Lamb Finger Puppets

These cuties are not for sale, but a lot of other cuties are!

It's been a little while since I've posted finger puppets.  Here are some lambs I made recently, inspired by a pattern at Precious Patterns on Etsy.

Some ideas to use these:

• Sing Baa Baa Black Sheep, subbing "black" with other color names based on the color of the sheep's face.  And throw out the "3 bags full" and make it as many as the kids you have--"...yes sir, yes sir, 6 bags full!  One for Tyler, and one for Wells, one for Vivian and one for Abby, one for Flora and one for Parker!"
• Green sheep, green sheep, who do you see?  I see a pink sheep looking at me!  Pink sheep, pink sheep, who do you see?  I see  a blue sheep looking at me!  Etc...
•  Two little white sheep sitting on a hill, one named Jack, the other named Jill.  Trot a away Jack, trot away Jill.  Come back Jack, come back Jill.

I'm hosting Flannel Friday this week!  You can find the roundup here.

Flannel Friday Roundup May 26th

Welcome to the  May 26th Flannel Friday Roundup!  Check out what we've got this week:

Laura shares her Velcro Fish on a Glove set, perfect for any ocean or sea creature themed story time!

Keith shares an as-usual-fantastic set based on Toot Toot Beep Beep.

Kathryn has created such an adorable game with colored bananas and a gorilla who is hungry for every color!

Kate shares her storage system explanation, as well as Five Ice Creams and Five Birthday Candles!

And I have some little lamb finger puppets!

  For more FF fun and information, please visit the blog, Facebook page, or Pinterest page.  And share these links with your co-librarians or co-teachers. The more we share, the better!

Caterpillar to Butterfly

Spring sprang some time ago, so I'm a little late to the butterfly game!  But better late than never, here are my pieces to go along with a couple of caterpillar/butterfly rhymes/songs:

I might update my caterpillar at some point to make it fit with the more realistic butterfly and chrysalis, but for now it will do!

Here are a couple of the songs I do with this one:

The Fuzzy Caterpillar (to the tune of The Itsy Bitsy Spider)
The fuzzy caterpillar
Curled upon a leaf,
Spun her little chrysalis
And then fell asleep.
While she was sleeping,
She dreamed that she could fly,
And later when she woke up
She was a butterfly!

The only tune I could find to link and share for this next one is not the tune I use, and I don't like the annoying Youtube video, so I'm not sharing it here... Hopefully you can figure out a tune that works for you!  You can always just chant the lyrics instead of singing them.

The Caterpillar
A caterpillar crawled to the top of a tree,
"I think I'll take a nap,” said she.
So under a leaf, she began to creep
to spin her chrysalis and she fell asleep.
All winter she slept in her chrysalis bed.
Till spring came along one day, and said,
"Wake up, wake up little sleepy head!
Wake up--it's time to get out of bed!"
So she opened her eyes that sun shiny day--
She was a butterfly and flew away!

And here's a song we sing without the use of the flannel pieces.

I Spin My Chrysalis (to the tune of Pop Goes the Weasel--but a lovely slow version)
I spin and spin my chrysalis (roll hands)
I go to sleep inside. (curl up in ball)
When I wake up I've changed indeed-- (wiggle)
I'm a butterfly! (spread out arms and shake them off--and then fly!)

Flannel Friday is being hosted this week by Kate at FeltBoardMagic.  For more FF fun and information, please visit the blog, Facebook page, or Pinterest page.  And share these links with your co-librarians or co-teachers. The more we share, the better!

Old MacDonald

This set, like my Hickory Dickory Dock and One, Two, Buckle My Shoe sets is from a Judy Sierra pattern e-book.  I actually didn't already have an Old MacDonald set--though I do often use my farm finger puppets when we sing it.  I also have a pop-up Old McD book.  But it will be nice to finally have a simple felt set to use with this classic little song. 

You can find lots of my sets in my shop-come take a look!

