sunflowers
Activities

Storytime Theme: Sunflowers

Sunflowers

This was our first week back to storytime after a relatively long break and it was so busy! Summer is always really interesting because so many people take a vacation, a lot of families are around that I don’t see very often during the school year and I seem to get a lot of new kids for my toddler storytimes. 

This summer, I’m doing a traditional toddler storytime with music, fingerplays, and puppets as transitions as well as a parachute storytime that involves parachute games in place of traditional transitions. As usual for the first week, it was a little crazy with a lot of kids, but I think everyone had at least a little bit of fun. My parachute storytime ended up in a room with broken AC on a 90-degree day, but the kids had a great time as we focused on sunflowers and learning about spirals in nature.

Storytime Theme: Sunflowers

Opening & Closing

 Opening

  • Traditional: Put Your Hands Up In the Air & Open Shut Them
  • Parachute: Parachute Bop (Shakin’ the Chute)

ASL Sign: Flower (Touch a “squished O-hand” to your cheek on one side of your nose and then the other.)

Closing

  • Traditional: Shake Your Sillies Out Puppet Show
  • Parachute: Freeze!! (Shakin’ the Chute)

Books

  • The Surprise Garden by Zoe Hall
  • To Be Like the Sun by Susan Marie Swanson
  • Swirl by Swirl: Spirals in Nature by Joyce Sidman

 Transitions

  • Traditional: 5 Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed
  • Traditional:  Rocketship Run (Laurie Berkner Band)
  • Parachute: Popcorn with ball pit balls (Battu ~ Putumayo Kids Presents: African Playground)
  • Parachute: Beach Ball Popcorn (Rocketship Run ~ Laurie Berkner Band)

Additional Titles

  • Big Yellow Sunflower by Frances Barry
  • This Is the Sunflower by Lola M. Schaefer
  • Sunflower Life Cycle by Chelsea Donaldson
  • Seed to Plant by Kristin Baird Rattini
  • Sunflower House by Eve Bunting

Celebrate even more flowers with these great picture books about flowers – April Showers, Bring May Flowers!

Add a few sprinkles

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