DOOR 2 DOOR STORYTIME

EARLY CHILDHOOD LITERACY SKILL: Narrative Skill & Vocabulary

BOOKS TO DISPLAY

One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish by Dr. Seuss
Swimmy by Leo Lionni
Fish Eyes by Lois Ehlert
Ten Little Fish by Audrey Wood
Blue Sea by Robert Kalan
Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister
Not Norman: A Goldfish Story by Kelly Bennett
Horray for Fish! by Lucy Cousins
Big Fish, Little Fish by Ed Heck
The Pout-Pout Fish by Deborah Diesen
The Birthday Fish by Dan Yaccarino
Memoirs of a Goldfish by Devin Scillian

BASIC TIMELINE

1. Intro
2. Puppet Rhyme
3. Read-a-Loud Book
4. Flannelboard
5. Read-a-Loud Book
6. Puppet Rhyme
7. Read-a-Loud Book
8. Craft

READ-A-LOUD BOOKS

Fish, Swish! Splash, Dash! by Suse McDonald
Little Fish, Lost by Nancy Van Laan
Fidgety Fish by Ruth Galloway
Fish Wish by Bob Barner

ACTIVITIES

Puppet Rhyme: I Had a Little Fish (via Perpetual Preschool )
I have a little fish.
His name is tiny Tim.
I put him in the bath tub to see if he could swim.
He drank up all the water.
He ate up all the soap.
Now he’s sick in bed, with bubbles in his throat!

Flannelboard: (part of) One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish by Dr. Seuss
One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish
Black fish, blue fish, old fish, new fish
This one has a little star
This one has a little car
Say! What a lot of fish there are!

Puppet Rhyme: “Two Big Fish” (modified Two Little Blackbirds)
Two big fish swimming in a tank,
One named Harold, one named Hank.
Swim away Harold, swim away Hank.
Come back Harold, come back Hank.

CRAFT: Rainbow Fish!

I have a ton of colored construction paper taking up space in my craft corner, so I decided to use some of it for the next few storytime crafts. Colored construction paper is thinner than cardstock or paper plates, so its possible to stuck 3-4 layers at a time (which is wonderful when I have to prepare craft for 40 munchkins!). I began by using excess cardboard to make a fish-shaped template, which I used for tracing purposes. I used a medium-sized circle hole punch to create a bazillion colored circles fish scales. When it came to the craft portion of storytime, I simply placed piles of colored circles on each craft table, passed out jumbo-googly eyes, markers, orange fish-shaped bases and let the kids create their own rainbow fish without interference.

REVIEW:

The first half of the first storytime session was a bit awkward given the presence of a new preschooler would couldn’t stop crying despite her teacher’s best efforts to sooth her. I had to project my voice to compensate for the noise level. At one point I even threw in a few rounds of Head and Shoulders and Dance Your Fingers. Things settled down once I brought out the fish puppets and performed the extension activities. The tears disappeared as if they had never existed when I revealed this week’s storytime craft. Luckily, storytime went really well with the second group of preschoolers. We performed the puppet rhymes multiple times. The kids were so excited by the puppets, I wish would have taken the opportunity to have them pet the fish at the end of storytime. Next time!

Storytime crafts Door 2 Door Storytime early childhood literacy fish home school library narrative skill vocabulary