Color Time Fun

I just had a great storytime with the local Head Start class. I'd like to recommend some titles and a fun activity to do with kids 3 to 5 years old.

First I read Cat's Colors by Jane Cabrera. A sweet story with bright, interesting illustrations. The kids loved to guess which color was Cat's favorite.

White Rabbit's Color Book by Alan Baker is a good introduction to primary colors and the mixing of secondary colors. The activity I did with this book was a color mixing experiment. The children had to guess what colors mixed together make a different color. I used food color of the three primary colors and mixed them in front of the children. It was like a magic trick. Very fun.

The last story incorporated colors and counting. Dog's Colorful Day: A Messy Story About Colors and Counting by Emma Dodd had the kids participating and laughing. Dog seems to be underfoot when colorful is spilt, or splashed or patted on him. He ends up with ten color spots on his white coat to count before book's end and Dog's bath.

Diana

Early Literacy

I just finished my first Early Literacy Newsletter. The quarterly newsletter gives tips on books and activities related to Early Literacy and the 6 Early Literacy skills. Check it out. It is in a pdf and you can print it yourself or I have printed several copies available at the library. This project was funded by Oregon State Library "Ready to Read" grant which provides funding for early literacy and Summer Reading programs for Oregon libraries.
I am excited to say that Story times will begin again next week. It seems so long ago that we had the pleasure of presenting fun stories, songs and fingerplays. I am thinking that I will start providing short puppet shows too.
Here is the schedule for the upcoming winter Story Times at the McMinnville Public Library.

Happy New Year

The snow has melted and the new year begins. One of the story times I do is called Busy Hands and Feet, held every other Thursday from 10:30-11 a.m. This is especially fun for starting the year off right as the focus of the session is on music, stories and sign language.


To start off the first session, I will be reading books about music from the Preschool collection.

Punk Farm on Tour by Jarrett Krosoczka is a fabulous romp with those rockin' farm animals as they travel the U.S.A. singing their very special music.







Bats on Parade is a picture book by Kathi Appelt. The bats form a marching band and throughout the text highlights numbers and even mathematics.

The final story for this story time is Olivia Forms a Band by Ian Falconer. The irrepressible Olivia the pig strutting her stuff as one man band. Very funny.

Usually I do a few songs and one of my new favorites is Eric Herman's, Bounce Flap and Twist. This is sure to get those toes a tapping.

Drop in to Busy Hands and Feet with your little ones starting January 15th at the McMinnville Public Library.


Diana