Today’s toddler storytime was all about THE ZOO!  We had lots of fun books and activities that made us all want to go and visit the zoo.  Here was the plan:

1.) Hello Song with Mr. Giraffe Puppet

2.) Book One: The View at the Zoo

3.) Book Two: My Heart is like a Zoo with Flannel Board

4.) Rhyme: Yellow Lion, Yellow Lion, What do you see?

5.) Book Three: Animal Opposites 

6.) Book Four: From Head to Toe with Movements

7.) Dear Zoo Flannel Board

8.) Where is ____ Rhyme

9.) Peek a Boo Zoo Flannel Board Game

10.) Book Five: The Underpants Zoo

11.) Goodbye song with Mr. Giraffe

This is our last storytime until August so I kept our hello song the same.  Probably in August I will start a new hello/goodbye song.

The first book we read was, The View at the Zoo. It was super cute because the book is being told by the animals! It seems like the humans are talking but it is really the animals.

Next we read, My Heart is like a Zoo, and I made an accompanying flannel board to go with it so that the kids could interact more with the story.  I handed out an animal

to each child and told them that when their animal came up in the story they could bring up their animal to the flannel board.  It went great!

Then we used this flannel board to do a rhyme, Yellow Lion, Yellow Lion, What do you see?

Yellow Lion, Yellow Lion, What do you see?

I see a purple owl starring at me.

Purple Owl, Purple Owl, What do you see?

I see a blue bunny rabbit starring at me.

We went through this till we had talked about each animal.  The kids were saying it along with me and really seemed to like it.  It helped with their animal identification and also their color identification.

Then we read, Animal Opposities.  I really like this book because it  shows one opposite and hides the other so I was able to get my group to identify what the opposite was before it was shown in the book.  The kid’s favorite was the gorilla and the huge elephant at the end.

                                                                                                                                                                                               

Next I wanted to get the kids moving so we read, From Head to Toe.  The group did the movements as I went through the book.  This book is great for a group that needs to get their wiggles out.  You’re able to read a story while they get to move around.

Then we did a flannel board that is one of my favorites.  I found a flannel board for, Dear Zoo.

I told the story without the book and did one box at a time.  I also had slides that I used to help tell the story and made it so that the kids would tell me which animal was in the box and why we couldn’t keep them as a pet.  It was a great time!

 

Next we did a rhyme/song with finger puppets of a giraffe, zebra, tiger, and elephant.  We did the Where is Thumbkin rhyme but replaced Thumbkin with the animals I had.  The kids did the finger motions with me and were all singing along.  It was very cute:)

Where is zebra? Where is zebra?

Here I am. Here I am.

How are you today sir?

Very well, I thank you.

Run away. Run away.

We then played a game based on the Peek-a-Boo-Zoo book.  I had cards that had the riddles of each animal and had each animal up on the board.   The kids would then yell out which animal the riddle was talking about and then they got to come up and  get their animal.

 

 

Our last activity was I read a very funny book for the kids, The Underpants Zoo, I think that the adults found this book more funny than the kids but it is a very cute book!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We sang our goodbye song and then everyone gave Mr. Giraffe goodbye hugs.  We won’t be having a storytime until August.  So we will be back soon 🙂