Program & Storytime Ideas
June 23: The Day the First Typewriter was Patented.
Theme your storytime around the typewriter, if you can find one. And finding one that is not electric would be even more fun. Have the children type their name with the letters on the typewriter and them have them decorate the page. Find here interesting facts and fun activities related to the typewriter: www.teachervision.fen.com/tv/printables/TCR/062306.pdf
Farming with a Local Farmer.
- Contact a local farmer about doing a presentation or activities around topics of:
- Animals
- Cows
- Stuff you make with milk (cheese, chocolate milk, butter, etc.)
- Life on the farm
- Life as a farmer
- Baby animals (with show & tell)
Square Dance Party.
Play country music/kids and call out easy-peasy dance steps.
Or look for a CD with calls like Square Dance Fun for Everyone (2 CDs and instruction manual).
OBNJ user can get 20% OFF when ordering this CD from KidsCDs.org. Simply use coupon code OBNJ2010 at time of checkout.
Or a DVD with step-by-step guidance like Square Dancing Today by Christy Lane, $29.95.
Throw a Hoe-Down.
Serve milkshakes and get bales of hay from a local farmer to make the hoe-down complete. For more ideas: www.boardmanweb.com/party/barnyard.htm
Throw a "Type-off".
For school-age children, reserve the computer lab and give each child a printed document. Have them retype it and the fastest child with the least number of mistakes wins.
Name that Barnyard Tune.
Get a CD of real animal sounds and play name that tune. Cows really make a different sound from the common "mmooooo" when you hear them at the farm. Try Sounds of Birds and Other Animals by Sound Effects, produced by Blaricum CD Company, $6.99 (sounds are available for review on Amazon.com), or check out the sounds on Alphabet Soup website: www.alphabet-soup.net/farm/farmsound.html.
Make Ice Cream.
Get one a cranking ball ice cream maker and have the children put in the ingredients (or watch you do it) before the storytime begins. Then allow the process to happen as you do your storytime, passing the ball or cranking the maker as needed. The Play and Freeze Ice Cream Maker ball makes ice cream in 10-15 minutes, depending on the size. The Donvier hand crank ice cream maker takes 15-20 minutes. Don't have access to an ice cream maker? You can also make ice cream with just plastic bags and rock salt. One of the websites with directions for this method can be found at www.darylscience.com/Demos/IceCream.html.
Reader's Theater.
http://teachers.net/lessons/posts/2277.html
Get your readers involved in doing a program for younger children. This simple script uses three narrators, a "bunch" of cows and the audience to retell the story.
Craft ideas
Storyhour Stretchers and Activities
The Mash-Up.
The mash-up has become very popular with its implementation on television's Glee. A mash-up is taking two songs that are seemingly unrelated and putting them together. This might work with primary grade kids, using book titles instead of songs, especially if you bring in some of the many cow and farm books that are available. Here are a few examples to get you started:
- Mr. Brown Can Click Clack Moo, Can You? - a mash up of Click Clack, Moo and Mr. Brown Can Moo Can You by Dr. Seuss
- Click Clack Moo Baa La La La - a mash up of Click, Clack Moo and Moo, Baa, La La La by Sandra Boynton
- Click Clack Cock-a-Moo-Moo - a mash up of Click Clack Moo and Cock-a-Moo-Moo by Juliet Dalas-Conte
- Barnyard Click Clack Banter Moo - a mash up of Click Clack Moo and Barnyard Banter by Denise Fleming
Onomatopaeia.
Talk to your storytimers about onomatopoeia. Read more stories that use onomatopoeia.
- Achoo Bang Crash: the noisy alphabet by Moss MacDonald
- Zin Zin Zin a Violin by Lloyd Moss
- Charlie Parker Played Be-bop by Christopher Raschka
- Howl, Growl, Mooo, Whooo by Molly Carroll
- Whose Sound is This? by Nancy Kelly Allen
- Gerald McBoing Boing by Dr. Seuss
- Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by Bill Martin Jr.
Milk a Cow. www.everythingpreschool.com/themes/cows/index.htm
You can give kids a chance to see what it would feel like to milk a cow using just a latex glove. You can find directions for that and other activities and songs at this website.
Barnyard Songs for Storytime.
Links to the following farm animal songs can be found on: www.kididdles.com/lyrics/animals.html.
- Old MacDonald Had a Farm
- Baa Baa Black Sheep
- B-I-N-G-O
- Farmer Brown's Cow
- Had a Little Rooster
- My Grandma's Farm
Or find lyrics to many less well-known animal songs sung to familiar tunes like "Wheels on the Bus" and "Twinkle Twinkle": www.preschooleducation.com/sfarm.shtml.
Preschool Farm Animal Songs and Rhymes. www.everythingpreschool.com/themes/farmanimals/songs.htm
This site doesn't include music, or indicate what tunes can be matched to the lyrics, but many are obvious, like the song titled "Take Me Out to the Farm."
Printable Word Search. www.childstoryhour.com/wordsearch3.htm
Farm words are used in this word search that you can print out for children.
