Storytime: Soup's On - Bedminster Library/Nicole's Special Ed Class/Bedminster School

Featuring soup stories and songs,

incorporating fiction and non-fiction, concepts of alphabet,
emotions, and months of the year

and participatory storytelling of a classic folk tale. 

 

Lyrics for the songs and other ideas at: https://carolsimonlevin.blogspot.com/search/label/Soup

  

Entrance Music - John Lithgow 

Book: Growing Vegetable Soup – Lois Ehlert (vocabulary, non-fiction concepts of gardening & food prep)

 

“Piggy Back” Song/Action: This is the Way we… make the Soup (lyrics for this and all other songs below) (reinforces sequencing)

 

Interactive story with props (pot, puppets, & veggies): Stone Soup  (Participatory storytelling, mentioned old story many variants – I use the Ann McGovern version with old lady and young man - script below)

 

Song/Action: “Doing the Chocolate Shake” (chocolate soup) – used when needed to get out the wiggles

 

Song/Flannel:  "Alphabet Soup" by Tom Chapin (reinforces alphabet) 

 

Book: Mean Soup – Betsy Everitt (how to handle a "bad day" - could also make "Mean Cheerios!")

 

Song:  "If you are happy and you know it…" .. sad, angry, loving

Book: Monkey Soup – Louis Sachar (child makes her father a special kind of soup to help get him well – silly!)   

Book/Cards/Song: Chicken Soup with Rice – Maurice Sendak, tune by Carole King from “Really Rosie” (concept: the names of the months)

(video version) (the rest of Really Rosie is available online here)

 

Shaky eggs & animal puppels to song: “Animal Crackers in my Soup” – from John Lithgow’s Farkle & Friends J730 LITH or Joanie Bartels version online.

 

Other books to consider: Soup Day by Melissa Iwai, Dumpling Soup by Jama Kin Rattigan, Last Stop on Market Street – Matt de la Pena -- grandmother & child travel on a bus to serve at a soup kitchen

Virtual for Nicole's Class:
Book: Growing Vegetable Soup
Book: Stone Soup (Ann McGovern version)
Song with felt board: Alphabet Soup
Book: Mean Soup

Book: Monkey Soup (mentioned author Louis Sacher wrote the "Sideways Stories for Wayside School" series, including "Sideways Arithmetic..." & gave a shout out to Bedtime Math daily online math problem   and books
Song with cards: Chicken Soup with Rice (video version) (the rest of Really Rosie is available online here)

CDPL 1/5/23, Nicole 1/13/23

Storytime: Gifts & Giving - Bedminster School/Nicole's Special Ed Class/Bedminster Library

A storytime featuring tangible & intangible giving, with a nod to geography, interactive songs, and create your own verses. Great lead-in for holiday toy, coat & food drives.

Book: Rabbit’s Gift – George Shannon (Chinese folktale in which each animal tries to share the turnip left at his doorstep.)

Song/Flannel: Helping  by Shel Silverstein from Free to Be, You and Me. Lyrics & tune: http://singbookswithemily.wordpress.com/2013/08/08/helping-an-illustrated-song-by-shel-silverstein/

The Gift – Gabriela Keselman (Mickey's birthday is coming and his parents cannot figure out what to do when he tells them that he wants something big, strong, smooth, sweet, warm, funny, and long-lasting)  Alternatives:  The Gift of Nothing – Patrick McDonnell or Immi’s Gift – Karin Littlewood

The Marvelous Toy by Tom Paxton (sung) (Several book versions available. Hand-me-down toy has special meaning; performed here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCjslf_a11c)

(Stopped here at Clarence Dillon Library, had an indoor snowball fight - see details below -- to finish)

A gift for the animals... 

Book: Night Tree by Eve Bunting (Every year a family decorates a tree in the woods with edible ornaments for the animals)  

Who knows what a “family tree” is?

Sign Language Song: Family Tree  Song by Tom Chapin & John Forster, additional verses on their album “Family Tree”; video of their performance with signs: http://www.tomchapin.com/docs/lft.htmland and on their video “This Pretty Planet.” 
Signs handout:  http://www.tomchapin.com/docs/ftsigns.html 

Family Tree by John Forster & Tom Chapin © 1988 Limousine Music Co. & The Last Music Co. (ASCAP)
Before the days of Jello
Lived a prehistoric fellow,
Who loved a maid and courted her
Beneath the banyan tree.
And they had lots of children.
And their children all had children.
And they kept on having children
Until one of them had me!
We're a family and we're a tree.
Our roots go deep down in history
From my great-great-granddaddy reaching up to me,
We're a green and growing family tree.

