April 12th--Easter

Holidays are pretty easy. I try to do stories celebrating all aspects of the holiday in question. The books I chose this time include subjects such as the Easter Bunny, decorating eggs, egg hunts, and the Christian celebration of Easter.

Easter by Miriam Nerlove (with the Christian story)
The Littlest Bunny in North Dakota by Lily Jacobs
Here Comes the Easter Cat by Deborah Underwood

The Littlest Bunny in North Dakota is part of a series of books that are made for most states. A complete list of Littlest Bunny books can be found HERE. See if your state/province is listed.

The Easter Cat is one of my favorite Easter books. The kids thought it was very funny.

For our craft we painted eggs. No, not real eggs (sadly). I had some coloring pictures that the kids got to paint. We used clothespins and pompoms for the brushes, but it was really unnecessary. It would have been easier to just use real paintbrushes.

March 22nd--Agriculture Week!

We live in a farming community. Ag week is huge here. And with the approach of spring, it's the perfect time to do an Agriculture centered story hour.

It was very difficult to choose books for this story time, as there are quite a few. I chose these three:

• The Rusty Trusty Tractor by Joy Cowley
• Harvesters by S.M. Maimone
• Plant the Seed by Christie Matheson

Other books I considered are:

• Oh say can you Seed by Bonnie Worth
• National Geographic's Plants by Kathryn Williams
• Planters by E. Weingarten
• 4-Track Tractor by Samantha Bell
• From Seed to Plant by Gail Gibbons

The craft I chose is more of a project. We planted beans! It was a lot of fun. While there was some grumbling because "I don't like beans!" The kids had fun planting. I told them they didn't have to eat the beans, just water them every day and watch the plat grow. We talked about the parts of the plant, what a seed needs to grow, and specifically how to plant and grow beans. 

Planting Beans

Materials:

• 2 cups (You will need to be able to punch a hole in one)
• Bean seeds
• Dirt (we used Miracle Grow)
• Spray bottle(optional)
• Stickers/paint/markers

Procedure:

• Punch a hole in the bottom of one cup (This is so that any extra water will drain and not drown the bean)
• Decorate the cup without a hole. We used stickers
• Fill the cup with a hole with dirt (leave about 2 inches from the top)
• Drop the bean seed in and cover with 1/4 inch of dirt
• Spray the cup a couple of times with the spray bottle of water.