In anticipation of Mother's Day this Sunday, today's storytime was all about mothers. The storytime consists of two books (I am going to include four recommendations below), a couple learning activities, a short video, and the "Mom is my Hero!" coloring sheet.
Book 1: Will You Be My Sunshine?
This beautiful book has been on display for a while and I have been waiting for an opportunity to use it in a storytime. Throughout the story, the little mouse asks if his mother will be there for him in various situations and the mother confirms that she will always be there to love him. This book also has a couple fireflies in the pictures and I was delighted that the kids remembered the fireflies from our last storytime!
Book 2: Is Your Mamma a Llama
This was a great refresher on rhyme, which we learned about throughout National Poetry Month (April). There are various descriptions of animals and the kids are prompted to guess which animal is being described, as they are not named until you turn the page. The kids didn't know about seals yet, so we got to have a little chat about that (and I did my impression of how a seal claps his flippers and balances a ball).
Book 3: I Love You, Mommy
In this book, the little bear cub is constantly making poor choices, despite his mother's warnings. Through trial and error, he realizes that his mother is there to keep him safe.
Book 4: Mama Loves Me
I was so excited to read this book for storytime (it is like the Caterpillar Spring, Butterfly Summer book we read last time, which the kids loved)! Then, I made it to the last page and found that someone had ripped the pop-up to bits.
The book shows the many ways that the mother elephant cares for her child. I would highly recommend it, if you have an intact copy!
Activity 1: Baby and Mother Animal Identification
I created some little flash cards which show various baby animals. I showed the students each picture and read out the name then asked if they knew who the mother was. It helps to go over an example first (kitten and cat is a good basic one), but once they figure out how to play they also catch on to the fact that some of the mother's names sound like baby's names. I got a good laugh when one of the boys guessed that lamb's mother was called "lamby."
Other suggestions: Calf/cow, cub/bear, fawn/deer, kid/goat, joey/kangaroo, tadpole/frog, infant/woman, eaglet/eagle, caterpillar/butterfly
Activity 2: What Do Mommy's Do?
I started this activity by broadly asking "What does your mother do?" The first response I got was "fix things." I had a number of flashcards that showed different actions, including cleaning, cooking, hugging, shopping, giving a child medicine, working, and reading. Each time a child got one of the answers, I held the flashcard up and revealed the image.
I got them to guess all of the flashcards by asking questions like:
"What does Mommy do when you are sick?"
"What if you are hungry?"
"Where does she get the food to feed you?"
Video: Caillou's Happy Mother's Day
I found this video on YouTube and it was (I admit) the first time I watched Caillou. In this episode, it is mother's day and Caillou and his family go out for brunch. He also keeps mistaking the day for his mother's birthday.
Questions to Ask:
1. What special day was it?
2. What did Caillou want to do to make the day special?
3. Is Mother's Day a birthday?
4. What is brunch?
Coloring Activity (Mother's Day Gift!)
You can download this coloring page (and a worksheet for older kids) for free at my Teacher's Pay Teacher's store. The child is gender neutral and both characters do not have hair so that the kids can customize the characters to resemble themselves and their mothers. This is a cute simple coloring page that they can bring home to their mothers and hang on the fridge.
The kids really loved this one! They liked the idea of being heroes and had fun coming up with pretend superhero names for themselves and their mothers. My favorite was "Super Young Man." :)