Anyway, I came back to work today for a program that I planned before I realized exactly when my honeymoon was ending and the Thanksgiving holiday started (everyone has been asking me why I didn't just take today off too). May I present to you : Turkey Time!
The program was advertised for 45 minutes (it ran a little over) for ages 4-7 (for two reasons: the kids needed to write for the crafts and I've never seen a child younger than 4 sit still for a non-fiction book in storytime). It was a very small group, but surprisingly more people showed up than were signed up (that's not generally the case for my library).
Program Put Simply:
1. Read:
~ Turkey Trouble (Silvano)
~ This Is the Turkey (Levine)
~ Happy Thanksgiving (Mercer)
2. Make:
~ Give Thanks Turkey Paper Craft
~ Fall-Colored Paper Chain
3. Play:
~ Thanksgiving Matching/Memory Game
Detailed Program:
We started out reading the book Turkey Trouble - the kids laughed at all of the Turkey's costumes and agreed that he never looked anything like the animal he was trying to disguise himself as. Next, we played a Thanksgiving version of a matching game. I just Googled "Thanksgiving" clip art and found 9 pictures to duplicate and hide behind the numbers 1-18. I was surprised at how difficult it was to get the kids just to try picking two numbers at first, but after someone finally volunteered (or was volunteered, I don't remember) they loosened up a bit and seemed to enjoy the game - especially when they got a match. We then read the book This is the Turkey, followed by the turkey craft mentioned above. I rarely read non-fiction books to the kids because they seem very disinterested, but I decided to read selections from the book Happy Thanksgiving (Mercer). On the page that talks about all the different foods, I had the kids raise their hands for the different foods they like (including pumpkin pie); I told them very briefly about the first Thanksgiving; we also briefly discussed football and the Macy's parade. I then surprised them with a real pumpkin pie and cool whip, which they all got to try and most of them seemed to like. (I do wish I had advertised Thanksgiving treats as part of the program - I probably would have gotten more people that way - they always seem to come for food.) After directing them all to the sink in the back of the room to rinse off any sticky hands, they got to do their last craft (which is basically one I came up with just prior to the program when I thought I had lost the turkey craft) - essentially all I did was give them strips of red, yellow, orange, and brown paper and told them they could write or draw anything Fall/Thanksgiving-related on them, then we turned them into paper chains so they could have Thanksgiving decorations at home. On their way out, they got our "Happy Thanksreading" bookmarks.
Random Note: I had planned on using two songs in this program - beginning with the Dragon Tales "Hello Song", and doing some sort of warm-up exercise-y song in reference to working off all that Thanksgiving weight! - but my iPod died. I also had the book "Thanksgiving Rules" (Friedman) on hand to read, but we ran out of time.
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