Flannel Friday Holiday Round-Up 2012

Welcome to Flannel Friday's second Holiday Extravaganza - the one-stop place for holiday storytime planning. As usual there is a wide variety of ideas and many that are not just limited to the holidays.

Anne of So Tomorrow gives us a draw and tell story about Santa having "Trouble at the North Pole." She also gives us some other holiday storytime suggestions.

Sarah of Read It Again! presents a "Pete the Cat Christmas Extravaganza." Her gingerbread Pete is adorable. She cleverly makes Christmas versions of the popular Pete stories.

Sharon of Rain Makes Applesauce brings us another extravaganza with her "Gingerbread Story Time Extravaganza." My favorite is her story about the "Three Little Cookies" with great props and a great ending. Her department entertained almost 300 people with this program. Wow!

Lisa of Libraryland has "Santa Claus, Santa Claus," based on Bill Martin, Jr.'s Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? She selected colorful clip art to feature familiar Christmas objects.

Courtney of Miss Courtney Meets Bobo features "Snow Is Falling Down," a flannel that builds a wintry scene that includes a snowman. This one is great for winter storytimes.

Meghan of Busy Crafting Mommy takes the popular holiday rhyme to a new level with "Rudolph, Rudolph - light up nose."  She adds a LED light so Rudolph's nose lights up!

Mary of Miss Mary Liberry uses her skill with puffy paint to create realistic icing for her "Five Little Cookies." They definitely have "frosting galore."

Sandy of Storytime Sparks shows us different ways to present "Snowmen" rhymes. She is great at finding inexpensive sources for her storytelling figures. Snowman gift tags - genius!

Monica of Ram Sam Storytime presents a "Bunches of Bears!" storytime. She not only shares the flannels she used but the rest of the program as well.

Seth of The Voices Inside My Headphones can always be counted on for something different. This time he has a rhyme, "Five Little Fezzes." It would be fun to use in a storytime about hats.

Katie of Storytime Katie offers her take on "Rudolph, Rudolph." She used the pattern provided by Library Quine. I agree with her that it is too cute not to make.

Mel of Mel's Desk contributes a flannel set she designed for Raffi's song, "Thanks a Lot." She graciously provides us with the pattern. She used it for her "Thanks and Giving" baby storytime.

Lisa of Story Time with the Library Lady shares her fantastic "Countdown December!" It's a huge calendar for the entire month. I love how she sneaks a little information in with the colorful pictures.

Although K Leigh of Storytime ABC's does not have a flannel to contribute this week, she does have an invitation for everyone to her "First Annual Storytime Swap." Holiday cookies swaps inspired her to come up with this interesting idea.

My contribution is a draw and tell story, "The Sheltering Tree," that can be either a Christmas story or a winter story.

Thank you everyone for all of your great ideas. Happy holiday storytelling!

Last year's Holiday Extravaganza can be found here. Everything about Flannel Friday can be found here.

Boastful Beaver and His Beautiful Tail

I came across a version of this Ojibwa story when searching for folktales about tails for my next Family Story Time. The version that I based my adaptation on can be found here. I decided to make it into a magnet/flannel board story which can be found as a Google document here.

The story reminded me of Keith Faulkner's The Long-Nosed Pig which is one of my favorites. (This pop-up book is a great choice to read to large groups. I have used it for numerous class visits as well as storytimes. Sadly it is out of print.) Faulkner's book inspired my retelling though I am dealing with the opposite end.

I used clip art for my animals, some from Microsoft Publisher and some from other sources such as Open Clip Art Library. Since only two animals are on the board at any one time, I made the figures larger than I usually do.

Beaver - Before

The Other Animals

Beaver - After

This week's Flannel Friday Round-up is hosted by Tracey of 1234 More Storytimes.

Whose Tail? - A Guessing Game

Inspired by a recent addition to my library's non-fiction collection, Talented Tails Up Close by Melissa Stewart (Enslow, 2012), I created a guessing game activity for my upcoming Family Story Time program, "Tail Tales."

This project took a bit of time to research but was easy to put together. First I selected the animals I wanted to include, then I searched free clip art sites for images. I also used some from Microsoft Publisher. The challenge was to find images that clearly featured each animal's tail. I used Publisher to enlarge the images and to crop, enlarge and copy the tails. I printed the image, outlined each animal in black marker, cut it out and pasted it on a page that had the animal's name printed on top. I printed each tail, outlined it in black marker, cut it out, and pasted it to a page that had "Whose Tail?" printed on top. The tail "question" pages were pasted onto neon green construction paper and the animal "answer" pages were pasted onto purple construction paper. This not only adds a bit of color but also helps me know which is a question and which is an answer.

On the back of the answer pages I listed some facts about each tail. Since some of the tails will be more difficult to guess, I will use these facts as clues. For those that are guessed right away, the facts will explain why the tail is unique.

I selected nine animals for this activity: kangaroo, giraffe, squirrel, blue tail skink (lizard will be a correct answer), spider monkey ( monkey will be a correct answer), blue whale, beaver, rattlesnake, and peacock.

This game can be simplified for younger children. I would choose five well-known animals and make flannel/magnet board pieces of the animals and their tails. Since my group has older children and adults, I decided to do a more challenging version. This guessing game is also one I can use for elementary school class visits.

This week's Flannel Friday Roundup is hosted by Anna of the Future Librarian Superhero blog. Everything you ever wanted to know about Flannel Friday can be found on the Flannel Friday blog.