Pre-School Storytime: Houses, Homes, and Habitats

Preschool Storytime: Houses, Homes, and Habitats
Age 3-6

Featuring homes for animals and people which incorporates:
fiction and non-fiction, music,
the concepts of color and shape,
and participatory storytelling of a classic folk tale.

Note: this is a long program, not all elements may be done with all age groups, (or it could be split up into a week of thematic programming in a preschool.)

Program Plans:

Entering Music: Tracks 5-6 on Fred Penner’s album Collections


Read: Blue Rabbit and Friends by Christopher Wormell (Alts: No Place Like Home by Jonathan Emmett, Too Tall Houses by Gianna Marino or Moving House by Mark Siegel)

“Here’s a story of mouse looking for a house of her own…”
Flannel: Mouse House  (concepts: colors & shapes) (mouse finger puppet, flannel shapes as per script)
Fingerplay: Quiet Mouse (click here for text of all songs, fingerplays, and flannels)

Read (Interactive Non-Fiction): Whose House is This? -- 591.564 GREG (may not read all the details with pre-schoolers) (Alts: Castles, Caves, and Honeycombs by Linda Ashman, or Have You Ever Seen a Stork Build a Log Cabin? – 591.564 Kaner)
Flannel/Song: A Squirrel Lives in the Tree (musical reinforcement of above book)

Read: Raise the Roof by Anastasia Suen (fiction with non-fiction elements: sequence of building a house; extend vocabulary – asking children who puts in the pipes? “plumber”, what are wires for? “electricity” etc.) (Alts: Jack’s House by Karen Magnuson Beil or I Can Build a House by Shigeo Watanabe)
Song: New House and/or action: Building a House

Read: A Squash & a Squeeze by Julia Donaldson (retelling of a classic folk tale, repetative refrain which children can say with librarian)

Participatory/Action Storytelling:  Act out traditional story: The Three Little Pigs (Supplies: 3 pigs and wolf puppets (laminated enlarged clip art mounted on chopsticks work), yellow, brown, and red sheets of paper photocopied with “straw”, “sticks”, and “bricks” patterns, optional parachute.) 

Hand out pigs & wolf puppets to child volunteers. As narrator tells story (one house built and blown down at a time), the rest of the children pick up appropriate paper "building materials" and stand around first one, then two, then all three pigs (my telling has the pigs escaping to the next pig's house, not being eaten) under a parachute held by adults.  If using parachute: adults shake parachute as the wolf "huffs & puffs" and children urged to "fall down" when the wolf “blew the house down.” (Kids help narrator with the lines "Little pig(s), little pig(s), let me come in." "Not by the hair on my/our chinny-chin-chin(s)!" "Then I'll huff & I'll puff & I'll blow your house in!") At the end, narrator can either have the wolf sliding down into a pot of boiling water, loudly yelling "ouch" and running away (Susan Dailey's suggestion) or use the more traditional (bloodthirsty) version. Note, depending on the energy level of the group, I sometimes will omit using the parachute during the storytelling because the group may get quite wild, and instead bring it out afterwards for:
Parachute/Action Song: In and Out of Doors by Susan Dailey http://www.susanmdailey.com/houses.htm

Video/DVD: Reading Rainbow: Desert Giant (non-fiction connection) (Alts: Changes, Changes by Pat Hutchins on  Stories for the Very Young v.2 or The Three Little Pigs (Weston Woods, long --11 minutes), Reading Rainbow: Is this a House for Hermit Crab? or The Napping House (Weston Woods)

Close with Singable Book (or Flannel):  A House is a House for Me by Mary Ann Hoberman (music: track 7 on Fred Penner’s album “Collections”)

Hand stamping music: Fred Penner’s album “Collections”

Display for take-home:  Fiction and non-fiction titles (591.564, 728) on the subject of animal and human homes (including other versions of The Three Little Pigs.)  For other titles, see the contents of our Houses & Homes Storytime Theme Kit.

3.13 3.14 BWL
Thanks to: http://www.susanmdailey.com/houses.htm for some of these ideas.
Great S.T.E.A.M. idea: http://www.alsc.ala.org/blog/2012/10/the-three-little-pigs-the-preschool-science/


Stunning new multicultural title: In a Village by the Sea by Muon Van, illustrated by April Chu.

Billions of Bricks by Kurt Cyrus (Winners 2017)