Baby Penguin

Although it is not an original idea, I decided to post a version of a popular and easily adaptable flannel board game. The theme for January's family story time is "Penguins!" I found the baby penguin clip art in Microsoft Publisher's clip art file and wanted to use the little guy because he is so cute. Since the pieces are easy to make and many others will be doing winter programs, I thought that I would share what I am making for our magnet board.

I printed out the baby penguin and drew five roughly identical icebergs. (Iceberg clip art could also be used.) I numbered each iceberg. The figures shown below have yet to be cut out. I will put blue paper behind the icebergs so that the penguin will not show through the iceberg it is hiding behind. (If you are using felt or heavier paper this might not be a problem.)

The rhyme I will be using is:

Baby penguin, baby penguin,
Where did you hide?
Did you go behind iceberg 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5?

We have not played a hidden object game in family story time since the summer so I think the children will enjoy it.

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It's Not a Worm! It's a Tail!

As I was weeding our professional collection last year, I came across a collection of puppet plays, Pocketful of Puppets: Three Plump Fish and Other Short Stories by Yvonne Winer (Nancy Renfro Studios, 1983). One of the plays, "Three Little Mice with Three Grand Tails," could easily be adapted into a flannel board story. I made a copy and put it into my Family Story Time folder. When I decided to do my recent "Tail Tales" program, I adapted the story for our magnet board. My version is called, "It's Not a Worm! It's a Tail!" It can be found as a Google Drive document here.

I made my own figures for the board with the exception of the frog and owl. I found exactly what I wanted in the clip art file of Microsoft Publisher for the frog. The owl is also from Publisher. I just used the piece that I had made for "Boastful Beaver and His Beautiful Tail." The other figures are based on combinations of various clip art pieces but are basically original. I used marker to color the fish and the frog but used poster paint for the mice and the bird. I prefer using poster paint for large pieces (better coverage and no streaking). I painted all of the mice because I wanted them the same color. I got a little carried away with the big mouse and he turned out quite a bit larger than the others. I originally wanted to make them stand-up figures but ran out of time. I need to find a good way to support the tails. The original plan was to use clothes pins to clip the figures onto the tails but that made them too heavy even though I had put extra card stock on the back to make the tails stronger.

This week's Flannel Friday Round-Up is hosted by Cate of Storytiming. Flannel Friday has everything you need to know including information about past and future round-ups, Flannel Friday's Pinterest boards and Flannel Friday's Facebook page.

Tail Tales - Evening Family Story Time

Family Story Time - Tail Tales
Thursday, November 29, 2012, 6:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m., Attendance - 19 (9 children and 10 adults)

Board Stories: "The Cat and the Mouse" (from Multicultural Folktales: Stories to Tell Young Children by Judy Sierra and Robert Kaminski
                       "Boastful Beaver and His Beautiful Tail"
                       "It's Not a Worm! It's a Tail!"

Stick Puppet Story: "The Fox and the Crab"

Guessing Game: "Whose Tail?"

Crafts: Mouse bookmark and Hanging Monkeys

Mouse Bookmark

Monkeys

Patterns

Notes: As expected it was a small group. Not many had signed up. I had worked the two nights before and the children's room had very little traffic. The holiday season has begun and attendance usually drops off this time of year. It may have been small but it was an enthusiastic group made up mostly of regulars. Several dads came which is why there were more adults than children. I now have a core group of families attending which is great. As usual the board stories were well received. I was most impressed with how good the older children were at guessing the animals. I complemented one young lady for guessing blue tailed skink and she replied that she knew the answer because, "I read." I made my own craft templates. The mouse bookmark is based on one that I used years ago which was from a storytime book from the late 1980's or early 1990's. Of course I now no longer remember the author or title. I think the cover was pink. (Couldn't resist - sorry fellow librarians.) The monkeys are based on the game Barrel of Monkeys. Because it was a small group I was able to have all the pieces were precut. The children glued on the mouse ears and a long yarn tail to make the mouse bookmark. They just had to color the monkeys if they wanted. They enjoyed hanging them by their arms and tails. One boy got a chain of six monkeys before one fell off.

The Sheltering Tree

This draw and tell story can be told two ways. It can be told as a winter story or it can be told as a Christmas story. It was written for Flannel Friday's second Holiday Extravaganza but since I seldom do Christmas programs I wanted something I could use for a winter storytime as well.

This particular story takes a great deal of preparation but children love surprises so it's worth the effort. The inside picture can be simple or quite elaborate if you want by using clip art animals and colored markers.  You can use whatever animals you want. I used a cardinal, an owl, a squirrel, an opossum, a raccoon and a porcupine. You can also use two of each animal instead of six different ones. I will probably save my inside picture and simply glue it to another piece of paper when I want to tell the story again. The outside part is very easy to draw.

The story is about a little fir tree that stands firm against the wind and snow because it has a job to do. Once it is drawn in the winter version, the flaps are opened to reveal the animals taking shelter. In the Christmas version it is rewarded for its kindness when a special star shines upon it for it is Christmas night. After that star is drawn the flaps are opened to reveal the animals in its branches. The complete story and drawing instructions can be found as a Google document here.

Update 2/8/13: Sarah of the Read, Sarah, Read! blog has turned this story into a prop story. It's a great way to tell the story particularly if you want to do it with several groups. Her great idea can be found in her post for February 7, 2013.
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