Snow White

Initially when I thought about using Snow White, I wasn't sure what my STEAM tie-in would be. When I'm stumped for ideas, I try to pull out some key elements from the story. For Snow White, I chose to focus on the magic mirror. This gave me a great opportunity to play around a bit with the science of mirrors with the kids. 

Also, does anyone else find it odd that it's Dwarfs and not Dwarves?

Outline: 

Opening Song: Put your hands up high

Opening Rhyme: Hands Go Up 

Story: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs retold by Leslie Sims 

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. 

Rhyme: Shel Silverstein Poem "Mirror, Mirror" from the book Falling Up

Story: Snow White and the 77 Dwarfs by Davide Cali 

Coding word: Mirror 

Activity: Mirror/Reflection fun with flash light 

Craft: Kaleidoscopes  

Final Story: Seriously, Snow White Was So Forgetful! by Nancy Loewen 

Goodbye song

How it actually went: 

This is a classic fairy tale that a lot of my kids were familiar with, and they were excited to read something they recognized. Interestingly the two classic versions that I read, included all three visits from the Queen, rather than just the final visit with the poison apple. The Usborne edition uses a sash rather than corset laces, so some of the kids were confused as to how that would keep Snow White from breathing, but otherwise that went well. 

The Fairy Tale Song was new for all of us, but I'm so excited that I found it because I think it's so much fun. One problem with it being the same tune as "Jingle Bells", most of my kids (at the very least my loudest) switched to singing "Jingle Bells" partway through. This is turn messed me up, and I had to stop and think about which song I was singing. I just smile and roll with it, though. I will be using this song again for at least the next few weeks, so I'm sure we'll get it right with repeated singing. 

Reading a poem to the kids was something new for me, and I'm not sure how well it went over. They probably would have enjoyed it more if I had prepared some kind of visual to go along with it. 

Snow White and the 77 Dwarfs is quite funny, and the children enjoyed it. They especially seemed to like the rainbow color palette. 

As has become our custom, we used the ASCII Binary Alphabet to spell out a word related to our story. This time it was MIRROR. Now that it's becoming routine, the kids are getting quicker to jump in with responses. 

MIRROR in ASCII Binary. Black ovals represent 1, white ovals represent 0.

We played a short mirror game with a flashlight and a few small craft mirrors that I picked up at Michaels. I turned down the lights. I gave each of the kids one of the mirrors, and I had a flashlight. I shone my flashlight at a mirror, and we tried to pass the light around the room. Once we succeeded in going one direction, we switched it up and went the other way. 

After our game we settled in for craft time. This week we made kaleidoscopes. I used the directions from Buggy and Buddy. I ordered the mylar from Amazon using the link from the Buggy and Buddy blog. Definitely use card stock to figure out the correct size before cutting the mylar. Toilet paper tubes are not a standard size, so that's fun when you're working with a limited amount of mylar. All in all, it was a fun activity. Some of the kids colored an assortment of geometric shapes on their circles, others drew full pictures. One little boy drew superhero logos. Those came out pretty cool looking as a kaleidoscope. 

My sample kaleidoscope. I chose not to decorate my tp tube, but the ones I had available for the kids were blue, orange, red, and green.

This was another really fun one. The kids really enjoyed making kaleidoscopes, and I always enjoy watching them get creative. 

As always, feel free to share any of your questions or ideas in the comments below. 

*Disclaimer* Some titles in this post link to Amazon. I am not an Amazon affiliate, and I receive no compensation for any sales which may result. Other titles in this post link to my store at Usborne Books & More. I am an independent consultant with Usborne Books & More, and I do receive a commission from those sales.  

The Snow Queen

I had no idea when I set out to do a storytime based around The Snow Queen, just how difficult it would be to find storytime-friendly versions of the tale. Everything we had on our shelves was practically novel-length. In the end, I decided to borrow one from my mom, and bought another for my personal collection. 

Outline: 

Opening Song: Put Your Hands up High

Opening Rhyme: Hands go up

Story: The Snow Queen by Hans Christian Anderson illustrated by Charlotte Cooke

Song: Snowflakes, Snowflakes
Tune: Twinkle Twinkle
Snowflakes, snowflakes
Dance around
Snowflakes, snowflakes
Touch the gorund
Snowflakes, snowflakes
In the air
Snowflakes, snowflakes
Everywhere.

