Mel's Desk

Last week Anne at So Tomorrow and Mary at Miss Mary Liberry posted their own Flannel Fridays, so make sure you head over to their blogs and see what’s up!

Today is another simple flannel, just a rain hat, slicker, and boots.

You can sing “If It’s Raining Outside” to the tune of “If You’re Happy and You Know It.”

If it’s raining outside, wear your boots,
If it’s raining outside, wear your boots,
If it’s raining outside, then your boots will keep you dry
If it’s raining outside, wear your boots.

…wear your coat
…wear your hat
…bring your umbella

Or you could play a guessing game, and say things like, “I’m going to wear something that goes on my feet and lets me splash in the puddles without getting my feet wet. What are they?”

(Ed. 11/11: I am no longer sharing my clip art files due to copyright concerns, so I’ve taken down the link to the files. However, if you search in Microsoft Word clip art you may find the original files I started with.)

One of the really fun things I get to do at my library is update our Storytime Resource Packs, and create new ones. These Resource Packs are sets of materials on a theme. Our storytime providers can request them to help jumpstart their storytime planning and preparation. We include books, flannelboard pieces, activity ideas, and some puppets and props when we can.

As I help update the packs, I’ve started to add in what I call “Color and Counting Sets.” These are sets of laminated clip art flannelboard pieces–usually 36 pieces in 6 different colors. So for the Boats set, there are 6 blue boats, 6 red boats, etc. These sets can be used in a number of ways.

Here’s a few examples for the Boats set:

Flannel Song
Choose 10 boats, and sing “10 Little Motorboats” to the tune of “Ten Little Indians” as you place them on the flannelboard.

Hands-On/Interactive
Hand out one or more boats to each child. Then, tell them it’s time for all the blue boats to sail into the harbor. Have the children with the blue boats bring them to you. They can hand them to you or put them on the flannelboard. Repeat with the other colors.

If you like, before they sail into the harbor, you can play with them a little first! You can say, “Sail your boat on a quiet lake!” (Move your boat slowly and steadily straight across the air in front of you.) Or, “Sail your boat on big ocean waves!” (Move your boat up and down.)

Guessing Game
For younger children, place three red boats in one corner of the flannelboard, three blue boats in another corner, three yellow boats in a third corner, and three green boats in the last corner. Put one red boat in with the blue boats, one blue boat in with the green boats, one green boat with the yellow boats, and one yellow boat in the red boats.

Tell the children that some of the boats are mixed up! “On no! There’s a blue boat with the green boats! Where is it?” Let them respond, then take the blue boat and say, “Where should the blue boat go? Let’s put the blue boat with the other blue boats. Where are they?” Put the blue boat with the other blue boats, and say, “Oh no! Which boat doesn’t match the blue boats? That’s right, the red boat! Where should the red boat go?” Repeat until all the boats are sorted out.

“Stay and Play”
If you have time for some free play after your storytime, show the children and their grown-ups how to make patterns with the boats. Let them play with the flannelboard and the whole set of pieces and make patterns out of the boat colors: Red, Blue, Red, Blue. Or Green, Orange, Orange, Green, Orange, Orange.

You can also pile all the boats up and let the children and their grownups count the boats, and sort them by color.

***

I love these sets because you can use them in different ways, and there’s no rhymes or stories to memorize or read from cue cards.

What else could you do with the Color and Counting Sets?

(Ed. 11/11: I am no longer sharing my clip art files due to copyright concerns, so I’ve taken down the link to these files. However, if you search in Microsoft Word clip art you may find the original files I started with. These sets are easy to make. I make them with Microsoft Word clip art, using “Edit Picture” to change the color of the original image, and copying and pasting until I have a set of six on each page. I print and laminate the images so they stand up to lots of handling and sorting!)

A long post today!

It’s almost spring break, which means that Summer Reading will be here in about 7 and a half minutes. Here’s a flannel I made a couple of years ago for my Summer Reading Program school visits; since it’s based on a Jewish folktale (and song) I think I might brush it off again for One World Many Stories!

In this story, a man has a wonderful overcoat that he wears and wears until it’s all worn out. But then he makes a jacket out of the coat, and which he also wears until it’s all worn out. He makes a vest, a scarf, a tie, and at last a button…and when the button is worn out (or lost), he makes a story out of the button.

There are many versions of this old tale, here’s just a few:

And even a Western one:

My favorite is Bit by Bit, but when I wrote my own version to tell, I borrowed ideas from several sources.

And here’s the rough pattern I developed for my flannel pieces. The “lightning” shapes to the sides are lapels:

What it looks like all together. I stitched a button “placket” onto the two big pieces, and stitched edging onto the lapels, and sewed on some buttons, for extra detail:

And all apart:

I marked the top of each piece, on the back, with a black Sharpie dot, so I can quickly put it back together on the flannelboard (in between groups, for instance):

Here’s a slide show of all the pictures in sequence: An overcoat, a jacket, a vest, a scarf (two ends hanging down), a tie, a handkerchief, and a button:

Joseph's Overcoat

Here’s me telling the story at a school visit–it will give you a sense of the size I used. (The color I used is due to having leftovers from making Kanga and Roo costumes for my daughter and me. I am sure you can come up with a more appealing color for your own version!)

Don’t miss these:

Over at Early Literacy Connection, Jenna has a post with a photo of the flannels she made to go with Something from Nothing!

And here’s a “Preschool Story Cue Card” for Something from Nothing, by Jill Heritage.

St. Patrick’s Day is coming up! I have pretty much abandoned trying to do a true “St Pat’s” theme in storytimes, because most of the books about St Patrick’s Day are not great for storytime, and the stories about leprechauns all seem to be too long.

