Sturdy For Common Things: Zydeco

I hemmed and hawwed over what to do for storytime this week, but I was reading Hopper and Wilson by Maria Van Lieshout the other night which prompted me to create a storytime theme around stuffed animals and it only seemed natural to make stuffed animals as our after-storytime craft. I think everyone really enjoyed this one!

Fuzzy Friends Storytime Line-up:

Where's My Teddy by Jez Alborough

Had a large storytime book format for this story, which is so much fun because it makes the "gigantic bear" seem so much bigger!

I Must Have Bobo! by Eileen Rosenthal, illustrated by Marc Rosenthal

Willy the boy and Earl the cat duke it out over stuffed animal Bobo's affections. This book makes me want to get another cat, because I too want a cat named Earl. Needless to say, my husband was really excited to revisit this topic.

Corduroy by Don Freeman

The classic, Corduroy. I read this one when I was little and it remains to be entertaining to kids of all ages.

The Stuffed Animals Get Ready for Bed by Alison Inches, illustrated by Bryan Langdo

A rhyming tale of one little girl's evening getting her stuffed animals ready for bed.

Knuffle Bunny: A Cautionary Tale by Mo Willems

Have you ever met a kid that didn't like Mo Willems? He brings in the laughs every time. Another reason I like reading Knuffle Bunny is because the pictures were taken in Park Slope (a neighborhood in Brooklyn), the area I lived in throughout my time in New York City.

Sock Creatures Craft:

Socktopus!!! This craft is extremely easy to do. If your house is like ours- where socks disappear every time we do a load of wash- this is a good way to give a lonely sock mate a new life.

Materials needed: Sock, poly-fil which can be found at a craft store in the quilting/fabric area, rubberbands or hairbands, scissors, and decorations (I used felt, fabric scraps, yarn, and ribbon).

Take one or two large handfuls of poly-fil and stuff them into the toe of the sock.

Make sure it's all rounded out and pushed to the top sock toe.

Wrap a rubber band or a hairband around the base of what will be the octopus head. Make sure it is tight enough so none of the poly-fil will come out.

Using scissors, cut thin strips from the sock opening all the way up to the rubber band.

There might be a leg or two that are bigger than the others because of the sock heel, so I just trimmed that part off.

Glue whatever decorations you have on hand to make a face. Fabric glue or school glue both worked with the kids yesterday.

A completed socktopus. Cute, right?

I also showed them how to make bunny rabbits out of socks. It only takes a few more handfuls of poly-fil and one more rubber band. I trimmed the sock to the heal beforehand so the ears would be short. A few kids used this idea and made people instead. Wish I would have taken pictures. They were hilarious.