Summer Storytime

The Lawrence Public Library's Summer Kick-Off Party of lawn games, moustaches, and old fashioned fun was Saturday. On Sunday, the celebration kept on going with more summertime fun at "Summer Storytime". We read books about camping, swimming, ice cream, hot days, and ended it with a craft highlighting summer reading- personalized summer reading folders.

Summer Storytime Line-Up:

A Camping Spree with Mr. Magee by Chris Van Dusen

What starts out as a camping vacation turns into quite the wild adventure.

Should I Share My Ice Cream? by Mo Willems

Elephant and Piggie continue to be favorites at our library. This one is about an ice cream sweet tooth and a lesson in sharing.

"Ice Cream Ryme" Flannel Board

After reading Should I Share My Ice Cream?,  I followed it with a flannel board rhyme I found on What Happens in Storytime.... Here is the complete version from The Big Book of Stories, Songs, and Sing-Alongs by Beth Maddigan and Stefanie Drennan:

Ice Cream Rhyme

First we need a cone,

Nice and crunchy.

(Place cone on flannel board.)

 

Then We need some ice cream,

Sweet and yummy.

Scoop 'em, on,

Stack' em on,

Up to the sky.

We love ice cream, my oh, my!

 

First comes vanilla,

(Place white felt on the cone.)

 

Cold and sweet.

Then comes chocolate,

(Place brown felt on white.)

 

A delicious treat.

Here's some strawberry,

(Place pink felt on brown.)

 

Orange sherbert too.

(Place orange on top of pink.)

 

A super-duper ice cream cone

Just for you!

 

Once scoop, two scoops,

Three scoops, four.

We love ice cream,

Who want's more?

Splish, Splash, Splat! by Rob Scotton

Next we read a book about another summer activity... going to the pool, featuring the popular book character Splat the Cat! Our library's kids love Splat the Cat. Or I should say, they LOOOOVE Splat the Cat!!! This read was an easy win with the crowd.

Rattletrap Car by Phyllis Root, illustrated by Jill Barton

Rattletrap Car was such a fun book to read aloud! I usually have such a wide age range of kids that attend storytime and selecting books everyone will sit through and enjoy can be challenging.  This book appealed to every single one of them.

I had also planned to read Bats at the Beach by Brain Lies but decided against reading it at the last minute. Wanted to make sure the kids had enough time making their nifty summer reading folders...

Summer Reading Folder Craft

Throughout the summer, the kids of Lawrence can pick up a reading log from the library or they can print one off online. We have many eager readers participate in extra credit reading and various activities throughout the summer, so I thought it might be fun to create a folder for them to keep everything together.

Materials used: School folders (I reused an old stack of folders from the library), colored paper or cardstock, double-stick tape, scissors, glue stick, labels, foam stickers.

For pre-storytime prep, I taped a sheet of sky blue paper to each folder with double-stick tape.

I cut green cardstock into thirds and trimmed one of the long sides with specialty scissors.

I also cut out clouds from white paper and used leftover sun cut-outs from a previous project. Using a  glue stick, the kids glued the green cardstock (the grass), the clouds, and the sun on the blue paper.

I created and printed out a bunch of "My Summer Reading" labels that the kids chose to decorate their folders with.

Summer Reading Folders were then personalized with foam sticker letters.

I also had a bunch of foam stickers left over from various projects that they also used.

Bright and fun.

Just like the summer.

For more info about the Lawrence Public Library's Summer Reading Program click HERE.

For information on a local library's summer reading program near you click HERE.

Happy Summer and Happy Reading!