But sometimes, especially if my storytime falls on the day itself, I will do a nod to the holiday and talk about the color green and read a book like Duckie’s Rainbow by Barry.

I also like to sing the Irish folksong “The Rattlin’ Bog!” Today I’m sharing a clip art flannel I made to go with.

You can sing this song with as many verses as you like! In the long version, there’s a flea on a feather and the feather on the bird and the bird on the egg and the egg on the nest and the nest on the twig and the twig on the limb and the limb on the branch and the branch on the tree and the tree in the bog. *whew*

In the short version I sing in baby storytime, we end up with a bird on the egg and the egg in the nest and the nest in the tree and the tree in the bog.

(Ed. 11/11: I am no longer sharing my clip art files due to copyright concerns, so I’ve taken down the link to the files. However, if you search in Microsoft Word clip art you may find the original files I started with.)

This is a fun one, and very simple. The impact comes from the flannel pieces more than the rhyme!

Five Little Kernels
Put up the five kernel shapes on the board, as spread out as you can. When you say POP! slap a white popcorn shape right on top of one of the kernels.

Five little kernels sizzling in the pot
All of a sudden, one went POP!

Four little kernels… etc.

I do a lot of laminated clip art for my “flannels” but I made this one in felt so that I could layer the kernels and the popped corn pieces on top of each other quickly, without worrying about getting Velcro dots in the right places.

Usually I put flannel pieces on and off the board from left to right, to help build awareness of print directionality, but with this rhyme I think it would be fun to pop on those popped pieces in a more random manner.

Here’s the files! Thanks to my husband for the Photoshop kung fu that turned my scans into patterns! They will print out smaller if you print straight from your browser, but if you save to your computer and then print, they will print out a little bigger. Of course you can always adjust the size on your photocopier, too.

Popcorn
Kernels

Not a flannel, but in time for Dr Seuss’ birthday, if you like to celebrate at storytime!

I made little finger-puppet hats to go with a rhyme I found on Hummingbird Educational Resources. Start with red rectangles, as tall as you want the hats to be, and wide enough to roll around your fingertip with plenty of overlap, but don’t glue it into a cylinder yet. Cut two white strips for each hat and glue them on your flat red rectangle, then roll into a cylinder and glue in place. Cut five white circles, as big as you want the brims to be…don’t go too big or you will have trouble spreading your fingers far enough apart when all the hats are on them! Stand up one of your hat cylinders on a circle and lightly trace around the cylinder onto the circle. Then with an Xacto knife or one blade of a scissors, cut an asterisk pattern within your drawn circle. Put glue on the pointy flaps you just created and press on the inside of your cylinder. You can see how it looks inside in the second photo.

FINGERPLAY: One Little Cat
This is from the Seuss page on Hummingbird Educational Resources!

One little cat on a sunny day
Put on his hat and went out to play
Two little cats when the sky turned dark
Put on their hats and went to the park
Three little cats when the sky turned blue
Put on their hats and went to the zoo
Four little cats by the kitchen door
Put on their hats and went to the store
Five little cats on a sunny day
Put on their hats and they all ran away.

I shared photos and words for this flannel in the Baby Storytime: Farm post, but never uploaded the clip art, so here it is!

Ten Fluffy Chickens

I found this rhyme on The Best Kids’ Book Site.

Five eggs and five eggs
Add a clutch of eggs each time you say “five eggs”
And that makes ten
Sitting on top
Add the hen
Is Mother Hen
Cackle cackle cackle
Clap hands as you say Cackle!
What do I see?
Ten fluffy chickens
Flip over each clutch of eggs.
Yellow as can be.

I printed out the clip art, glued the chicks to the back of the eggs, then glued the edges of the eggs together so that there are two groups of five eggs, and laminated them. There are round white Velcro dots on each side to make it stick. Go look at Storytime Katie for a super-cute felt version!

(Ed. 11/11: I am no longer sharing my clip art files due to copyright concerns, so I’ve taken down the link to the files. However, if you search in Microsoft Word clip art you may find the original files I started with.)

There’s still some winter left, so here’s a colorful set of winter clothes.

You can sing “Boots and Jacket, Scarf and Hat” to the tune of “Head and Shoulders.” Touch your feet, chest, neck, and head as you sing.

Boots and jacket, scarf and hat, scarf and hat,
Boots and jacket, scarf and hat, scarf and hat,
In wintertime we dress like that,
Boots and jacket, scarf and hat, scarf and hat

Or you can have them act out putting on all the different clothes while you sing, “We’re putting on our boots, we’re putting on our boots, hi-ho the derry-o, we’re putting on our boots.”

You can also do a guessing game, and say, “I’m thinking of something we wear in the winter that is long and skinny and keeps our neck warm.” Then put the picture of a scarf on the board. Or for younger children you can do the reverse, and put all the clothes on the board, and give the clue. Then you can be silly and when they guess “scarf!” you can pick up the boots instead. We’re so easily entertained!

(Ed. 11/11: I am no longer sharing my clip art files due to copyright concerns, so I’ve taken down the link to the files. However, if you search in Microsoft Word clip art you may find the original files I started with.)

I learned this one from a coworker, but have since found it out on the Internet too. I stole the idea for pigs clean on one side and dirty on the other from Miss Mary Liberry!

Five Pigs So Squeaky Clean

Sing it to “Five Green and Speckled Frogs”

Five pigs so squeaky clean
Cleanest you’ve ever seen
Wanted to go outside and play
Oink! Oink!
One jumped into the mud
Landed with a big thud
Then there were four clean squeaky pigs.

(Ed. 11/11: I am no longer sharing my clip art files due to copyright concerns, so I’ve taken down the link to the files. This pig is no longer in Microsoft Word clip art, which is where I originally found it, but you may find another clip art pig that would work as well.)