Song: It is snowing
It is snowing, it is snowing
All around, all around
Soft and quiet snowflakes
Soft and quiet snowflakes
Not a sound, not a sound

Coding word: SNOW

We used the ASCII Binary Alphabet to spell SNOW. Blue snowflakes represented the number 1, and purple snowflakes represented 0. 

Story: The Snow Queen by Hans Christian Anderson illustrated by Alan Marks

Activity: Roll a Snowflake Game

Craft/Activity: Painting with shimmery puffy snow paint

Final Story: A Royal Sleepover in Frozen 5 Minute Stories

Goodbye Song

How it actually went: 

My regulars were all back this week! Yay! They were not familiar with the story of the Snow Queen so this was a nice opportunity to introduce them to the story. As pared down as the books I read were, they were still pretty wordy for most storytimes. My kids did really well though. Normally I like to include fractured versions along with the traditional tale, but this is one that doesn't appear to have been played around with a lot (hence the inclusion of Frozen, since it's the closest I could get). The two versions I read had a lot of similarities, but a few differences, so we talked about that a bit as I read the second book. 

The Roll a Snowflake game was a little confusing for all of us. I think we all interpreted the rules differently, but I tried not to be too strict about it. The kids just seemed to enjoy playing with markers. 

One of the kids decided to add some extra color to her snowflake. 

Snow paint was a lot of fun. Like the person in the original blog post, I didn't really measure how much shaving cream or glue I was using. I just poured and stirred and played around with it. I tested it to see how well it painted, and it seemed to work, so that worked for me. 

Snow paint: shaving cream, white glue, and glitter.

Several of the kids opted to paint with their hands. 

I found that when I used paint brushes, the snow paint seemed to smear more than anything, so I kind of plopped it on there with a spoon. I let the kids have the option of using a paint brush, a plastic spoon, or their fingers. Things definitely got a little messy, so I might recommend a table cloth or tarp, but it was all in good fun. 

Painting with a spoon.

Finger painting.

Overall, it was another fun storytime. I enjoyed introducing the children to a fairy tale that they were not familiar with, and they had fun getting messy with the snow paint. As always I would love to hear from anyone else who had tried any aspect of this. How did it work out for you? What worked really well? What would you try differently? Feel free to comment away!

*Disclaimer* This post contains links to Amazon, but I am not an Amazon affiliate so I do not receive any compensation for any sales which may result. I am an Independent Consultant with Usborne Books & More, so I do receive a commission from sales on my Usborne site. 

Fairy Tale Free-for-All

This was my final storytime for 2016, so I decided to go out with a bang. The plan was to tell some fun, fractured stories that did not focus on retelling any one specific tale, and then give the kids some free play time to do whichever activity they chose. 

Outline: 

Opening Song: Put Your Hands Up High

Opening Rhyme: Hands Go Up

Story: Who Pushed Humpty Dumpty? By David Levinthal

Song: Climbing up the Beanstalk
Tune: She'll Be Comin' 'Round the Mountain

He'll be climbing up the beanstalk when he comes
He'll be climbing up the beanstalk when he comes
He'll be climbing up the beanstalk, he'll be climbing up the beanstalk,
He'll be climbing up the beanstalk when he comes

Additional verses:
He'll be hiding from the giant
He'll be taking lots of gold
He'll be chopping down the beanstalk

Source: My own adaptation inspired by something on Pinterest.

Song: When Goldilocks went to the house of the bears

When Goldilocks went to the house of the bears
Oh what did her two eyes see?
A bowl that was huge
A bowl that was small
A bowl that was tiny and that was all
She counted them: one, two, three

When Goldilocks went to the house of the bears
Oh what did her two eyes see?
A chair that was huge
A chair that was small
A chair that was tiny and that was all
She counted them: one, two, three

When Goldilocks went to the house of the bears
Oh what did her two eyes see?
A bed that was huge
A bed that was small
A bed that was tiny and that was all
She counted them: one, two, three

When Goldilocks ran from the house of the bears
Oh what did her two eyes see?
A bear that was huge
A bear that was small
A bear that was tiny and that was all
They growled at her: grrr, grrr, grrr!

Source: BBC

Story: Interrupting Chicken by David Ezra Stein

Song: The Gingerbread Man
Tune: "The Muffin Man"

Oh, do you know the Gingerbread Man,
Gingerbread Man, Gingerbread Man?
Oh, do you know the Gingerbread Man,
Who ran and ran and ran?

He said, "Catch me if you can,
If you can, if you can."
He said, "Catch me if you can,"
Then ran and ran and ran.

