Dragon Storytime

With our medieval armor and trusty steeds, the Sunday storytimers and I journeyed into the mountainous terrain of of books only to come face to face with fire-breathing (and taco eating) DRAGONS!

That's right! Yesterday's storytime theme was DRAGONS! (I feel the word DRAGON should always be in caps, don't you agree?) We read some of my favorite dragon picture books and then made our very own fierce fire-breathers.

Dragon Storytime Line-up:

Dragons Love Tacos by Adam Rubin, illustrated by Daniel Salmieri

What?! You didn't know dragons love tacos? Well, they do.. they like them a lot. What don't dragons like? Spicy salsa. The kids loved listening to this new picture book hit.

The Sunflower Sword by Mark Sperring, illustrated by Miriam Latimer

A personal favorite, this picture book is about what happens when you replace fighting with friendship.

The Best Pet of All by David LaRochelle, illustrated by Hanako Wakiyama

After one boy's mother constantly rejects the idea of getting a dog, she agrees to adopting a dragon. It's only a mater of time when they both soon find out that dragons make terrible pets.

King Arthur's Very Great Grandson by Kenneth Kraegel

This story about a 6-year-old boy, the very great great great great great great great grandson of King Arthur, takes off in search of adventure on his donkey, Knuckles. The dialogue in this book is hilarious.

Fire-Breathing Dragon Craft:

This fun and fiery dragon craft idea come from KangarooBoo Blog! What you don't see from this image is a hole in the back of the dragon head. Blow into the hole and make the dragon's flames flicker and spark.

Materials needed: Paper cups, pom-pom balls, googly eyes, crepe paper, construction paper, stickers, liquid school glue, tape, pen, and scissors.

First, punch a hole in the bottom of the cup. I did this to all the cups pre-storytime.

Cut the crepe paper into 5-10 inch strips and tape to the inside lip of the cup.

You are going to want to tape the strips to the top part of the dragons mouth for maximum fire-breathing effects.

To decorate the dragon's face, glue two pom-pom balls where you'd like the eyes to be.

Count to 20 and then glue the googly eyes on top of each pom.

This example dragon was also decorated with construction paper and stickers. I cut the paper into small triangles and folded them at the base. Then I glued them on using school glue. Since I ran out of prep-time for this particular craft, the kids didn't use construction paper triangls. Instead they used the foam shape stickers left over from last week.  We also used left over star stickers from Olympic Storytime.

Final product: Fire-breathing DRAGONS!

Here L demonstrates how to wreak havoc.

A lot of kids loved this craft and a lot of them found it difficult. The little ones needed extra help and I ran out of supplies. But everyone had fun listening to stories and was able to take a dragon home with them. Quest completed.

Note: No children were burned during this project and the library still stands today.