Space

This is what I did for my preschool storytime on Space.

OPENING SONG: Clap Your Hands from the Miss Anna's Music Class Volume II CD by Anna Stange

We have a storytime rug with clouds and sun that the kids sit on during storytime.  I pointed them out and talked about what we see in the daytime and night-time skies.

BOOK: Star Climbing by Lou Fancher
(Not the best book to start with.  The kids had a hard time focusing.  The pictures were not as obvious.  A little too artistic for their attention span.)

SONG: Are You Sleeping (BELLS)
(I had the kids pretend to be asleep then when we I played the song and when we got to "morning bells are ringing" they woke up and rang the bells.  I played the song twice with one verse of the song. They seemed to enjoy it.)

FINGERPLAY: Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star (BELLS)
(I explained that we were going to pretend that the bells were stars and so the kids rang the bells throughout the fingerplay.  Went pretty well. They seemed to enjoy ringing the bells for both activities.  I repeated the fingerplay twice--felt a little long towards the end.)

BOOK: Kitten’s First Full Moon by Kevin Henkes
(The kids listened very well to this book and giggled about kitten's misadventures.  Nice calm story with soothing illustrations.)

FINGERPLAY: Hey Diddle Diddle
(I had the kids stand up and we practiced jumping over the moon and running in place as the dish ran away with the spoon.  Then I said the fingerplay three times to get all of their wiggles out.)

BOOK: What Does the Moon See? by Nancy Tafuri
(I read both sides of this book.  The kids were getting restless and so they weren't real attentive at the end.  So I decided to do an action song next.)

ACTION SONG: Wake Up Toes from the Morning Magic Joanie Bartels CD
(The kids had a lot of fun with this.  We were able to get alot of wiggles out and they calmed down somewhat.  Fun song.  Towards the end I made up stuff for them to do because she stops singing and there is just music.  They loved it.)

BOOK: Astronaut Piggy Wiggy by Christyan and Diane Fox
(Fun book with nice bright colors.  The kids were just tired of sitting.  Most of them were attentive but I was losing part of the group by this point.)

ACTIVITY: Balloon Rocket
(I had allready attached a string on the wall just below the ceiling.  I had a straw on the string with an empty balloon taped to it.  I explained that we were going to shoot off a rocket. I had the kids stand to one side of the room.  Then I blew up the balloon and held the end.  I had them count down from 10 with me and shout BLAST OFF.  Then I let go of the balloon.  I held the string tightly at an angle and the balloon went pretty far.  The kids loved it.  I tried it again and it worked well but the string came off the wall at the end.  The children probably would have wanted to do this a bunch more times.  Fun activity.) http://www.sciencebob.com/experiments/balloonrocket.php

ACTIVITY: Star Toss
(I had a sheet and the kids grabbed the ends of the sheet. I threw soft balls (stars) on the sheet and they had alot of fun trying to toss them off of the sheet.  Got a little wild.  They were screaming and yelling.  I know they loved this activity.  I threw the balls back on to the sheet and we repeated the activity 3 times.  I had to say that time was up.  They wanted to keep going.  Lots of fun.)

TAKE HOME:  Astronaut Helmet
(I had an astronaut helmet on white cardstock for the kids to color and cutout at home then attach a piece of yarn so they could wear the helmet around their head.)

MUSIC CDs:
Miss Anna's Music Class Volume II CD by Anna Stange (Clap Your Hands)
Magic Morning by Joanie Bartels (Wake Your Toes)
(Are you sleeping)