Books

“From Head to Toe”
“The Very Busy Spider”
“The Very Hungry Caterpillar”

Itsy Bitsy Spider

I used this puppet from Folkmanis puppet while singing. I love to walk around and have children say hello to the spider. 

I Went to a Farm One Day

This is a fun rhyme to do with all sorts of animals. You can either show pictures of the animals in “The Very Busy Spider” or pull out puppets of animals. 

I went to a farm one day
I saw a (animal) along the way
What do you think that animal did say?

Fruit Salad (tune: 10 little Indians)

Add the strawberries to our fruit salad
Add the strawberries to our fruit salad
Add the strawberries to our fruit salad
Way down yonder in the library

(repeat with oranges, bananas, apples, blueberries)

Picked a Strawberry (Tune: Clementine)

Picked a strawberry, picked a strawberry (picking motion)
That was growing in the sun (circle arms over head)
Then I washed it and I ate it (make washing and eating motion)
And I picked another one (picking motion)

(repeat with blueberry, blackberry, huckleberry, raspberry)

Now It’s Time

Now it’s time to touch your toes
Touch your toes, touch your toes
Now it’s time to touch your toes
Touch them now

(knees, shoulders, etc)

Craft: Busy Spiders

For the craft we made our own busy spiders. I collected toilet paper rolls from staff, friends and family for this craft. I then cut the ends of the rolls to make them like spider legs. Then we dipped them into black paint and used the toilet paper rolls like stamps. At the end we stuck eyes onto our spiders. Some kids enjoyed making spiders and others enjoyed putting black paint all over their paper. Either way they had fun! I got this idea from Crafty Morning.

 

How it Went: I recently started working in a new town. I took that as a chance to revamp my storytime a little. One thing I am now doing is introducing author themes. I know some librarians don’t like to use themes but I enjoy it. I thought having an author be a theme would be a fun way to introduce parents to author they may not know. This storytime went over really well, I read “From Head to Toe” last to help the little ones get their wiggles out. I look forward to doing more author storytimes in the future.