My grandpa came from Russia;
My grandma came from Prussia;
They met in Nova Scotia,
Had my dad in Tennessee.
Then they moved to Yokohama
Where Daddy met my Mama.
Her dad's from Alabama and her mom's part Cherokee.
We're a family and we're a tree.
Our roots go deep down in history
From my great-great-granddaddy reaching up to me,
We're a green and growing family tree.

Well one fine day I may go
To Tierra Del Fuego.
Perhaps I'll meet my wife there
And we'll move to Timbuktu.
And our kid will be bilingual,
And though she may stay single,
She could, of course, comingle with the
King of Kathmandu.
'Cause we're a family and we're a tree.
Our roots go deep down in history
From my great-great-granddaddy reaching up to me,
We're a green and growing family tree.

The folks in Madagascar
Aren't the same as in Alaskar;
They got different foods, different moods
And different colored skin.
You may have a different name,
But underneath we're much the same;
You're probably my cousin and the whole world is our kin.
We're a family and we're a tree.
Our roots go deep down in history
From my great-great-grandmother reaching up to me, (sign for “grandmother is the same hand as grandfather, but thumb touching the chin and bouncing 2x)
We're a green and growing family tree.
We're a green and growing family.

This song appears on Tom Chapin's Family Tree CD.  More very special tree stories here: https://carolsimonlevin.blogspot.com/2013/12/school-age-storytime-very-special-trees.html

Book: Gifts by Jo Ellen Bogart (A grandmother travels the world bringing back gifts both real and fanciful in this lovely rhyming story illustrated with three dimensional pictures created from plasticine clay. The child grows to a young woman and the grandmother gets more frail until the last page shows the child grown up with a child of her own traveling the world and concludes "and everything she shared with me I'm going to share with you." Kids might identify geographic locations mentioned on maps on the endpapers.)

Speaking of clay... Song/Flannel:  I Had a Little Dreidel (with myriad variations --source unknown -- students encouraged to make up new verses!

Song: We Wish You a Happy Chanukah, Merry Christmas, Happy Kwanzaa, Happy New Year… (lyrics to this and many other holiday songs here: http://carolsimonlevin.blogspot.com/2013/12/singalong-keep-spiritwinter-holiday.html)

If time, could add some of the materials from the programs here:  

http://carolsimonlevin.blogspot.com/search/label/Gifts%20and%20Giving

Looking for additional special holiday titles?  Check out this bibliography: http://www.somerset.lib.nj.us/kids/PDFs/holidays2011.pdf

Activity: Snowball fight using plastic bag snowballs, to the music “Sleigh Ride” by Leroy Anderson (on album Season’s Greetings)
Making snowballs for the program:
1) Gather a white plastic grocery bag into a long, skinny tube-like length with the handles on one end.
2) Fold the length in half, then in half again.
3) Wind a rubber band around the middle until it is tight.
4) Cut open both ends to remove any folded areas.
5) Then fluff out pieces
Idea courtesy of:  Susan Dailey, librarian, speaker and author of "A Storytime Year"

Bedm., Dover Special Needs, CDPL 12/22

Thanksgiving 2022 - Bedminster School/Literacy Vols/Nicole's special ed class

A school-age storytime celebrating thankfulness, kindness, and inclusiveness for the Thanksgiving holiday 

Book: Thanksgiving at the Tappletons' by Eileen Spinelli. After calamity stalks every step of the preparations for the Tappletons' Thanksgiving dinner, they realize that there is more to Thanksgiving than turkey and trimmings.

Towel Folding Story: The Case of the Missing Turkey -- Rhonda Turley   Piedmont, OK via PUBYAC. Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tq4eojAsNlY  (or search youtube for towel and chicken). 
"Last year, I was in charge of cooking the family thanksgiving turkey.

I set my alarm for early in the morning so I could pop it in the oven to cook for our family dinner.