Flannel Friday is being hosted this week by Lisa at Libraryland.  For more FF fun and information, please visit the blog, Facebook page, or Pinterest page.  And share these links with your co-librarians or co-teachers. The more we share, the better!

Three Jellyfish

This one is new to me-yippee!  All the links to tunes I've found for this feature Australian accents, so I guess that's one reason I hadn't heard it before.  It's simple, and it's three instead of five, so there's that delightful feature--and jellyfish (in felt form) are so cute, so there's that, too...  Can't wait to share it with my kids this week!

Come visit my shop for lots of fun felt sets!

Watch me sing this one!

Here are the lyrics to go along with these wiggly little guys:

Three Jellyfish Lyrics

Three jellyfish, three jellyfish.
Three jellyfish sitting on a rock.
One fell off:  weeee!

Two jellyfish, two jellyfish.
Two jellyfish sitting on a rock.
One fell off:  weeee!

One jellyfish, one jellyfish.
One jellyfish sitting on a rock.
One fell off:  weee!

No jellyfish, no jellyfish.
No jellyfish sitting on a rock.

One jumped up…yay!

Etc.

Flannel Friday is being hosted this week by Mollie at What Happens in Storytime.  For more FF fun and information, please visit the blog, Facebook page, or Pinterest page.  And share these links with your co-librarians or co-teachers. The more we share, the better!

Five Elephants Went Out to Play

Edit:  Since originally posting, I've got a new, colorful elephant set you can read about here and here, or buy them here.

This is a remake of an old foam set I've had for years.  This time I made my elephants much bigger, and I have two poems/rhymes to use with them (and they could also go along with my bathtub from Five Elephants in a Bathtub)

Another edit: To hear these songs,  Here's my Elephant playlist on YouTube :) 

Here they are all lined up on a string...

One grey elephant balancing

Step by step on a piece of string 

He thought it was such a wonderful stunt 

That he called for another elephant 

Two grey elephants etc... 

Five grey elephants balancing

Step by step on a piece of string 

They thought it was such a wonderful stunt

That they called for another elephant.

(and then make them all tip off the string and fall--kersplat!--to the ground!

And here they are atop a spider's web (which here is made of paper, but I'll use black fabric paint on a white sheet of felt for the final product).

One elephant went out to play
Upon a spider’s web one day.

He had such enormous fun,

He called for another elephant to come… “Oh, ELEPHANT!”

Two elephants…
Three elephants…
Four elephants…
Five elephants went out to play

Upon a spider’s web one day.

They had such enormous fun

But there were no more elephants left to come.

Or:

The web went creak, the web went crack.

And all of the elephants went KERSPLAT!

Flannel Friday is being hosted this week by  Keith at Felt-tastic Flannelboard Funtime.  For more FF fun and information, please visit the blog, Facebook page, or Pinterest page.  And share these links with your co-librarians or co-teachers. The more we share, the better!

Build a Bug Set

Bugs gross me out.  So, I needed to neutralize them for this set.  In other words, make them pretty and rather unrealistic.  I guess I'm doing a disservice to the children in my classroom by doing this, but I see it done in a lot of books too, so I'm just going with the flow :) 

Click here to buy this set!

In my classroom, I have individual flannel boards for the children to use on their laps, on the floor, or at a table.  That's where I'll have these buggies available.  I might also incorporate them into a small group time and let the children help me build some bugs on the big board.  Lots of great opportunities for vocabulary and imagination building with this set!

If you're a librarian, you could make these available at a felt table after a bug, spring, or garden story time.

Flannel Friday is being hosted by  Bridget at What is Bridget Reading this week.  For more FF fun and information, please visit the blog, Facebook page, or Pinerest page!  And share these links with your co-librarians or co-teachers. The more we share, the better!

Jelly Beans

Felt candy is better for your teeth than the real stuff.  Because you can't actually eat felt.  A fact best repeated multiple times when handing out these jelly beans to two- and three-year-olds.

I've had a Jelly Bean Countdown set for many years, but my jelly beans were made of craft foam, and each bean was about half the size of my thumb.  These new and improved sweeties are each about the size of my hand--a much better visual aid during large groups, and easier for small children to handle as well.  Win-win.

