Shape Storytime, Friday, May 5 @ 10:30

Books:

• Shape by Shape by Suse MacDonald.  A bit like Big Green Monster, i.e., aDORable.  But don't forget to hide the cover!!! And don't forget the intro: this is a guessing game, and it's being read by the brachiosaurus, so be a brachiosaurus! Deep voice.  I made the kids really work at naming the shapes, and they liked that.
• Triangle by Mac Barnett. Triangle goes off to play a sneaky trick on his friend Square, hissing like a snake to scare him.  Congrats, Mac Barnett, on still owning a two-year-old self. Perfect for this group. 
• Let's Play by Herve Tullet.  Let's see -- a big yellow pom pom and a piece of string?  They really liked this, it was so interactive.  We did it without the pom pom, having the kids do as much pointing and counting as possible.
• Nuts Keep Rolling by Eric Litwin.  Maybe this book isn't a conceptual perfect fit for Shapes, but it was such a charmer and the kids loved the rhythm and rhyme of it.  
• Ticklemonster by Manceau. I neglected to set up my flannelboard so just read the book, and I think I liked that a lot better.  I could tickle the page of the book and the brilliant colors on the pages almost but not quite got the point of making something new out of shapes across. 
• Brown Rabbit's Shape Book by Alan Baker.  This is a book which uses solid geometry -- the green cubical box, the white cylinder inside, etc.  And I so love blowing up those balloons and letting them go in the audience. I thought maybe these two and three year olds would be over it, but they certainly were not.  I pulled it out a bit: "Right now this balloon doesn't have much of a shape.  What shape do you think it will have?" Brianna said "Blow air in it!" and another little one said, "A circle!" I said, "She has a theory that it will be a theory, so let's test her theory with Brianna's experiment and blow air in it." Much shrieking and hollering.
• Mouse Shapes by Ellen Stoll Walsh.  Could there be any book that lends itself more to a flannelboard? So charming.
• Friendshape by Amy Krouse Rosenthal.  This is really a book about friendship, but the shapes are really cute. The moms really liked it -- for the moms.
• Robot Zombie Frankenstein by Annette Simon. Kinda complex shapes.
• Go, Shapes, Go! by Denise Fleming.  Again, where are my flannels! 
• Perfect Square by Michael Hall.  There's a lot of learning going on in this book. You've got the days of the week; the colors on each page, and the shapes, which are not really geometric except for the perfect square.  Get the kids to tell you the colors of the pages as you flip.
• The Wing on a Flea by Emberley.

Game: 

Used the toys -- the square bean bags, the oval shaker eggs, the round pom poms and balls, and talked colors and shapes while passing them out. This was fun, but next year I might make this into a real game: pass out the shapes and telling the kids (and their moms), to keep them secret. Put the box in the middle of the room and roll call the shapes: yellow square beanbag! and the kids (and their moms) throw them in. ???

Crafts:

Shape collages, of course!

I raided the office supplies and found these cool multicolored squares, post it notes, and black dots. I added some googly eyes and washi tape, and it was another fun, creative session.  Maybe I should have punched out some more circles though.