So, at the military library, this last Monday was the big end-of-SRP-party: Our Midsummer Knight's Festival. We had 40 kids or so, make Prince/Princess swag bags (to collect all their small prizes) and crowns (for the photo opportunities this created) They were entertained by a celtic harpist dressed in Renaissance garb and an abbreviated storytime, a prize drawing and a dragon egg hunt. All of this in just under two hours. Everyone left happy with plenty of swag, a big prize and a crown. It just doesn't get any better for a toddler/preschooler.
We got the kids attention with our usual opening storytime song: "If you Want to Hear A Story" (Tune: "If You're Happy and You Know it") and opened with a Castle fingerplay. We did two other fingerplays with flannel board pieces: "Five Royal Knights" and "Five Green Dragons" sang "The Noble Duke of York" recited "The Queen of Hearts" with flannel board pieces and read the following three books:
A dragon version of "Hush Little Baby," what could be better? The kids loved the rhyme, the lovely illustrations and the love between the mother dragon and her baby. The warmth and the humor comes through loud and clear and as I closed the book on the lovely last image a number of parents and children let out an "Ahhhh"
The illustrations in this clever, funny counting book are appealing to even the youngest child...and older children like it for creative ways that Glubbery Gray eats one knight after another. The youngest kids had fun counting the ever decreasing band of knights...and the older kids in my audience had fun guessing which knight would be old gray's next victim. Humorous with rhyming rhythmic text this was a great read-aloud with a large group ranging in age from 2 to about 7 as it engaged all of them.
This book was the perfect lead in to our final activity which was a "dragon egg hunt" Ok, so everyone played along and pretended not to notice that our dragon eggs looked suspiciously like plain old plastic easter eggs! This book starts strong and has great illustrations, is funny and sad in places...but as a read aloud, it doesn't flow as smoothly as some of the other books I have read. Maybe the book tries to cover too much in too short a time, but I almost feel like I have skipped a page here and there as the story takes an unexplained jump. Overall, it is great fun when a boy hatches a mysterious egg, which turns out to contain a dragon.
Then, today I was back for the Wednesday storytime - today the theme was "Knights vs. Dragons" and we read "Glubbery Gray" again, did the knight and dragon fingerplays/Flannelboards and sang "I'm a Little Dragon" (Tune: "I'm a Little Teapot"). After we made dragon finger puppets. Once again, the kids reacted to the books, differently than I expected (enjoyed them more than I expected, always a good thing!) and everyone enjoyed themselves. We read:
We started with this one, as it provided a great overview of a knight's life, in a way even young kids could relate to. Although the rhyming text was not as tight and rhythmic as I would have liked, the story and pictures were very sweet and informative. The kids enjoyed it more than I thought they would - always a pleasant surprise.
Everyone loved this twist on Knight vs. Dragon - Carly is a dragon with a deep fear of knights. A special "knight light" and an imaginary - human - friend are needed to help her overcome her fear when her class visits the dragon museum with it's dreaded "Knight room."
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This is a wonderfully creative book, which combines a number of children's favorite things: pizza, dragons and fairytales. When two dragon friends, Bebop (who likes to cook) and Spike (who likes to go fast) open a pizzeria in fairyland, they receive call in orders from such celebrities as the Giant from "Jack and the Beanstalk", the Three Bears, and Hansel and Gretel. The kids loved making the phone ring noise and guessing who was ordering the pizza - like when the order was "three porridge pizzas - one large and very hot, one medium that is cold and one small that is just right." Spike zooms through fairyland making his deliveries using various modes of transportation from hot air balloons to roller skates, which only adds to the fun. The kids loved this book!
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