February storytime? What would those kids want to hear about? Valentine's Day and romantic love? Groundhog Day & overgrown Pennsylvania rodents? Mardi Gras...dead presidents... How about an Asian New Year Storytime with DRAGONS!!!
Display Props
Books
- The Oriental Trading crepe paper dragon stretches across the storytime clothesline, looping around and around very impressively. He's folded up in the backroom in the red portfolio.
- Sometimes but not every time I get out the Chinese good luck posters.
Books
Dragon Was Terrible by Kelly Dipucchio. Cute and a big book promo! When I got to the page about knights, I did a quick aside on what a knight is. I used Sabuda's Castle pop-up, which has a gorgeous full page pop-up knight.
The Best Pet by David LaRochelle. Dragons may love toys, but they won't pick them up; they do not like to help with chores; and they make a mess in the kitchen. In fact, they are not very good pets at all, but when Mom asks the dragon nicely to leave, he refuses. Her son is forced to put a Dog Wanted sign on the front door, because it's a well known fact that dragons fear dogs greatly. A boxer knocks on the door, the dragon puts on his hat and sunglasses and splits. I love doing the mom voice especially.
The Crocodile Who Didn't Like Water by Gemma Merino. This (adorable) crocodile doesn't like the water because he's a DRAGON! Wonderful book about finding out who you are. I changed the dragons' swim club to swimming lessons, which the kids are more familiar with. Funny pix a must.
Dragons Love Tacos by Adam Rubin. I've heard people complain that this silly book is just silly -- so what's wrong with that?
There Was an Old Dragon Who Swallowed a Knight by Klosterman.
Didn't get to this year: Good Story: Dragon Stew by Steven Smallwood. 5 Vikings go in search of a tasty dragon to stew. Sure. A little long.
Nice Ending: Dragon Who Wanted to Fly by Jeffrey Comanor. What a cute little bubblehead Fedge the Dragon is! He's been carried away from his home in the Island of Dandy by a hairy condor Snooch, and since he can't fly, he's really stuck! He has many great ideas for flying, though, and tries them all out. Funny AND cute.
Science Bonus: Komodo! by Peter Sis. A lovely, magic book about a boy who has always loved dragons and whose parents take him to see a real komodo dragon in Indonesia.
Me and My Dragon by David Biedrzycki. Great book about pets.
Songs
Changed up the intro song. Told them all they were dragons:
- Hello all you dragons, how do you do? How do you do? How do you?
Hello all you dragons, fly way up high! etc.
Hello all you dragons, show your claws!
Hello all you dragons, let's hear your roar!
- Dragon Pokey: (Horns & tails and claws)
- If You're a dragon and you know it
Plays
I explained that in China, people like to scare away the dragons by making a lot of noise. Then I gave out a lot of noisemakers. I had a nice dragon puppet, and I told them as soon as they saw the dragon (peeking over the songboard) they should try to make as much noise as possible to scare it away. And then stop when he disappeared. They were happy to comply and made a great deal of noise, but they were good at stopping too, and they didn't want to quit playing.
Craft
This year it was heart prints using paper towel rolls.
I usually do a Valentine's Day craft because there are so many great Valentine's Day crafts, making necklaces, cards, heart pix, etc, but Asian New Year came after Valentine's Day this year, so we made dragons.
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| A volunteer cut the crepe paper in half (fold long segments up and cut multiple thicknesses at one time) and did about eight per dragon. We attached them with double sided tape on the inside of the roll but I suppose we could have used regular tape. Then we attached the eyeballs and nostrils with double sided tape. They didn't stay on really well, Anybody have any better ideas? But the crepe paper did whoosh satisfactorily.
The Big Red Dragon Will Gobble
Me Up (to the tune of Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush)
The big red
dragon will gobble me up, gobble me up, gobble me up (shake)
The big red dragon will gobble me up, All the way up to my knees….
The big red dragon….
All the way up to my stomach (shoulders) (nose) |
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