Tops & Bottoms Story Time: February 22-23, 2016

Books:
Farmer Brown Shears His Sheep by Teri Sloat *
If Elephants Wore Pants by Henriette Barkow
In My New Yellow Shirt by Eileen Spinelli
The Nuts: Sing and Dance in Your Polka Dot Pants by Eric Litwin *
Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons by Eric Litwin *

Craft: Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons
The kids colored a card stock head, two arms and two legs cut from a template I drew.  They then folded a quarter sheet of yellow paper so that the edges met in the middle to make a shirt.  The upper corners could be turned down to make a collar.  They then picked for small stickers to use as groovy buttons to close the shirt.

Literacy Extensions:
- After reading Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons practice counting.  Have your child count various things on their clothes (i.e. stripes on their shirt, pockets on their pants, etc.)
- After reading My New Yellow Shirt have your child stretch their imagination by coming up with different things they could be in the outfit they are wearing.


Notes:
I originally thought to have the kids pick out the stickers they wanted to use.  However, this did not work very well.  We got a traffic jam at the sticker bowls.  We also had a lot of younger children who were not yet counting.

Template for Pete the Cat --

Numbers & Counting Story Time: August 3-4, 2015

Books:
Count the Monkeys by Mac Barnett
Let's Count Goats by Mem Fox *
My Little Sister Ate One Hare by Bill Grossman *
Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons by Eric Litwin *
Ten Terrible Dinosaurs by Paul Stickland

Craft: Flower Counting Picture
Our craft this week was based on the photo to the left.  We revised it to be a craft.  The kids colored a sheet with five stems and leaves on it.  They then glued on the appropriate number of circles according to the numbers written at the top of the stems.

Literacy Extensions:
- Practice counting while eating.  Have your child count the number of bites it takes to eat a sandwich, the number of chocolate chips in their cookie, or the number of chips they have, etc.
- Have your child come up with their own counting rhyme like Ten Terrible Dinosaurs where they count down as items disappear.

Building Block Award Winners Story Time: September 2, 2014

Books:
Bubble Gum, Bubble Gum by Lisa Wheeler
Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons by Eric Litwin *
Pete the Cat: I Love My White Shoes by Eric Litwin
The Pout-Pout Fish by Deborah Diesen *
Press Here by Herve Tullet *
Who Took the Cookies from the Cookie Jar? by Bonnie Lass

Craft: Dot Collage
Children were given 12 dots to make a collage.  They could be used in any combination along with coloring to create their picture.

Literacy Extensions:
- Practice voting with your child. Have them vote for their favorite food, book, television show, game, etc.
- Visit the Missouri Building Block Picture Book Award website for links to activity sheets and Pinterest pages for all the past and current Building Block Award nominee books.

Building Block 2013 Nominees Story Time: September 30, October 1, 2013

Books:
Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons by Eric Litwin *
Who's Who? by Ken Geist *

Craft Activity: Button Necklace
Children colored five buttons that were cut out from cardstock.  They were then strung onto curling ribbon to make a necklace.

Literacy Extensions:
- Do a color separating activity such as separating different colored buttons into piles.
- Practice simple math while eating a snack -- i.e. count how many fruit snacks you have versus how many of different colors, etc.