Pancakes!!

We love pancakes, especially in March with Spring maple syrup made from the sap of maple trees. We started with a funny book about Curious George. George loves pancakes too and, when he used up all the maple syrup, he tried to learn how syrup was made. We laughed when Curious George put sap on his pancakes instead of syrup. In the end, George had the sap boiled, and then he had more syrup. When we read If You Give a Pig a Pancake by Laura Numeroff, we all knew what the pig would want next!

Look! Here are our pancakes! Thick, thicker, and thickest brown paper circles were the pancakes that we glued to paper plates, one on top of the other. Some of us added colored blueberries or chocolate chips. A square of yellow paper butter sat on top and some yarn male syrup drizzled over the stack. 

Next we made pancakes with brown clay. It was fun, and sometimes tricky, to try to make the clay as flat as a pancake! 

A Colorful Storytime

Instead of just St. Patrick's Day green, today we read about all colors! We read Lunch by Demise Fleming about Mouse, who had a colorful and messy meal! We read Dog's Colorful Day by Emma Dodd, about a white dog with a black spot. As he went through his day, he contacted more and more spots in very funny ways! In Chameleon, Chameleon by Joy Cowley, we learned about the many moods and colors of a chameleon. Wed watched a video of a real chameleon and were astonished as it changed from one color to the next, like magic!

Then we made our own colorful chameleon by gluing tissue paper squares inside an outline of a chameleon. It was so much fun, we forgot to take photos of the process. But here's a finished product!

Bears, Everywheres!

Yesterday, we read three stories about bears, then added the books to our Bears We Love display. First we read Bear Snores On by Karma Wilson, where Bear slept through his friends' visits, even when they had a party! We read Bear and Chicken by Jannie Ho about Bear's friendship and how Chicken misinterpreted it. Finally, we read Horrible Bear! by Ame Dyckman about a misunderstanding involving a girl, a broken kite, and a Bear who's not horrible after all! 

Then we used paper bags to make a bear's body and paper circles to make his head, snout, ears. Long strips made arms and legs, either straight or cut or folded. Every bear was different!

Some bears even turned out to be mice!

The Best Things About School-Vacation Storytimes

School-vacation Storytimes are often theme-less, and we read old and new favorites.

There are so many different levels of ability and creativity as "older" patrons work with "younger" ones. See this simple paper hand puppet? Everybody folded one and started with the same "base" puppet - but the differences in product came from age, ability, experience, personal preference. 

Sometimes others read their favorite books - and I get to watch the listeners!

And we always have lots of fun at School Vacation Storytimes!