave them computer paper, and old copies of our library newsletter (newspaper like consistency). Since I hadn't tried an experiment like this in many years, I joined them in the challenge. 

Once everyone was ready, I put them in order youngest to oldest, and we dropped our little Humpty Dumptys over the wall. Of the six eggs dropped (five children, plus myself), only two survived the fall (and no, mine was not one of them). 

We went back into the storytime room to talk a little bit about what worked and what didn't. Unfortunately there was not enough time to try a second drop, otherwise, I would have liked to see them take their projects to the next level. 

I had so much fun with this one. A co-worker and I tried to do a stand-alone egg drop program a few months ago, and sadly no one showed up. I am so glad that I was able to incorporate it into storytime. 

What are your thoughts? Have you done an egg drop at your library? Tell me about it in the comments. 

*Disclaimer* This post contains links to Amazon, but I am not an affiliate and receive no compensation from any sales which may result.