I can run like the Gingerbread Man.
Gingerbread Man, Gingerbread Man.
I can run like the Gingerbread Man,
Now catch me if you can.

Source: Preschool Education

Final Story: Nibbles, the Book Monster by Emma Yarlett

Activity time

Goodbye song

How it actually went: 

This one was interesting because none of my regulars came; it was all new people. This meant that I had to explain, that the free-play portion was not typical, that normally craft/activity time was a little more structured. It also meant that they had no context for the various crafts and worksheets since they weren't at any of my previous storytimes. On the plus side, it meant that they hadn't already done them, so they weren't bored by them. 

The songs I used this week were all songs that I had used previously, the intention was for them to be familiar to my regular kids, but well, see above paragraph. 

The books were fun, but I had some youngsters in the crowd, so I had to do some editing on the fly. I forgot about how very long Who Pushed Humpty Dumpty? is. Nibbles, the Book Monster was a big hit. It's interactive, and the kids had fun helping me turn the pages.

I was really curious to see how kids would spend their half-hour of free time. For activities I had: LearnToLearn LEGO sets, the storytime playhouse for Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Dive into Shapes, "Sea" and Build Geometry set from Learning Resources, and pentominoes. For the crafts, coloring sheets, and worksheets, I put out all of my leftovers including: make your own beanstalk, weighted Bears and Goldilocks, various crafting/building materials (straws, toilet paper tubes, craft sticks, pipe cleaners/fuzzy sticks). 

Not surprisingly, several kids opted to play with the LEGO kits right off the bat. I was really surprised though, by the number of kids who put them away and then decided to make a beanstalk. I had prepped the beanstalks for a previous storytime by gluing green paper to a paper towel roll and then hot gluing that to a paper plate for some stability. I also provided characters from Jack and the Beanstalk that the kids could color and place wherever they wanted to in their scene. I was really surprised by how popular that particular craft turned out to be! 

Because I didn't have a structured activity, and I read the final story before I released the kids to have fun, families were free to leave whenever (technically they always are, but most families stay until the final story and goodbye song). So some stayed for about fifteen minutes of play time, others until about five minutes after storytime was supposed to end. 

Even though I was sad that I did not see any of my regular kids, I was glad that so many new people decided to check out my storytime, and I think they had fun. I hope they come back again. 

*Disclaimer* I sometimes link to Amazon, but I am not an Amazon affiliate, so I do not receive any compensation for any sales that may result. I am, however, an Independent Consultant with Usborne Books & More, so I do receive a commission from sales placed through my Usborne website. 

Goldilocks and the Three Bears

This week was a fun one. This story and the accompanying challenge were something that I've been wanting to try, so I was glad to finally test it out. We read a few versions of the Goldilocks story and the children were challenged to build a bed that would hold Goldilocks (and maybe the bears too). 

Outline: 

Opening song: Put your hands up high

Opening rhyme: Hands go up

Original Story: Use Storytime Toys playhouse to tell

Story: Goldilocks and the Three Bears: A Tale Moderne by Steven Guarnaccia

Song: When Goldilocks went to the house of the bears

When Goldilocks went to the house of the bears
Oh what did her two eyes see?
A bowl that was huge
A bowl that was small
A bowl that was tiny and that was all
She counted them: one, two, three

When Goldilocks went to the house of the bears
Oh what did her two eyes see?
A chair that was huge
A chair that was small
A chair that was tiny and that was all
She counted them: one, two, three

When Goldilocks went to the house of the bears
Oh what did her two eyes see?
A bed that was huge
A bed that was small
A bed that was tiny and that was all
She counted them: one, two, three

When Goldilocks ran from the house of the bears
Oh what did her two eyes see?
A bear that was huge
A bear that was small
A bear that was tiny and that was all
They growled at her: grrr, grrr, grrr!

Source: BBC

Story: Goldilocks and Just One Bear by Leigh Hodgkinson

Activities: Sorting by Size
Source for template: Preschool Alphabet

Craft: Build a bed for Goldilocks

Final Story: Goatilocks and the Three Bears by Erica S. Pearl

Goodbye song

How it actually went: 

Using the little playhouse to tell the original story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears went better than I expected. I was so sure that all of the children would want to touch everything and I would spend more time asking them to step back so everyone could see, than I would actually telling the story. I had a little smaller than normal audience this week, so maybe that was part of it. 

The Goldilocks and the Three Bears Stortyime playhouse.

After going over the classic fairy tale, we moved on to our first fractured version. Steven Guarnaccia's version was really fairly close to the classic tale that most people know. The key differences are in the illustrations and the way the characters speak. It's a lot of fun. 

