Magic Storytime

Books

Strega Nona by Tomie de Paola. Strega Nona is a traditional Italian tale written by that traditional old Italian himself, Tomie de Paola. It's about the magic cauldron only the local witch knew how to use wisely. Disaster occurs when she leaves the small town to manage on its own. Disaster and way too much spaghetti. My black cauldron is in the backroom. Practice your fake Italian accent, and don't forget to throw those three magic kisses!

Me and My Cat 

A boy is lying in his own bed, minding his business when a witch with a grudge for his next door neighbor comes in and mistakenly changes him into his cat and his cat into him. The pictures are incredibly funny, as the boy tries to survive as his cat and his cat goes to school in his place.

Magic Boots

The Magic Boots are like seven league boots -- they can take you across deserts and onto pirate boats. With just a line or so of text on each brilliantly illustrated page, this one is great for storytime.
Where can your magic boots take you?
Anywhere.

Chalk

Children on a playground draw a picture of a T-Rex who comes to live. Not such a good idea

This is a wordless story. Take advantage of that to pull the kids in with questions and predictions based on the great pictures..

Poof!

by John O'Brien

A wizard husband and a wizard wife are sitting in their wizard living room with their wizard baby. "It's your turn to change the baby," Wizard Dad says. "True," says the wife, "But it's your turn to put out the cat." and Pouf! the baby turns to a cat. "Yes, but it's your turn to walk the dog," said Wizard Dad. Soooo funny, but between you and me? I'm not sure the kids quite get this.

The Magic Hat

by Mem Fox

A wizard's hat blows through town, changing this person and that into different animals. Trust Mem Fox to come up with a hit for readaloud.

Songs

 Disney?

Craft

Welllll, you could go ahead and make magic wands, but if you're dealing with the 2 to 5 year old set, be warned: this age bracket is creative enough to immediately begin bopping each other on the head with that foam star you've stapled to the end of that dowel road.

Try doing a "magical" art project instead, like crayon resist. Or some of the others below. I once did a "Magic" storyhour based around Sylvester and the Magic Pebble and gave out "magic" pebbles at the end. "Would you care for a magic pebble?" I asked solemnly. And they all happily took pebbles home as their party favors. Kids soooo love rocks.

The Harry Potter magic wand is really just a stick, but there again, you come across the difficulty of arming a bunch of three year olds with sticks.

Wizard or Witch's Hat

There's a nice bit of scissor work with this, and if you used foam instead of construction paper, these hats would be around for a lot of play.

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