Families Sing Music Kit: Musical Mascots

Families Sing Music Kit: Musical Mascots

Library storytimes are designed to enhance a child’s language development by giving them a variety of experiences. Take this Families Sing Music Kit home and create your own family storytime at home with our books, felt board stories, fingerplays, songs, music and action rhymes.

Although we have included a plan to use all the materials in one 45-minute sitting, each item can be used independently or with just one or two other items.

We hope you have fun exploring each theme in your home and at your own pace!

KIT CONTENTS:

White Program Notebook

1 Traveling Felt Board with 2 felt board stories:

“Five Green and Speckled Frogs” (7 pieces)

“Five Little Cookies” (5 pieces)

BOOKS

Carle, EricToday is Monday

Cronin, DoreenWiggle

Langstaff, JohnOver in the Meadow with CD

Lass, BonnieWho Took the Cookies from the Cookie Jar?

Plume, Ilse, retellingBremen Town Musicians

Taback, SimmsThere Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed A Fly

CDs

Berkner, LaurieWhaddaya Think of That?

Lithgow, JohnSingin’ in the Bathtub

Sharon, Lois & Bram Great Big Hits #1

Families Sing, a collaborative project of the Mohawk Valley Library System and member libraries, is supported by Federal Library Services and Technology Act funds, awarded to the New York State Library by the Federal Institute of Museum and Library Services.

Prepared by Joyce R. Laiosa for the Mohawk Valley Library System, 2006

Families Sing Music Kit: Musical Mascots

Suggested Program

1) Sing/chant: Shake Our Sillies Out

We’re gonna shake, shake, shake our sillies out (shake hands)

Shake, shake, shake our sillies out,

And wiggle our waggles around. (wiggle body)

We’re gonna stamp stamp stamp our sillies out, (stamp feet)

Stamp, stamp, stamp our sillies out,

And wiggle the waggles around.(wiggle body)

We’re gonna bounce, bounce, bounce our sillies out, (bounce up and down)

Bounce, bounce, bounce our sillies out,

And wiggle our waggles around. (wiggle body)

Children can come up with other motions before settling down to stories!)

2) Read: Wiggle by Doreen Cronin

Read again and have children act out the wiggle part.

3) Stretch/Action Rhyme

Pull your ears, and touch your toes,

Wiggle your fingers and crinkle your nose,

Twist at the waist, and stick out your tongue.

Take a deep breath and fill up your lungs.

Bend your knees, and make two fists.

Flex your elbows, flex your wrists.

Grab your ankles, then reach for the sky,

Flap your arms, pretend to fly.

Find your ribs, and find your cheeks.

Cover your eyes, then steal a peek.

Point to your lips, then make them grin.

Point to your hips, point to your chin.

Find your seats, we’re going to begin

4) Read/listen to: Over in the Meadow

Read the book. Then listen to it again with the CD. Have the children count the animals on each page after you have listened to it.

5) Felt Song/Chant: “Five Green and Speckled Frogs”

(Line up frogs on log, with log on top of pond and bugs hovering above.)

Five green and speckled frogs, sitting on a speckled log,

Eating some nice delicious bugs – yum, yum.

One jumped into the pool, where it was nice and cool,

Now there are four green speckled frogs – ribbit, ribbit.

Four green and speckled frogs…

Three green and speckled frogs…

Two green and speckled frogs…

One green and speckled frog…

(Have a frog jump into the “pool” on each verse.)

6) Read: Who Took the Cookies From the Cookie Jar?

Read this in a rhyming rhythm. On the second reading, have the children guess the rhyming words. Do the story one more time and have the children clap in rhythm.

Go over the rhymes and see if the children can come up with any other rhyming words. Rhyming words are part of phonological awareness and an early literacy skill. This will help prepare the child to read when he/she begins school.

7) Felt Board Rhyme: “Five Little Cookies”

Have the children take off the felt pieces from the board as you say the rhyme.

