K is for Kisses

So, I'm a little sporadic in posting our story time themes. I think the last one I did was...the letter A. So, sue me. We are having fun with this theme, though, which gives us both the "ew" factor and the "aw" factor.

After I run through the letters (in sign language) that we have learned so far, and the kids tell me that "k" is next, I tell them, today we are going to talk about..."Kissing! Ew!" I ask them if they like to kiss anybody, and of course we quickly decide that kissing Mommy/daddy/Grandparents/siblings is actually pretty cool. When do they kiss us? Bedtime? When we get hurt? Just any time? That leads to a reading of...

I Will Kiss You Lots and Lots, by Stoo Hample.

In fun, rhyming text, Mommy kisses her little one on his nose, on his toes, in a tree, on the stairs, and so on. You can stop in many places to engage your listeners (or their parents - how many have to kiss all the stuffed animals goodnight, too?)

Who else do we kiss/get kisses from? Does anyone have any pets they like to kiss? How does a kitty give kisses? A puppy? That leads into...



Love and Kisses, by Sarah Wilson

A little girl kisses a cat, who passes the kiss on in bouncy rhyme, until the kiss comes right back to the little girl.

Finally, because I love me some Robert Munsch, we have:



The Mommies sure seemed to identify with Lacey's complaint that Mom doesn't have any clean clothes for her to wear, and Mom's response that she can't WASH Lacey's clothes if she can't FIND Lacey's clothes. Poor lacey is forced to wear a Horrible Grandma Present - a shirt that says, "Kiss Me, I'm Perfect". She quickly comes to like her shirt, though, when every animal she meets read her shirt and complies. A kitten...a puppy... an eagle! What animal will be next? And what will happen when a BOY sits down next to her??

This gives us a silly ending, and brings us back to discussing whether we really want to kiss EVERYbody. From there we talk about another great kind of kiss - chocolate kisses! To put the two points together, we are going to make a craft with chocolate kisses, that we can give to anybody we like (and maybe save for Valentine's Day).

This takes a little prep time, and costs more than our usual crafts, but was too cute to pass up. Start with small cans of fruit with pop tops. Open them from the BOTTOM, empty them, and rinse:

Fill with kisses, or any other candy or small treats:

Kinda went to far opening that one, but it will work.

 Add some tissue, to protect the contents from glue drips:

Hot glue the bottom back on. You'll need to hold it in place for a few seconds, while the glue cools - but remember, metal conducts heat!

These don't look pretty, but it's the bottom, so who cares?

I like to cover these with contac paper next, but Walmart stopped carrying it. Grr. Paper cut to size worked just as well. We had markers and foamy shapes to decorate with first:

Of course, the kids' projects were MUCH more colorful than mine! Tape the label on, and add some ribbons to the pop tab (don't pull it up too far!), and you have a ready-made gift:

Like this one S. gave to Daddy last night. Now he can have kisses from her even when she's not around:)

(One little girl, as she was leaving, said she was going to give hers to her Pop-Pop - "Because he will share!")