O is for Owl

This week at the library is our stress relief storytime. I do my storytimes on the odd Tuesdays. So, I am actually a week late posting about our Letter O storytime. Let's see if I can remember what we did.... (insert smiley face here since I have no idea how to do that.)
Of course we began with my ice breaker song. They think it's my favorite song. "If You're Happy and You Know It".
Everyone brought something for Show and Tell time! Among those items we had an orange, an Owl, an otoscope, orange marker and my grandson came up and pointed to me- his Oma (it's German for Grandma and what I go by).
I talked about opposites and read the book Octopus Opposites by Stella Blackstone.

Then we played a game where I gave each child a laminated card which they had to match to someone else's card as the opposite. This was a free printable I found at Playdough to Plato. Then we read Little Owl's Orange Scarf by Tatyana Feeney.

This is a favorite book of mine and I read it whenever I get the chance. It's just the right length and adorable.
We added to our Alphabet Zoo Phonics- Olive Octopus. It's taking us longer and longer to say these each week, but I think it's worth it. I even had one mom tell me her little guy has been going around the house chanting the zoo phonics. These comments make my day!
We moved on to the tables where we worked on our Letter O animal- an owl of course.

I put out some sequins and bottles of glue along with this octopus printable from "A Little Pinch of Perfect"

Then I got out the shaving cream and let the kids make the letter O in it. Some kids were not crazy about putting their fingers in shaving cream and others loved it!

That's all we did. I did send home some great worksheets. I know some people aren't crazy about worksheets, but I try to find super fun ones like mazes and color by numbers. Some of my moms homeschool so I started the worksheets to give them something to have at home to reinforce what we learn at storytime.
The book they took home was "The Other Side" by Jacqueline Woodson.

I'll be back next week with the letter "P"!
~Mrs. Angel

N is for Narwhal

Storytime was a blast this week with a great group of kids. There were thirteen altogether. Of course we started out with our opening song "If You're Happy & You Know It". Afterwards we had "Show & Tell". There were ninjas, a nail, nuts, necklaces and my personal favorite- NOTHING. I really think that "Show & Tell" is my favorite new thing that we started with the alphabet series.
On to our Alphabet Phonics. This week we added "Nigel Nightowl" to the list.
I shared the book "Too Much Noise" by Ann McGovern.

This was the first time I have used a flannel or magnet board to tell a story instead of reading it. Having recently attended an early literacy training led by Saroj Ghoting, I was inspired to share this book as she did. She was so nice to email me helpful tips on how to put it together.

I practiced for days.
This book was a little longer than my normal choices, but the kids seemed to enjoy it as they listened attentively and helped out with the animal noises when it was time.

I read part of "A Nest is Noisy" by Dianna Hutts Aston, but by this time the kids were ready to move on to activities so we did.
Our Alphabet Animal was a Narwhal.

After the Narwhal we did a printable I found online at Adventures in Tutoring and Special Education. I bought these cute little ink pads on Amazon and the kids used their fingers to put the correct number of eggs in the nest.

I usually have a mixed age group as there are a few homeschool families. I welcome the older brothers and sisters with their preschool sibling. For the older kids there was a printable in which they had to add the correct number of eggs. I hope to find more activities like this one. Great fine motor work!
We ended with a necktie that they could color. Here are a couple of my storytime kids wearing their ties.

Aren't they cute? The kids loved the ties which I added a piece of elastic to so they could actually wear them. I did cut the ties out beforehand to help save time. Thank you, East Coast Mommy, for this free printable.
Our giveaway book this week was Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge by Mem Fox. I didn't have a book with N in the title, but I figured this one would work since it was a "Name".
Looking forward to the next few weeks.
Blessings~
Mrs. Angel