Tag: chickens

Birdie Second Grade Visits

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Turkeys weren’t the only birds featured in this visit! Hope everyone has a Happy Thanksgiving next week 🙂

Poem: “Leftovers” from It’s Thanksgiving! by Jack Prelutsky
Fiction Book: Interrupting Chicken by David Ezra Stein
Fiction Book Bite: read parts of Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road? by Jon Agee and the rest of the coop (various illustrators)
Nonfiction Book Bites: read/showed snippets from DK Smithsonian’s Everything You Need to Know About Birds, Click with Your Chick by Giene Keyes (chickens can learn tricks!), and National Geographic Kids Ultimate Explorer: Birds by Julie Beer*
Storytell: “Chickens!” (I learned this “boo baby” story from storyteller Priscilla Howe)

*from which I got the joke: What kind of key doesn’t open a door? A turkey!

November 2017 “Hungry” Kindergarten Visit

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Another great kindergarten visit!

Opening: If You Want to Hear a Story
Book: Woodpecker Wants a Waffle by Steve Breen
Fingerplay: Sausages
Nonfiction Book Bite: mentioned we have cookbooks at the library, showed off a few
Book: Hungry Hen by Richard Waring
Storytell: The Little Red Hen
Book: The Wolf’s Chicken Stew by Keiko Kasza
Song: “I Feel Crazy so I Jump in the Soup”

Schools Visited: Heritage

I Know a Chicken!

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I had SO MUC0-698-11374-8H FUN at storytime today! I really need to start thinking about finding a steady storytime home. Today, we did one of my favorite themes: Chickens!

OPENING:
Opening Song: If You Want to Hear a Story

PROGRAM:
Read-aloud #1 (Big Book): Rosie’s Walk by Pat Hutchins
*Fingerplay: Beehive
Storytelling (with puppets): “Book! Book! Book!” (This is a well-loved librarian anecdote about a chicken that comes into the library. One version, “The Well-Read Frog” can be found in Margaret Read MacDonald’s Three Minute Tales.)
Read-aloud #2: The Wolf’s Chicken Stew by Keiko Kasza
Flannel: The Little Red Hen (I used a singing refrain from storyteller Heather Forest’s sound recording Sing Me a Story.)
**Fingerplay: Chook-Chook-Chook
Read-aloud #3: Most Wonderful Egg in the World by Helme Heine
Dancing Song (with shakers!): “I Know a Chicken” from Laurie Berkner’s Whaddaya Think of That?

CLOSING:

Closing Song: We Wave Good-bye Like This

*The Beehive
Here is a beehive
(Make a fist.)
Where are the bees?
Hidden away where nobody sees.
Watch as they come out of their hive—
One, two, three, four, five,
(Extend fingers one at a time.)
They’re alive! Buzzzzzz!
(Wiggle your fingers.)

**“Chook-Chook-Chook”
Chook, chook, chook
Good morning, Mrs. Hen. (Hold up both thumbs)
How many chickens have you got?
Madam, I’ve got ten. (Show ten fingers)
Four of them are yellow. (Show four fingers on one hand)
And four of them are brown (Show four fingers on the other hand)
And two of them are speckled red (Show two fingers)
The nicest in the town.

MY NEXT STORYTIME: Wednesday, June 29, 10:30 am @ Rakow Branch Library in Elgin

Story Sparklers II

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Today was my second year performing at the Lakeside Fest in Crystal Lake!

Sadly, I have just one storytime left this summer: this Monday, July 7 at the Randall Oaks Library at 10:30 am. It’s been a GREAT summer session, and I will be missing the kids lots.

This happy Fourth of July, I shared some more story sparklers…

OPENING:
*Opening Song: If You Want to Hear a Story

PROGRAM:
Read-aloud #1 (Big Book): The Carrot Seed by Ruth Krauss
Flannel: The Enormous Turnip
**Fingerplay: Apples
Storytelling Activity: The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle (using story props)
***Fingerplay: Five Little Sausages
Story/Song: Herman the Worm
Read-aloud #2 (Big Book): The Little Red Hen (pictures by Lucinda MccQueen)
Storytelling: “Chickens!” (I learned this “boo baby” story from storyteller Priscilla Howe’s cd, Chickens! and Other Stories for Young Children)

CLOSING:
****Closing Song: We Wave Good-bye Like This

*If You Want to Hear a Story (Tune: “If You’re Happy and You Know It”)
If you want to hear a story, clap your hands!
If you want to hear a story, clap your hands!
If you want to hear a story,
if you want to hear a story,
if you want to hear a story, clap your hands!

Other verses:
“nod your head,”
“rub your tummy,”
“sit real still,” etc.

**Apples
Way up high in the apple tree,
(Stretch arms in the air.)
Two little apples smiled at me.
(Hold up two fists.)
I shook the tree as hard as I could.
(Shake fists in the air.)
Down came the apples.
(Drop fists to lap. Mime biting into “apples”.)
Mmm, were they good!
(Pat tummy.)