Five little cookies with frosting galore,

Mommy ate the white one, then there were four.

Four little cookies, two and two you see,

Daddy ate the pink one, then there were three.

Three little cookies, but before I knew,

My sister ate the blue one, then there were two.

Two little cookies, oh, what fun!

My brother ate the green one, then there was one.

One little cookie, watch me run!

I ate the red one, then there were none.

Repeat. This time let the children take off the felt pieces and have them also say the numbers.

Everyone likes to eat cookies, but what about eating a FLY?

8) Read and sing: There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Flyby Simms Taback

First time through read/sing the book, but not all the comments by the animals.

Second time through, read and point to all the different and funny lines that are in the book. Having your children follow the words on the pages as you point out where you are reading is an early literacy skill called Print Awareness. Children who know about print understand that the words they see in print and the words they speak and hear are related.

9) I like the spider that wiggles and jiggles inside the old lady: let’s chant a nursery rhyme about a spider:

Little Miss Muffet, sat on a tuffet,

Eating her curds and whey;

Along came a spider, and sat down beside her,

And frightened Miss Muffet away.

You can make a paper spider and hang it from a stick – then have child act out the nursery rhyme while reciting it.

10) Read: Today is Monday by Eric Carle

Read it through the first time. The second time, ask the children what food is on the page. The third time, ask the children what their favorite food is, and what day of the week should they eat it.

11) Read: The Bremen Town Musicians retold by Ilse Plume

While reading the story, get the child/children to make the sounds of the animals. When the animals are making their sounds together, have children make a loud rumpus. After you finish, have the children retell you the story. Ask them “what questions” from the book. This is a dialogic reading of the book, which helps children with their narrative skills. It is a very important early literacy skill. You can take as much or as little time with this as interests the child. For instance: “What animals are in the story?” “Where are the animals going?” “What happened to the robbers?” “What happened to the animals at the end of the story?”

12)Listen to John Lithgow’s CD – “I Had a Rooster.”

13) Art Activity

It is always fun to extend your reading and music time with other activities.

Paint small Styrofoam balls black. Attach elastic or string to the ball by gluing or stapling. Let children push black pipe cleaners into the balls to create legs and glue on googly eyes. Help children tie the other end of the string to a craft stick. This will be fun to use for reciting and acting out “Little Miss Muffet.”
Use brown paper bags for big paper fish. Decorate them while listening to John Lithgow’s “At the Codfish Ball.” Punch holes in the fish, and use yarn or string to hang them on the wall, or to use like a kite and have them dance. There are many different fish in this song, so there is a lot of room for creativity. Add sparkles, markers, fabric, and color paper to jazz up the fish!
From paper plates, make animal masks, or simple faces. Hang a yarn or string across a room and listen to John Lithgow’s “I Had a Rooster.” As each animal is introduced, they can be hung on the “clothesline” with a clothespin.
Make paper puppets (a lunch bag, with cut out characters glued to bag) for the characters in “The Bremen Town Musicians.” Or more elaborate puppets can be made. Children can perform the story as a puppet play, or just an animal band with the animal noises.
Bake cookies with the children. If you have very young children, you can start with the refrigerated dough kind, or have them help with decorating sugar cookies, or frosting and decorating simple cookies. No matter what the cookie recipe, children can help bake and decorate.
Make a chart of the days of the week. Make a paper pocket on the bottom of the chart to hold pictures. Have children cut out foods from grocery flyers that are their favorite and put them in the pocket. Every day they should be able to glue one of their foods on the day of the week. [This can also be used as a way to plan meals, discuss healthy eating, and learn your child’s favorite foods. It can also be used to introduce new foods to the child.] You can do this with a blank calendar to help the child learn the month, days in the month, and reinforce time.

Felt Board Rhyme: “Five Little Cookies”

Story includes 5 cookies – 1 each color – white, pink, blue, green, red