Hats!

This theme was easy to put together, there are great hat books, great hat rhymes, and great hat crafts.  I had a rather large - for the base library - audience and they were wonderfully engaged and interactive.  We had a great story time!  Our craft was a simple coloring sheet which I crafted with three different kinds of hats, having lost the matching sheet I wanted to use.  I know I saw it somewhere on the web…oh, why didn't I pin it on Pinterest?

Here are the books we read and the rhymes:

Stormy's Hat: Just Right for a Railroad Man by Eric A. Kimmel
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This wonderful book is based on the true story of George "Stormy" Kromer and his wife Ida who created the original railroad engineer's cap in 1903 - the same cap worn today, over one hundred years later, by railroad workers everywhere.  My story time audience loved all of Stormy's attempts to find a hat that was just right for a railroad man…fedora, pressman's hat, cowboy hat, firefighter's helmet…nothing worked.  With each failed hat, Ida tries to make a suggestion, to which Stormy replies, "don't worry your pretty little head.'  When he finally listens, Ida creates the perfect hat based on his description.  The illustrations are lovely and the text, a little longer than my usual story time books, held my audience's interest.  There are wonderful author's notes at the end as well.

Then we did the action rhyme, "Tall Hat, Small Hat":
          Tall hat (Arms overhead)
          Small hat (hands close to head)
          Big hat (arms spread out)
          Cap (hands on head)
          Let's take them off again (repeat rhyme with motions in reverse).
          And put them in my lap (fold hands in lap)

Whose Hat Is This?: A Look at Hats Workers Wear--Hard, Tall, and Shiny by Sharon Katz Cooper
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I love 'guessing game" books for story time - they encourage audience involvement and engagement, which encourages fun and enjoyment.  This one shows a portion of a hat/helmet and a one sentence question/hint and then, when the reader turns the page, there is the answer and information about the specific hat/helmet.  Some of the hats are quite esoteric - like a beekeeper's hat.  My young audience correctly guessed more than half, and really enjoyed the process.  The illustrations are bright and bold, and alternate well between men and women wearers.

This was followed by a hats flannel:

The kids had great fun identifying the various hats and we counted and identified the hat by color.  The green construction hat threw them a bit, since in the two prior books the construction hats had both been yellow!

Then we read:

Martin's Hats by Joan W. Blos

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is an older book (c 1984) with very detailed illustrations and imaginative text about Martin, who puts on a hat and has adventure after adventure…from spelunking under the bed to crashing a party to being a train engineer.  He also directs traffic, delivers mail, and puts out a fire in Chicago.  When he gets home, he finds a special hat waiting: a nightcap and he falls asleep.  This is a charing little book.

Do You Have a Hat? by Eileen Spinelli

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

With wonderfully bright illustrations, the text "name drops" depicting famous people and the hats they wore.  The end notes provide information about all of the people and their accomplishments.  The rhyming text is fun to read aloud and the kids love the refrain of, "Do you have a hat?"  There was much discussion of the types of hats my audience owns and wears.  Great, fun read-aloud.

There were lots of laughs and lots of participation.  We did our wiggle break, "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes" twice and followed that by putting on our magic hats:

Put on your magic hat (put hands on head)

You can do anything in your magic hat!

You can hop and hop…

You can make a face….

You can flap and flap…

The kids really had fun hopping and flapping!  All in all this was one magical story time.