Green

We've been talking about specific colors all this month in storytime. This week we talked about the color green. We noticed that many kids were wearing green on their shirts (or pants or socks), saw green books on the shelves, and talked about that usually, by this time of the year, the grass is green. Instead, our grass is once again white with snow. *Sigh*

Books:

Green by Patricia Stockland
Green: Seeing Green All Around Us by Sarah Schuette
Green by Laura Vaccaro Seeger

Grandpa Green by Lane Smith
Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss

Music:

I used two different songs this week, depending on the ages of my groups. For younger ones, I used G-R-E-E-N (sung to the tune of BINGO). "There's a color I like to wear and green is its name-o"...

The other song I used is Green, Green, Green - a song I learned from folk singer Ross Sutter that can be used with many colors:
"Green, green, green is the color of my clothing
Green, green, green is everything I wear
I wear green
So I can't be seen
I wear green because I am a hunter."

The tune is here. I usually do this with photo props and try to have the kids guess the last word/occupation in the song, so I usually save this one for somewhat older or more vocal kids.

Snack:

I debated on the snack, and went back and forth between bringing celery (no PB, of course) or some sort of green candy. I'm too scared of having someone choke to bring grapes. I caved and bought a bag of green candy spearmint leaves (like gumdrops). Half the kids wouldn't even touch them. Guess I should have gotten the celery after all.

Activity:

 I tried using a paint chip matching activity I had read about on Inner Child Fun, and gave each kid page with four different shades of green on it, and had many different pages with green pictures on the tables to have the kids match colors.
But... the kids didn't really get into it.

So I changed tracks for my other storytime sessions and had kids rip small pieces of green construction paper and glue them as leaves to a page with a bare tree trunk with branches.

Next week: Orange

Blue

We've been talking about specific colors all this month in storytime. This week we talked about the color blue. We looked around the library for things that were blue, noticed that I was wearing all blue, and wished that the sky was blue (instead of grey).

Books:

Blue by Patricia Stockland

The Artist Who Painted a Blue Horse by Eric Carle
Little Blue Truck by Alice Schertle
Blue Chicken by Deborah Freedman
In a Blue Room by Jim Averbeck

Music:

For a song this week we sang Three Blue Pigeons (see previous post). I had never heard it before last week, but thought it would be perfect. It is easy enough for first time listeners to start singing along by the second or third verse. Very catchy too.

Snack:

Blueberries. Most of the kids just gobbled them up, but there were two that had never eaten them on their own (only in muffins and pie) and didn't care for them.

Activity:

Blue Jello Playdough
I used a recipe I found online to make blue playdough using jello. Gave each kid a chunk and we used our senses to see, hear, smell and touch (but not taste!) the playdough. The youngest ones were happy just manipulating the playdough - for the 3 and 4 year olds, we practiced rolling the playdough into "snakes", then used the snakes to make letters.

Three Blue Pigeons

Found a new song to use for my "Blue" theme for storytime next week: Three Blue Pigeons. I'm thinking about making 3 Mo Willems-style pigeons for the flannel board, but we'll see what I get time for.

There's a video of it here, but I couldn't find any sheet music/chords for it so I can play along with my autoharp (the kids just love when I pull out the autoharp). So for myself, and for anyone else, here are the lyrics and chords for Three Blue Pigeons.

C         G       C

Three blue pigeons

C          F      C

Sitting on a wall,

C         C      F    F       C          F      C

Three blue pigeons sitting on a wall.

(spoken): One flew away – oh no!

C         G       C

Two blue pigeons

C          F      C

Sitting on a wall,

C         C      F    F       C          F      C

Two blue pigeons sitting on a wall.

(spoken): One flew away – oh no!

C         G       C

One blue pigeons

C          F      C

Sitting on a wall,

C         C      F    F       C          F      C

One blue pigeons sitting on a wall.

(spoken): The last flew away – oh no!

C         G       C

No blue pigeons

C          F      C

Sitting on a wall,

C         C      F    F       C          F      C

No blue pigeons sitting on a wall.

(spoken): One flew back – hooray!

C         G       C

One blue pigeons

C          F      C

Sitting on a wall,

C         C      F    F       C          F      C

One blue pigeons sitting on a wall.

(spoken): One flew back – hooray!

C         G       C

Two blue pigeons

C          F      C

Sitting on a wall,

C         C      F    F       C          F      C

Two blue pigeons sitting on a wall.

(spoken): One flew back – hooray!

C         G       C

Three blue pigeons

C          F      C

Sitting on a wall,

C         C      F    F       C          F      C

Three blue pigeons sitting on a wall.

(spoken): The last flew back – hooray!