When "Goldilocks Went to the House of the Bears" was a new song for me and for the kids. I also decided to try out connecting my phone to the CD player via Bluetooth for the first time. It worked okay, but wasn't very loud. I actually think this might have worked better if we had just sung it ourselves since the YouTube video went a little fast for the kids. 

Large, Medium, and Small bowls, chairs, and beds. These were originally going to be used as part of a sorting game, but instead became props for "When Goldilocks Went to the House of the Bears."

Goldilocks and Just One Bear was great. The kids found the bear's confusion to be hilarious. They also quickly identified that it was a flip-flopped version of the original tale. It was a great book for comparing a fractured version to the classic one. 

We did some more coding with the ASCII Binary Alphabet, but I forgot to get a picture this week. I used our Ellison Die Cut again. This time I made brown bears and black bears with the brown bears representing 1 and the black bears representing 0. As before the kids enjoyed calling out the 1s and 0s so we could spell BEARS.

During our craft time, I challenged the kids to build a bed for Goldilocks. I had card stock cut outs of Goldilocks and each of the Bears that I had weighted with pennies. If their bed could hold Goldilocks' weight, then we tested to see if it could hold each of the Bears. If the bed could hold each character individually, we then tested to see if it could hold everyone. 

One of the kids plans out a bed design with his dad.

The children did great work with this challenge. I made some changes from when we built a house for the Three Little Pigs. When I challenged the kids to build a house, I provided the same limited number of supplies to each child, and I did not make any sample houses for them to copy. I had hoped by doing this that the children would get creative. Instead, the children seemed paralyzed and their parents did most of the work. 

One of the dads helps his son tape the legs on his bed.

This time, I put all of the supplies out and let the children grab whatever they thought they needed, but asked them to please not take all of any one item; they needed to remember that they were all sharing the supplies. I also came up with a few sample beds, but made sure the children understood that mine had not been tested, so I had no idea if they would support Goldilocks or any of the Bears. 

One of the children based her bed design after one of my examples. I loved watching her work because I could see her constantly assessing and fixing her design.

It worked so much better this time. From what I could see the parents were working in more of the support role that I like to see, and the children were taking ownership of their designs. Instead of straight-up copying my samples, as I had feared, they spring-boarded off of my ideas and came up with their own. 

Success! This bed can support Goldilocks.

Some of the children finished early, so I told them they were welcome to play with the Goldilocks play house that they weren't allowed to touch while I was telling the story. It was pretty adorable watching them play together and retell the story to each other. 

Another success! This bed is large and stable enough to support Goldilocks and the entire Bear family.

Once everyone had finished and tested their beds, we read our final story, Goatilocks and the Three Bears. The children thought it was hilarious (spoiler alert: she eats everything). 

Next Wednesday is our final storytime of 2016 (yeah you're reading this weeks after the fact), so I'm hosting what I call a Fairy Tale Free-for-All. We're reading some fractured tales that incorporate multiple characters, and I'm going to pull out all of the activities we've done since I started using fairy tales, and just let the kids have at it. I'm looking forward to it. 

*Disclaimer* While this post contains links to Amazon and other online stores. I am not an affiliate for any of these sites, and I do not receive any compensation for any sales that may result. 

The Gingerbread Man

Using the story of the Gingerbread Man seemed like a great seasonal fit without being too Christmas-y. Yes I know, you're seeing this just after the New Year. My blog posts are several weeks behind my actual storytimes. In any case, gingerbread men looked like something I could easily make an art project out of, so I did. 

Outline: 

Opening song: Put your hands up high

Opening rhyme: Hands go up

Story: The Library Gingerbread Man by Dottie Enderle

Song: Five Gingerbread Men

Five gingerbread men lying on a tray,
One jumped up and ran away,
Shouting “Catch me, catch me, catch me if you can…
I run really fast, I’m the gingerbread man!
The gingerbread man, the gingerbread man,
I run really fast, I’m the gingerbread man!”

Four gingerbread men lying on a tray,
One jumped up and ran away,
Shouting “Catch me, catch me, catch me if you can…
I run really fast, I’m the gingerbread man!
The gingerbread man, the gingerbread man,
I run really fast, I’m the gingerbread man!”

Three gingerbread men lying on a tray,
One jumped up and ran away,
Shouting “Catch me, catch me, catch me if you can…
I run really fast, I’m the gingerbread man!
The gingerbread man, the gingerbread man,
I run really fast, I’m the gingerbread man!”