When the alarm went off, I got up, put on my fuzzy slippers and shuffled out to the kitchen to get the bird.  I opened the fridge, and…IT WAS GONE!
Where could it be!? (this is where the towel folding starts…lay the towel out flat)
I looked everywhere!
I rolled up the living room rug (roll one end of the towel to center)…it wasn’t under there.
I pulled down the covers on my bed (roll other end to the center)…it wasn’t there.
I turned over the couch cushion  (Flip rolled towel over so rolled ends are underneath)…it wasn’t there.
I looked under the chair (fold towel in half end to end, and hold upright like a bouquet of flowers)…it wasn’t there.
I looked in the flower vase (peek in end of one tube and pull up the corner of the towel)
I looked in the umbrella stand (peek in end of one tube and pull up the corner of the towel)…it wasn’t there.
I even looked in the trash can  (peek in end of one tube and pull up the corner of the towel)...thankfully it wasn't there!
Finally, I looked in the cookie jar  (pull up last corner of the towel)
(here’s the finale…grasp two corners with one hand, the other two corners with the other hand, and pull them apart…resulting in what looks like a plucked bird.)
…And there it was!"

Image: http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Towel-Chicken (I use a brown towel.)

Book: Duck for Turkey Day by Jacqueline Jules. Tuyet is terribly worried because her Vietnamese family is cooking duck for Thanksgiving Day - isn't that against the rules?!

Song with props: I Know An Old Lady Who Swallowed a Pie – based on the book by Alison Jackson (great song for helping kids work on their memory skills – try to have them remember the different foods in the countdown; can also use rhyming reminders (phonemic awareness) as clues.) (We use a cardboard old lady with a plastic see-through stomach panel and a cardboard box mounted behind for the food items. This can be made as a craft) Lyrics and more images: www.4gaslps.com/IKnewAnOldLadyWhoSwallowedAPie.doc

Book: Balloons over Broadway by Melissa Sweet. The story of the puppeteer who created the balloons for Macy's parade. You can see more about the balloons in this segment from Reading Rainbow's episode "Brush" . Here is another behind-the-scenes look at the parade preparation

Book: Giving Thanks: A Native American Good Morning Message -- Jake Swamp 299.7 SWAMP (also available as Reading Rainbow episode with Public Performance Rights called "Stories for Thanksgiving")

Song: The Turkey Shot Out of the Oven (words: Jack Prelutsky, chorus: Cathy Darby)
Tune: “My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean” Check it out on Youtube, subtitled in Chinese! 

The turkey shot out of the oven
And rocketed into the air,
It knocked every plate off the table
And partly demolished a chair.
Oh my, oh me, why didn't I follow the recipe?Oh my, oh me, why didn't I follow the recipe?
It ricocheted into a corner,
And burst with a deafening boom,
Then splattered all over the kitchen,
Completely obscuring the room. Chorus
It stuck to the walls and the windows,
It totally coated the floor,
There was turkey attached to the ceiling
Where there'd never been turkey before. Chorus
It blanketed every appliance,
It smeared every saucer and bowl,
There wasn't a way I could stop it,
That turkey was out of control. Chorus
I scraped and I scrubbed with displeasure,
And thought with chagrin as I mopped,
That I'd never again stuff a turkey
With popcorn that hadn't been popped!

(Literacy Vols program shorter consisted of: Balloons Over Broadway, videos, towel folding, old lady and a puppet craft)

Other Thanksgiving books, ideas and songs:   https://carolsimonlevin.blogspot.com/search/label/Thanksgiving  

Skipped/No time:

Glove Puppets : Uno, Dos, Tres Amigos (reinforces idea that we all have come from different places but celebrate together; enumeration practice, learn/reinforce Spanish language numbers)
Diez Amigos "10 Friends" (glove puppets)Tune: “10 Little Indians” 
Uno, dos, tres amigos,
Quatro, cinco, seis amigos,
Siete, Ocho, Nueve amigos,
Diez amigos son.
One, two, three friends,
Four, five, six friends,
Seven, Eight, Nine friends,
Ten friends are we. 

Turkey Trot (movement) if needed. 

Halloween 2022 -- Bedminster Library/Nicole Paolino's class

Song: I am the Great Pumpkin (lyrics and many other ideas at: https://carolsimonlevin.blogspot.com/2013/12/halloween-hootenany-interactive-program.html)

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.