***Five Little Sausages
Five little sausages frying in a pan
(Wiggle all five fingers)
Sizzle, sizzle, sizzle, and one went BAM!
(When you say “BAM”, clap your hands together Count down with each sausage (fingers) until you’re out of sausages)

****We Wave Goodbye Like This (to the tune of “The Farmer in the Dell”)
We wave goodbye like this.
We wave goodbye like this.
We clap our hands for all our friends. We wave goodbye like this.
(Repeat once.)

For the Birds!

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Our last Milk and Cookies Storytime at Panera was all about birds… including turkeys. Now that Halloween is over, we might as well start getting excited about Thanksgiving 🙂

Our next Panera storytime won’t be until around Valentine’s Day… but we do have a pajama storytime (Family Reading Night) over at the Dundee Library Thursday, November 15 at 7 pm. The theme will be “Once upon a Time” (fairy and folk tales). Come one, come all. No registration necessary.

OPENING:
Opening Song: If You Want to Hear a Story

PROGRAM:
Read-aloud #1: The Big Woods Orchestra by Guido Van Genechten
Song/Fingerplay: Hand Up High
Song/Fingerplay: Blackbirds
Read-aloud #2: Wow! said the Owl by Tim Hopgood
*Flannel: Mr. Turkey’s Feathers
**Song: A Turkey is a Funny Bird
Read-aloud #3: Hungry Hen by Richard Waring
Fingerplay: Way Up High in the Apple Tree
Fingerplay: Five Fat Sausages
Read-aloud #4: The Little Red Hen retold by Heather Forest
**Fingerplay: Ten Fat Turkeys
Fingerplay: Mr. Turkey Went Out One Day
Read-aloud #5: Turkey Trouble by Wendi Silvano

CLOSING:
Closing Song: We Wave Good-bye Like This

*Mr. Turkey’s Feathers
(Make a flannel of a turkey sans feathers. Also make red, blue, green, orange, yellow, purple, black, white and brown feather pieces to add to the turkey as the rhyme progresses.)
Mr. Turkey was so sad,
He lost the feathers he once had.
Now he wants us to help him find
All the feathers of his kind.
We will look both high and low,
We will find them, don’t you know.
Here’s a RED one and a BLUE,
Look, we’ve found a GREEN one, too.
Here’s an ORANGE one and a YELLOW,
Soon he’ll be a feathered fellow.
Now we’ve found the PURPLE one,
BLACK and WHITE, we’re almost done.
If we just look up and down.
I know we’ll find the feather BROWN.
Now Mr. Turkey is so glad,
For we have found the feathers he once had!

**A Turkey is a Funny Bird
The turkey is a funny bird,
His head goes wobble, wobble.
All he know is just one word,
Gobble, Gobble, Gobble.

***Ten Fat Turkeys
Ten fat turkeys standing in a row
(hold up ten fingers)
They spread their feathers and tails like so
(spread fingers)
They strut to the left
They strut to the right
(move fingers left and right)
They Gobble, gobble, gobble
in the bright sunlight!

Featuring Priscilla Howe

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Every month (September-May), librarians in my area unite to share ideas for “Lincoln Story League”. It’s great fun!

This month, I told a favorite story from a favorite storyteller, Priscilla Howe. “Chickens!” is about a pack of siblings who go off to explore an old barn. They take turns testing their bravery and going inside alone. In the barn, there are chickens… with money in their beaks. And a ghost who warns, “I’m the ghost of Charles Dickens, leave the money with the chickens!” The big sister and the big brother freak out and run away… but not the baby. Find out how the baby scares the ghost away!

Watch Priscilla tell this story here.
Purchase her cd Chickens! and Other Stories for Young Children here.

Her other cds include The Ghost with the One Black Eye and The Best (and Worst) of Beasts.
She also has two dvds, The Itsy Bitsy Tiger and Other Ridiculous Stories and Songs and The Bully Billy Goat and Other Stories.

Featuring Heather Forest

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Yesterday, I got to go out and play with other librarians at a story-swap meeting (Lincoln Story League)!!!

There, I shared my love of musical storyteller Heather Forest. I plugged two of her wonderful cds, Sing Me a Story and Tales Around the Hearth as well as her picture book version of The Little Red Hen. These cds (as well as mp3s of individual stories from the collections) are available from such sites as CD Baby, iTunes, and Amazon.

I’ve adopted catchy musical refrains from her versions of The Mitten, The Turnip and The Little Red Hen into my own storytelling at the library. Adding these refrains is a great way to perk up the presentation and to get the kids singing along.

