Boats Afloat
/In my random picking of storytime themes, I hit a goldmine with boats. Much fun had by all.
BOOKS:
We read Mr. Gumpy's Outing by John Burningham and Boats Afloat by Shelley Rotner.
I wasn't sure how either of these would go over, but they were great. My crowd has been mostly toddlers lately so the simpler stories seem to work better for us. Mr. Gumpy's Outing is fun for multiple reasons - all of the animals whose noises we can make, the inevitable bad thing that will happen, the simple illustrations. Boats Afloat is a very simple nonfiction title about boats. I didn't read the whole thing - clipped a few pages for length - but we were able to talk about the function of different boats and the kids found out that they had been in more boats than they thought.
ACTION SONG:
We sang the perennial classic "Row Row Row Your Boat" with some alternate lyrics!
Row, row, row your boat
Gently down the stream
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily
Life is but a dream
Row, row, row your boat
Gently down the stream
If a frog jumps in your boat
Don't forget to scream! AHHH!!!!
Row, row, row your boat
Gently down the stream
Ha! Ha! Fooled you!
I'm a submarine!
The last verse was courtesy of a little girl in Tuesday's storytime who politely told me that she knew a DIFFERENT verse than I had sang. So she sang it, then we all sang it together. It was DELIGHTFUL.
SONG:
I really like the Okee Dokee Brothers and just don't have enough opportunities to use their music in storytime. I was overjoyed to be able to use "Can You Canoe?" this week.
CRAFT:
Pinterest is wonderful. I found this no glue, no cutting, no coloring, no painting craft there. Next time, if I do this again, I would set up some containers with water so they could all test out their sailboats. I cut up one pool noodle and had more than enough boats for everyone. Here's my sturdy craft afloat in some slightly murky tap water.