Here are the words to Jelly Bean Countdown:
Jelly Bean Countdown
Five little jelly beans, I wish I had more!
I’ll eat the _________ one
Now there are four!
Four little jelly beans, as tasty as can be
I’ll eat the _______ one
Now there are three!
Three little jelly beans--only a few.
I’ll eat the _________ one
Now there are two.
Two little jelly beans, eating them is fun!
I’ll eat the _______ one
Now there is one.
One little jelly bean--the last one for me...
I’ll eat the _______one
I’m as full as can be!

When I'm working with a very small group, I invite the children to come up and take a bean, subbing their names for "I'll".

Three Green Jellybeans
I don't know where this song came from originally, nor can I share the tune, but here's a variation of a jelly bean song I learned when I taught in Arizona about 20 years ago:

One Green Jellybean 

One green jelly bean down in my belly bean

Giving me a tummy ache

What am I gonna take?

All my friends are telling me

They’ve got the remedy:

Don’t eat the green ones

And clap your hands.

Continue, putting a new color up on the board and changing your movements--clap, jump, turn, roll, etc. 

Flannel Friday is being hosted by Sharon at Rain Makes Applesauce this week.  For more FF fun and information, please visit the blog, Facebook page, or Pinterest page!  And share these links with your co-librarians or co-teachers. The more we share, the better!

Easter Eggs and Bunny

Who says we can't we have a Little Mouse variation for every holiday or event under the sun?  No one says we can't, so I'm on it.  It's an easy way to expose kids to the symbols of various holidays without having to go into the religious aspects, and it's hide and seek, so there's that too.

Click here to find out more about this set.

Here's an Easter Egg video of the color rhyme below:

I printed out my bunny (from Clementine Digitals) on card stock, cut her out, and "laminated" her with packing tape.  There's a small square of Velcro on the back of her.  She'll hide better than if I'd made her out of felt

I'll also use the eggs with this rhyme:

Five Little Easter Eggs

Five little Easter eggs, and not one more,
Mommy hid the pink one, and then there were four.

Four little Easter eggs, two and two, you see,
Daddy hid the green one, and then there were three.

Three little Easter eggs, and then before I knew,
Sister hid the purple one, and then there were two.

Two little Easter eggs, oh, what fun!
Brother hid the yellow one, and then there was one.

One little Easter egg, See me run!
I hid the last one, and then there were none!

Flannel Friday is being hosted by Sharon at Rain Makes Applesauce this week.  For more FF fun and information, please visit the blog, Facebook page, or Pinterest page.  And share these links with your co-librarians or co-teachers. The more we share, the better!

Build a Bot Set

I don't know what it is, but more and more of my kids are talking about robots lately.  I really don't have much of anything robot-related in my classroom, so I thought I'd start building up my robotics department a bit!  I'm starting with a DIY Set for the kids to use themselves. I've got lots of this type of set available in my shop!

 There are a LOT of pieces in this set.  I'll most likely start off by making only about half of the pieces available to the children.  Once I see how they do with that, I'll add more as needed.

These would also be great to put out in your library on a felt table, especially if you've just done a space or robot story time.  Here are some book ideas to go along with these metallic friends:

Robots Robots Everywhere by Sue Fliess

Beep! Beep! Go to Sleep! by Todd Tarpley

Boy + Bot by Ame Dyckman
Doug Unplugged by Dan Yaccarino
Junkyard by Mike Austin
Robots, Everywhere by Denny Hebson
Sometimes I Forget You’re a Robot by Sam Brown

Hello Robots by Staake
Ribbit Rabbit by Ryan
The Three Little Aliens and the Big Bad Robot by Margaret McNamara
The Birthday Box by Patricelli

Flannel Friday is being hosted this week by  Jessica at Storytime in the Stacks.  For more FF fun and information, please visit the blog, Facebook page, or Pinterest page.  And share these links with your co-librarians or co-teachers. The more we share, the better!