July 2023: Dinosaurs, Ocean Friends, and Eating the Alphabet

I'm the Youth Services Librarian at a rural library and I do story time twice a week with a toddler and preschool aged group. Each week I share what we're learning and doing!

Our Story Time Format: When the kids first arrive, we flip through our Circle Time notebook and talk about who is here, the weather, days of the week, colors, shapes, etc. We sometimes sing songs together with props, play a game, or use the flannel or magnet board. Then I read them a story. After the story we move on to craft time. After we make our craft, we have play time with special toys or a sensory bin. After we've had play time (usually when the parents start mentioning getting ready to go!) I encourage the kids to help pick up the toys, to check out books, and to come visit me again next week! This takes approximately 30 - 45 minutes.

💥 Dinosaurs 💥

Our book for the first week in July was How Dinosaurs Learn to Be Kind by Jane Yolen and Mark Teague. For our craft we made Paper Plate Dinos - the kids loved doing this! I pre-painted them so we could assemble them but I let them draw on them, glue on the googly eyes, and assemble. I made a Digging for Dinos sensory bin! I used Cocoa Dyno-Bites with shovels and dinosaur cutouts that I laminated! (I think mini dinos would have been better but I couldn't find any in our local stores at the time.) We did the rhyme "Ten Little Dinos" with some numbered dino cutouts I had taped to popsicle sticks. Also during our activity time, we did dino and egg color matching with printables I had cut out and laminated. And lastly, we did the song Dinosaur, Dinosaur, Turn Around with matching movements!

🐠 Swimmy! 🐟

The next week our book was Swimmy by Leo Lionni. The art in this book is so unique! I looked it up and Lionni stamped things out with paint and used lace, cloth, and string to make seaweed, water, and tentacles! Super cool. We made Ocean Process Art, played a Fishing Game, and had goldfish for a snack. We sang The Creatures of the Ocean song (similar to this) and used Ocean Friends magnets of a crab, a whale, a dolphin, etc. that I made on Canva, printed, cut out, laminated, and put magnet tape on!

🍎🍊 Fruits and Veggies 🍅🍓

The week after we read Eating the Alphabet by Lois Ehlert. This was a smaller board book but the kids loved seeing the different kinds of fruits and veggies. We used the fruit and veggie playset that was already in the children's room to practice sorting them into their respective food groups.  We did this Food Group Sorting activity and used our flannel board to do some watermelon rhymes with watermelon flannel pieces. We also had a coloring sheet from My Plate that we glued pictures of different types of food to.