Amy Krouse Rosenthal Story Time

We had a definite subtheme going on with this week's story time. I started off by asking the kids if they had ever had one of those days where everything just seemed to go wrong. Most raised their hand, although only one group (we do this twice a week) offered examples. I told the kids that my daughter, M., recently had one of those days. I asked if any of the parents/grandparents had ever, for example, locked themselves out of their car, and of course most sheepishly raised their hands (myself included.) M, I explained, somehow managed to lock herself INSIDE her car. She was sitting in the driver's seat of her 1980 pickup, holding her keys, and couldn't get the doors to open! She spent ten minutes frantically calling friends, trying to find someone to rescue her, before finally realizing...she could just roll the window down.

 

We've al had those days, and there are many ways to have those kinds of days, which segues very nicely into:

 

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The older kids especially showed that they identified with several of the bad days described. One was an "It's not fair day", which provided the segue into:

 

 

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I love authors who make my job easy. They got a kick out of even babies, aliens, and planets shouting that things aren't fair. And, of course, sometimes we think things aren't fair when really they are just different, which goes along with:

 

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I introduced this one by showing the kids a spoon, fork, (butter) knife, and chopsticks, and we talked about what you might do with each one. If you aren't familiar with the story, spoon is jealous of the things his friends can do and he can't, but in the end realizes there are things only he can do. An obvious moral, but handed over in a silly enough way to be completely palatable.

 

For our craft, I searched the internet for a while, and finally settled on decorating our own plastic utensil people. I wasn't sure if it would be a hit or a flop - fortunately, it was very definitely the former. I LOVE when their creativity takes off, and they put my examples to shame! Here are a few shots from our Monday group:

 

 

 

Why yes, she does like pink, how did you guess?

 

Pirate, Abraham Lincoln, and Mr. Spoon.

 

The pirate added an earring, so I had to take another picture.

 

Why are there spoons and no food? I don't understand!

 

 

Classy!

 

Loving that hair!

Ninja?

 

The knife, I was told, is the bad guy.

 

 

If you're looking at hands, you'll see that while the mommies helped with some of the cutting and tying, the kids really did most of the work!

Best of all, when I got everything cleaned up and returned to my desk, I found myself tagged in a video on Facebook - one brother and sister had already gone home and put together a puppet show with their creations! Excellent way to make it a good "one of those days" for your pet librarian!