04 Nov Storytime at Home: Letter V
We have been enjoying a large flock of turkey vultures which live near the library. A recent Tot Tuesday program celebrated these majestic birds and the letter V! Here are some ideas to try at home.
We started with the vulture puppet greeting each child. If you don’t have a puppet, you can say hello to each other by opening and closing your fingers like a beak.
The featured book was The Very Hungry Caterpillar. You can watch the author Eric Carle himself reading this story! The Very Hungry Caterpillar inspired the rest of the storytime, which was about food.
Fingerplays and rhymes
We said hello with the fingerplay “Bread and Butter.” You can clap your hands or snap your fingers to emphasize the rhythm.
Bread and butter, bread and butter,
Marmalade and jam.
Let’s say hello as quietly as we can. (whisper) Hello.
You can repeat this rhyme, switching quietly with loudly, sweetly, quickly, and so on.
The nursery rhyme “Pat-a-Cake“ is a classic. Instead of always using B, I like to use the child’s name and the letter their name starts with.
Here’s the fun song we did with shaker eggs, “Apples and Bananas.” This version is by Raffi and is available on The Best of Raffi.
Is it food?
Next, we played a fun sorting game. To play at home, you can put different objects in a box and then pull them out and ask if they are food. This is a great opportunity to be dramatic and interact with your child. They can also sort the objects by texture, size, or color!
We spent a few minutes looking at board books. If you can’t make it to one of our scheduled storytimes, you’re always welcome to read books whenever you’re at the library.
Children always love games where they have to find a hidden object. This time, we did a food version. You could make your own with paper, or hide an object under boxes, pots, or pans. Try Little Mouse or the Little Mouse Song if you want to play along.
The program ended with Jim Gill’s The Silly Dance Contest, a dance-and-freeze song that helps kids with listening skills. Here’s a concert version so you can dance along! Or check out the CD from the library.
Finally, the kids got hand stamps of the letter V and a Very Big Smile. Instead of hand stamps, you can also color a picture of something that begins with the letter V, or trace it in water or sand.
This letter V storytime is based on a recent Tot Tuesday program. PGTPL has a storytime or activity for children every weekday at 10 a.m. and we would love to see you there! Check out the activity calendar for details.