This Week at Family Fun-Take Me Out to the Ballgame

Can you only appreciate these if you are from Wisconsin? If you've had a brush with the Milwaukee Brewers, you may have seen the Klement's Racing Sausages. We celebrated fun ballpark food this week, and I have never had so much fun with a craft! 

Eloise at the Ball Game by Lisa McClatchy is the perfect introduction to ballpark fun, and The Pigeon is a hit at any storytime. We had crazy fun poppin popcorn (crumpled paper) in our parachute to the Barenaked Ladies' Popcorn from Snacktime.

Another great choice for baseball storytime--Bill Thomson's illustrations
in Baseball Hour are spectacular.

This Week at Family Fun: Wild and Woolly Wisconsin

We have a beautiful museum in town that prominently features mammoth remains that were found locally along with a mammoth replica. I wasn't too surprised that Pinterest was not flooded with woolly mammoth crafts, but we had fun creating this one. We started out with a mammoth coloring page copied onto brown construction paper. To make the tusks, bend a white pipe cleaner and lace it through a hole at the base of the trunk.

Our local yarn shop gave us some wool from a farm in the area. The kids had so much fun with the wool, and it totally makes the project. (If you don't have access to sheep, you can purchase wool roving at craft stores in the yarn section.) 

My genius coworker added the "glacier" which allows Woolly to stand up and shows the connection with the ice age.

I was so happy to finally be able to share Mammoths on the Move by Lisa Wheeler--an awesome non-fiction picture book with rhyming text. And who doesn't love caveman talk? We had tons of fun with Me Want Pet! by Tammi Sauer.

This Week at Toddler Storytime--Constuction

At toddler storytime, everything is better if it involves moving those little bodies. For Tip Tip Dig Dig by Emma Garcia, everybody tapped their legs on the repetetive words--"lift, lift, lift". Next, we built a shape house with a story and patterns from A Treasury of Flannelboard Stories by Jeanette Graham Bay.

Some of the pieces from Shapes and More Shapes

After reading I Love Tools! by Philomen Sturges, we put out Johnny's hammers inspired by Miss Meg's Storytime. I had the kids help me count the hammers and name the colors, and I asked them if they could work with 5 hammers. I demonstrated how to do it, and we sang the traditional song using the lyrics on Songs for Teaching.

Pop-ups are another sure thing with toddlers. We read Truck Jam by Paul Strickland and practiced driving with I'm Gonna Drive My Car by Laurie Berkner. We always hang out and play for a little while after storytime. We have these awesome musical hammers, so I put them out along with some blocks. Those little cuties could have hammered those blocks all day. Have fun reading to your little ones this week!