Storytime from the Liberry: Colors

Still catching up on posting my storytime outline from summer and it's almost Labor Day!

Fizz Boom Pop! A Color Storytime for Toddlers.

I love color storytimes. They are my favorite. I always repeat them, and I always look for something new to do or read at each one. This year, I'm going to do individual color storytimes to spread out my love of colors through the year. I'm a amateur artist so I enjoy anything about colors, coloring or art and sharing my passion with others

BOOKS:

Wow Said the Old by Tom Hopgood
Freight Train by Donald Crewes

Other favorite color books I like to read aloud are...
Sylvie by Jennifer Sattler
I Spy with My Little Eye by Edward Gibbs
My Many Colored Days by Dr. Suess
I dream of an Elephant by Ami Rubinger

Everyone seems to have a love affair with Brown Bear, Brown Bear. My opinion is meh. Even if it's not the most "engaging piece of literature", my kids and grown ups love it and they repeat all the words so if it gets them involved, so much the better.

Activities:

Flannel Board- Dog's Colorful Day This worked so well as a flannel story. This book is one I might have passed on because of it's length for the toddlers. Bonus-It is really easy to make, even for the artistically challenged.

Monsters Love Colors- This came from one of my favorite blogs, Storytime with Miss Tara
I created my own coloring sheet and ordered a set of crayons for each kid. While some followed the directions, most kids just colored which calmed them down while the listened to the story. Even when my voice got loud and I wanted them to get excited, they just kept on calmly coloring.

Sidewalk Chalk- This is one of my favorite activities to do at the library. But for some reason every summer, the weather always spoils our plans. It's either raining or the hottest day of the year! So I was stoked that I actually had a mild evening to go out and let the toddlers be creative. (It was during that "polar vortex" this summer)

Not only did we have traditional chalk, I also made sidewalk chalk paint and fizzy ice chalk.
Some lessons learned.

1) I used muffin tins as paint trays and mixed my paint in cleaned out Gatorade bottles before hand  and poured them in; which saved the hassle and long process of mixing each individual color in the tins

2) The paint will look beautiful with all the vibrant colors for about 1 minute after you let the kids loose to paint. The constant dipping and mixing colors left it looking rather grey towards the end of our playing and the kids seemed to loose interest once the colors lost their luster.

3) Make.Ice.Chalk. It is the easiest thing to make, perfect for summer play and the kids LOVED it! If you live in warmer climate weather, it perfect for hot days year round. I made it following a recipe from Growing a Jeweled Rose which mixed in baking soda. So when the kids got to spray it with vinegar, it fizzled adding a bit of science to our artsy fun. The kids found this mesmerizing, It was the most popular thing they played with and we had to make sure everyone got a turn. We had lots more left over so we used it at  another program and our wrap up party where it was another huge success with older kids. Buy a lot of vinegar to use  (and ignore the complaints from your co-workers :P) I went through a whole gallon and I still ran out on the last day at our party. Thankfully, vinegar is cheap and since the rest of the items to make this are common household ingredients, it's budget savy for your kids' programming fund. If you have Liquid Watercolors, use them over food coloring, since they are washable and while they stain fingers, they will wash off hands with soap and water easily. Good news for kids and grown-up.

Warning for Parents: This activity will make it very difficult to get your strong willed toddler to want to leave the library. They will want to stay! Sorry for the grief, but I won't apologize for fun!