Owl Storytime

Hello there! How are you owl doing after the Thanksgiving weekend?

If you couldn't tell by my cheesy intro, we sang songs and read books about owls for storytime. The kids even made their very own owl to take home with them. It was a small group of storytimers which was kinda nice after the big rush of visitors we had in our house over the weekend.

Owl Storytime Line-up:

Owl in the Tree

(Sung to "Skip to my Lou")

Owl in the tree says, who, who, who

Owl in the tree says who, who, who

Owl in the tree says who, who, who

Whoooo, who, are you? (Point to a child and have them say their name.)

Little Owl Lost by Chris Haughton

A new book that LBD likes. She likes it A LOT. I'm lucky I was able to take it away for the one storytime.

Owl Moon by Jane Yolen, illustrated by John Schoenherr

I was a little nervous to read this book to such a young age group. It's longer and slower than the books I usually read, but I wanted to read it nonetheless because it is simply beautiful.  So, I decided to make it more interactive. As I read I prompted the kids to call out the noises as they came up in the story.. train whistles, dog howls, crunching snow, owl whoo's...  and thankfully it worked.

The Wide-Eyed Owl

A hand motion rhyme adapted from The Land of Nursery Rhymes

There's a wide-eyed owl (forefingers and thumbs around eyes)

with a pointed nose, (forefinger and thumb together to make a point over nose)

with two pointed ears, (clench hands with forefingers pointing up for ears)

He lives high in a tree. (reach up to the sky)

When he looks at you (circles around yes again)

he flaps his wings, (hands to chest and flap elbows)

and says, "Who, Who, Whooo." (cup hands to mouth and hoot)

with claws for his toes. (make hands into claws)

Little Owl's Night by Divya Srinivasan

The kids loved the pictures in this book... especially the owl character. Another new title added recently to the library's collection.

Wow! Said the Owl by Tim Hopgood

A great book about a little owl that stayed up to witness the daytime.

Little Hoot by Amy Krouse Rosenthal, illustrated by Jen Corace

This book produced the most laughs. A silly crowd pleaser of a little owl who wants to go to bed early.

The Owl Craft:

I got the idea for this owl craft from a few different places like here and here. Since I didn't want to purchase pillow gift boxes, I printed them out on cardstock out using this template and assembled each one. Well, I didn't assemble them all. My mother-in-law pitched in and helped. And couple of the other visiting guests over the holiday helped cut feathers or wings or whatnot. I used cardstock for the eyes, beak, and feet. The tummy feathers are old wallpaper samples and the wings are from felt I found in the library's storage basement.

All the kids had to do was glue the pieces to the pillow box.

Cute, right?

image sources: Little Owl Lost, Owl Moon, Little Owl's Night, Wow! Said the Owl, Little Hoot