Finger Puppets:  Five Little Pumpkins Sitting on a Gate

Storytelling (props for children to use - shoes, pants, shirt, hat, gloves, pumpkin head, scarecrow): The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything by Linda Williams

Action Song; Scarecrow, Scarecrow Turn Around

Storytelling (puppets or hanging signs): One Dark Night by Edna Mitchell Preston

Action Song: Two Little Ghosts

Participatory Pop-Up Book: In a Dark Dark Wood by David A. Carter

Song: How to Make a Ghost Tune: “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star”

Song/Movement: Hookey Spooky (Tune: Hokey Pokey”)

Song/Flannel: Old McDonald had a Haunted House

Action Song: The Witch on Halloween

Close with "Sing" 

skipped: 

Shakey Eggs to “Dem Bones” (track #16 on Spooky Favorites) & Monster Mash (recording unavailable)

 *****

Nicole Paolino's class (Pumpkins/Halloween) (virtual special needs):

Book (K-2): 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).

Song: I am the Great Pumpkin (lyrics and many other ideas at: https://carolsimonlevin.blogspot.com/2013/12/halloween-hootenany-interactive-program.html)

Participatory Storytelling (Puppets/Props): Big Pumpkin

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.

Finger Puppets:  Five Little Pumpkins Sitting on a Gate

Book: Pumpkins: A Story for a Field by Mary Lyn Ray – A splendid modern environmental myth in which a man, saddened by the thought that the field across from his house is about to be sold, sells everything he has, buys seeds, grows pumpkins, and then sends them all around the world (by planes, trucks, ships, and even flying carpets) to get enough money to buy the field and save it.  (10.14 – omitted in kindergarten, did action song “Five Little Pumpkins Sitting on a Gate” instead.)

Participatory Pop-Up Book: In a Dark Dark Wood by David A. Carter

Storytelling (props for children to use - shoes, pants, shirt, hat, gloves, pumpkin head, scarecrow): The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything by Linda Williams

Song/Movement: Scarecrow, scarecrow, turn around (Scarecrow puppet)

Singable Book: There was an Old Monster by Ed Emberley (prefer If You Are a Monster and You Know It by Rebecca & Ed Emberley) -- great art inspiration idea!

 

Action Song: "Horns, Fangs, Knees and Paws...Eyes and Ears and Tail and Claws" (Head & Shoulders, Knees & Toes variation)

Fold Out Prop: 10 Trick or Treaters (tune: “10 Little Indians”)

Book: Pumpkin Heads – Wendell Minor – clever and unusual ways to carve a pumpkin

More pumpkin ideas:https://carolsimonlevin.blogspot.com/search/label/Pumpkins
More monster ideas: https://carolsimonlevin.blogspot.com/search/label/Monsters

Canine Companions Storytime - Special Needs - Virtual

 Stories that celebrate the bond between people and their dogs...

A pup just for me / A boy just for me by Dorothea Seeber & Ed Young ( rhyming story about a boy who is offered every kind of pet except the puppy he wants. When the book is turned over, the story is told from the dog's point of view.)

Flannel board based on the book Any Kind of Dog by Lynn Reiser

Rrralph by Lois Ehlert (Would you believe that Ralph the dog can talk? Yip, yip, yip--it's true With bestselling author Lois Ehlert's simple, funny, call-and-response text and bold, playful collage illustrations, this fresh, young book is sure to get little ones laughing (and talking to their dogs )

A Place for Grace by Jean Davies Okimoto (With the help of a hearing-impaired man, a little dog finally manages to graduate from a training school for hearing dogs.)

Action Song: Do Your Ears Hang Low? illustrated by Jenny Cooper 

Bark George by Jules Feiffer (When puppy George is asked to bark by his mother, he manages to produce a range of animal sounds including a "meow" & a "moo," but never an "arf." -- Asked at the end, "Who's inside George now?!")

No time for:

Martha Speaks by Susan Meddaugh (alphabet soup gives Martha extraordinary communication abilities)

How Smudge Came by Nan Gregory (Cindy, who lives in a group home, wants to keep the stray dog she finds on her way to work...)

6/12/22 - Dover Nicole's class (Special Needs)