I also talked a little about how I tell The Little Red Hen. In addition to using Heather Forest’s singing refrain (“If you want some cake to eat, who will help me plant this wheat, etc.?”), I often use audience participation in the form of choosing some kids to work puppets or wear special headbands to act out the parts of the dog, the cat and the mouse. I wear a crazy chicken hat and act as the little red hen. Everyone else gets to be my little chicks. So, when the dog, the cat, and the mouse all say “Not I”, I ask my little chicks if they will help me. They all nod and agree, and we act out planting the seeds, harvesting the wheat, etc. And, of course, the little red hen and her chicks all get to mime eating delicious cake at the end! For my youngest audiences, I usually use flannels and visual cards to tell the story. I still have the kids be chicks, but I don’t select anyone to be a specific part.

The Little Red Hen was a part of a chicken folktale program that I geared for a K-3rd grade audience (and their families). I also used it in my storytime best practices presentation for the California Library Association Conference in 2009. (Please note my email address and blog URL have changed since then.) For that presentation, I also included a template for a fun chicken craft. Other chicken storytimes I’ve done can be found here, here, and here. (Can you tell it is one of my favorite themes?)

Royal Roost

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I can’t get enough of chicken stories 🙂

OPENING:
Opening Song: If You Want to Hear a Story

PROGRAM:
Read-aloud #1: The Most Wonderful Egg in the World by Helme Heine
*Fingerplay: Chook-Chook-Chook
Read-aloud #2:  Stuck in the Mud by Jane Clarke
Song (with finger puppets): Old MacDonald
Read-aloud #3: Chicks and Salsa by Aaron Reynolds
Fingerplay: Five Fat Sausages
Read-aloud #4: The Wolf’s Chicken Stew by Keiko Kasza

CLOSING:
Closing Song: We Wave Good-bye Like This

*“Chook-Chook-Chook”
Chook, chook, chook
Good morning, Mrs. Hen. (Hold up both thumbs)
How many chickens have you got?
Madam, I’ve got ten. (Show ten fingers)
Four of them are yellow. (Show four fingers on one hand)
And four of them are brown (Show four fingers on the other hand)
And two of them are speckled red (Show two fingers)
The nicest in the town.

Even More Chicken Stories

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I am going through storytime withdrawal during our summer break. Lucky for me, I was able to visit Bright Horizons this week to share stories with their preschool and school age children. We had fun with my favorite theme: Chickens!

Opening Song: Let Everyone Clap Hands with Me (Pete Seeger)
Read-aloud #1: The Most Wonderful Egg in the World by Helme Heine
Storytell: “The Little Red Hen” (used a singing refrain from storyteller Heather Forest’s sound recording Sing Me a Story, children wore headbands and participated)
Read-aloud #2: Chicks and Salsa by Aaron Reynolds
Song: The Barnyard Gate (kids wore headbands and participated in making animal noises)
Read-aloud #3: Hungry Hen by Richard Waring
Storytell: “Chickens!” (based on Priscilla Howe’s audio recording)

We’re still working on figuring out this upcoming year’s storytime schedule! Stay tuned for more details…

The Little Red Hen

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Who will help me tell these chicken stories??? Last Saturday, I did some traditional storytelling for a family audience over at our Buena Vista Library. The kids had a blast helping me act out and participate in various chicken stories. I have a special partiality to chicken stories, so this was an “egg-cellent” treat for me as well. And, I got to exercise my “oral storytelling” muscle! There are a couple of pictures from the event posted on my flickr page (Programs for Older Kids).

Intro Music: Chicken Dance

Opening Song: Let Everyone Clap Hands with Me (Pete Seeger)

Story #1: “Book! Book! Book!” (This is a well-loved librarian anecdote about a chicken that comes into the library. One version, “The Well-Read Frog” can be found in Margaret Read MacDonald’s Three Minute Tales. There is also a picture book, Book! Book! Book! by Deborah Bruss that expands this tale.)

Story #2: “The Little Red Hen” (This is a traditional folktale, possibly of Russian-origin. Children dressed up and acted out the parts. I used a singing refrain from storyteller Heather Forest’s sound recording Sing Me a Story.)

Story #3: “Poule and Roach” (This is a Louisiana French tale about a chicken who marries a cockroach. One version can be found in Margaret Read MacDonald’s Celebrate the World. I was also inspired by storyteller Priscilla Howe’s recording “Poule and Blatt” on her cd Chickens! and Other Stories for Young Children.)

Song: “Barnyard Gate” (This is a traditional song that I learned by listening to Pete Seeger recordings. The children used puppets and made the appropriate animal sounds.)

Story #4: “Henny Penny” (This is an old fable with African origins, also known as “Chicken Little” or “The Sky is Falling”. Children dressed up and acted out the parts. I was partially inspired by a version I watched on You Tube from the TV-series Golden Girls.)

Movie: “The Wise Little Hen” (Disney’s The Mickey Mouse Club—Week One)