Two gingerbread men lying on a tray,
One jumped up and ran away,
Shouting “Catch me, catch me, catch me if you can…
I run really fast, I’m the gingerbread man!
The gingerbread man, the gingerbread man,
I run really fast, I’m the gingerbread man!”

Just one gingerbread man lying on a tray
He jumped up and ran away
Shouting “Catch me, catch me, catch me if you can…
I run really fast, I’m the gingerbread man!
The gingerbread man, the gingerbread man,
I run really fast, I’m the gingerbread man!”

No gingerbread men lying on a tray,
They all jumped up and ran away
Oh how I wish they had stayed with me to play
Next time I’ll eat them up before they run away
The gingerbread men, the gingerbread men,
Next time I’ll eat them up before they run away!
Next time I’ll eat them up before they run away!

Source:  

Story: The Gingerbread Girl by Lisa Campbell Ernst

Song: The Gingerbread Man
Tune: "The Muffin Man"

Oh, do you know the Gingerbread Man,
Gingerbread Man, Gingerbread Man?
Oh, do you know the Gingerbread Man,
Who ran and ran and ran?
He said, "Catch me if you can,
If you can, if you can."
He said, "Catch me if you can,"
Then ran and ran and ran.

I can run like the Gingerbread Man.
Gingerbread Man, Gingerbread Man.
I can run like the Gingerbread Man,
Now catch me if you can.

Source: Preschool Education 

Activity: Coding with ASCII Binary Alphabet and red & green gingerbread men

Source: ASCII Binary Alphabet PDF provided by Little Bins for Little Hands

Craft time: Mosaic Gingerbread Man

Final Story: The Stinky Cheese Man by Jon Scieska & Lane Smith

Goodbye Song

How it actually went: 

This was another week with pretty strong attendance. It makes me really happy to see the number of regular kids grow each week. 

To start off I used a traditional version of the story to give a quick overview, and make sure everyone was familiar with the story of The Gingerbread Man. I did not read the book word for word, I just used the pictures to show how the gingerbread man was made and all of the various characters that he ran from before finally being tricked by the fox. We talked about how there was some variety in the different versions. Sometimes he gets eaten, sometimes not. Most versions show the fox tricking him while crossing a river, but I found at least two versions where the fox pretends to be hard of hearing and urges the gingerbread man to come closer and closer before gobbling him up. 

Our first fractured version was The Library Gingerbread Man, which I found particularly amusing as the gingerbread man runs through the various Dewey call numbers. Some of the kids in my group were already familiar with this one from school. 

Five Little Gingerbread Men went over well, and the kids picked up on it quickly even though it was a new song for all of us. 

Our second story and song both went really well too. I usually try to have more than one song between books, and in fact, and had planned for it, but sometimes if the songs are longer I'll cut one for fear that I will run over on time. Crafting tends to take children a while, so I like to have lots of time built in for that. 

Something new that I tried this week, but that I think I will continue trying was using the ASCII Binary Alphabet to introduce some basic coding. I have seen this used before for making beaded jewelry, and thought why not try using it to spell out a word on the white board? Because the gingerbread man is so long, I opted for the simpler, cookie. I used our die cut of a gingerbread man to cut out enough red and green cookies, and with the help of the kids, we spelled cookie in binary. 

I really had no idea how this was going to go over, but the kids were getting into it. I gave them a sheet with the code on it, and called out, "What do we need for C?" and so on and so forth. For their part, the kids enthusiastically called out "1000011!" So yay! for basic coding! 

After this we moved on to craft time. I typically opt for open-ended projects, but tonight's craft was a little more directed. Nevertheless, the kids did a great job of expressing their individual creativity. 

I did not get any pictures of their creations, but this was my model. Trust me when I say, the kids did a much better job. 

Finally we wrapped things up with The Stinky Cheese Man and our goodbye song. All in all it was another successful mix of fairy tales and STEAM concepts. In theory, this week was an art week, but as you can see it's not unusual for me to mix multiple concepts in the same storytime. Really, it makes sense to do this because everything is so interconnected. As I continue with this, I'll probably drop the idea that one week is Science, the next Technology, and so on, and I'll just introduce whichever concepts work best with whatever story we're reading. 

As always, I welcome any comments and suggestions from you if you've tried something similar. I love learning about how others take these same ideas and make them their own. 

*Disclaimer* This post contains links to Amazon.com, but I am not currently set up with an affiliate account, so I do not receive any compensation for any sales that may result.