Storytime Craft: "Build It!”

 

10 a.m. PreSchool Storytime/Activity:

Entering Music: Tracks 5-7 on Fred Penner’s album Collections

Book: 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.) (Alt: If I Built a House by Chris Van Doren (great if kids are old enough), Jack’s House by Karen Magnuson Beil  (cute story but repetition somewhat tedious) or I Can Build a House by Shigeo Watanabe (young))

Song: New House (Tune: London Bridge)

Let’s all build a brand new house,
Brand new house, brand new house,
Let’s all build a brand new house,
Let’s get started!

First we’ll dig a great big hole…
Let’s keep going!

Then we’ll put in walls and floors…
Let’s keep going!

Now it’s time to raise the roof…
Let’s keep going!

Then put out the welcome mat…
We’ll have a party!

“Here’s a story of mouse looking for a house of her own…”
Flannel: Mouse House  (concepts: colors & shapes) (mouse finger puppet, flannel shapes script here: http://carolsimonlevin.blogspot.com/2014/02/pre-school-storytime-mousing-around.html)

Fingerplay: Quiet Mouse
Once there lived a quiet mouse   (hold out fist with index finger extended)
In a quiet little house.  (insert index finger into other fist)
When all was quiet as can be
Out Popped He!! (throw arms and hands apart)

Book: Dreaming Up: A Celebration of Building by Christy Hale  (showed pictures discussing child-made and architect-made buildings, only read some of the poems)

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.)  details: http://carolsimonlevin.blogspot.com/2013/03/houses-homes-and-habitats.html

Action Song: In and Out of Doors by Susan Dailey http://www.susanmdailey.com/houses.htm

Interactive/Guessing Game Book: Not a Box  by Antoinette Portis

STEM Playground Building Materials (Music: Fred Penner’s album “Collections”)

• Toobers and Zots
• Foam Shapes
• Straws & Connectors
• Duplo
• Keva Blocks
• Magnetic Blocks / Magnatiles
• Lego
• B&T cardboard, markers, tape, glue

 

4:30 p.m. STEAM plans (3-6 & K-4)

Book: If I Built a House by Chris Van Doren (booktalked his If I Built a Car)

Flannel: Mouse House 

Book: Top Job by Elizabeth Cody Kimmel  (booktalked Sky Boys by Deborah Hopkinson)

Participatory/Action Storytelling:  Act out traditional story: The Three Little Pigs

Book: Dreaming Up: A Celebration of Building by Christy Hale  (showed pictures discussing child-made and architect-made buildings, only read some of the poems)

STEM playground same as above.

12/5/17 BWL

STEAM Storytime–Rotten Pumpkin

S.T.E.A.M. Storytime (ages 3-6 & grades K-4) Problem solving, creative dramatics, and the  cycle of life – all celebrated with the orange icon of the fall season! 

Book: Bear’s Bargain – Frank Asch (also published as Moonbear’s Bargain)  (“have you ever wished you were big, or could fly?”..we tried flying with bear in the book -- clever problem solving).

Participatory Storytelling/Props: Big Pumpkin – from the book by Erica Silverman -- In this variant on the folktale, “The Great Big Enormous Turnip,” the witch, ghost, skeleton, and vampire are unable to pull up the pumpkin until a tiny bat ignores their derisive laughter and suggests they all work together.  I sing/chant this to a tune from an old Scholastic recording – feel free to contact me if you want to learn the tune.

Non-Fiction Book: Rotten Pumpkin: A Rotten Tale in 15 Voices* – 577.16 SCHWARTZ – “UnCommon Core” at its best!  -- Told in the first person by the pumpkin, mouse, squirrel, slug, fly, black rot, bread mold, sow bug, Penicillium, earthworm, yeast cell, slime mold, soil, and seed, this is science “on the hoof.”  Wonderful writing & delightfully yucky photographs complete this unforgettable tour through the life cycle of a pumpkin that kids will find completely enGROSSing!

Book: Pumpkin Heads – Wendell Minor – great inspiration for unusual jack-o-lanterns.

Craft: Create either cute or gross pumpkins inspired by the books above.  Materials: orange construction paper, scrap construction paper, goggly eyes, markers, stamp pads & cotton balls (to create simulated “rot”)

Music playing: Andrew Gold’s Halloween Howls

BWL 10.17

Ideas for Halloween engineering projects: http://leftbraincraftbrain.activehosted.com/index.php?action=social&chash=0a09c8844ba8f0936c20bd791130d6b6.195

Fairytale Engineering "The Three Little Pigs" - Build a Better House

Join us as we learn about houses and homes, act out the traditional story "The Three Little Pigs," then see who can make the tallest, strongest, and most interesting buildings.

Families with children of different ages are welcome to come all together to one program.

As kids arrived, could look at versions of The Three Little Pigs and building books

Preschool Fairytale Engineering Series( Ages 3-6 ) 10:00 a.m.

Participatory/Action Storytelling:  Acted 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.) 

Handed 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 picked 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 & teens.  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

Song/Flannel: “A House is a House for Me” – based on the book Mary Ann Hoberman (music: track 7 on Fred Penner’s album “Collections”)

Interactive/Guessing Game Books: Not a Stick and Not a Box both by Antoinette Portis

Book: Dreaming Up: A Celebration of Building by Christy Hale  (showed pictures discussing child-made and architect-made buildings, didn't read most of the poems)

Then had kids free-play with the construction materials at the stations below.

 

Kids Fairytale Engineering Challenge Series(Entering Grades K-4) 11:30

Asked who knew the story of The Three Little Pigs (almost everyone did)

Read 1st Section: Yo, Hungry Wolf by David Vozar (a rap version of the traditional tale)

Reader's Theater (performed by two teens with wolf & pig puppets, cauldron) “Pig & Wolf” from You Read to Me, I'll Read to You Fairy Tales by Mary Ann Hoberman

Read: The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig by Eugene Trivizas (398.2 TRI) -- Three little wolves jointly build houses of brick, cement, and a barbed wire prison fortress -- each of which is destroyed by a big bad pig (using sledgehammer, jackhammer, and dynamite), but when they build a garden house of flowers, they find it works to turn their enemy into a friend.

Read: What It Feels Like to Be A Building by Forest Wilson – clever look at building components & forces (Dreaming Up would also work well)

Both groups:

Entering and working music "Zig Zag" & “Collections” by Tom Chapin

Stations:

• Duplo (on floor)
• Lego
• Straws and Connectors (on floor)
• Keva Blocks
• Strawbees
• Popsicle Sticks
• 3x3"  3x6" and 3x9" cardboard squares (cut from B&T inserts) & scissors -- kids could notch, bend & build

Younger kids - free build. 
Older kids had challenge of building tallest, strongest (had hair dryer & extension cord) or most creative structure.

Take home handout:

http://www.alsc.ala.org/blog/2012/10/the-three-little-pigs-the-preschool-science/

Other cute Three Little Pigs by Barry Moser (398.2MOS) and James Marshall (398.2MAR), waffle variation with enterprising female pig by Stephen Kellogg (398.2KEL)

More ideas: http://carolsimonlevin.blogspot.com/2013/03/houses-homes-and-habitats.html

07.17 BWL