Today’s Toddler Storytime was a celebration of noisy, hardworking, fun-to-ride-in trucks! Everybody got a truck to hold and then we sang a song about the colors to the tune of “If You’re Happy And You Know It”:
If you’ve got a blue truck, hold it up
If you’ve got a blue truck, hold it up
If you’ve got a truck that’s blue, share so we can see it too!
If you’ve got a blue truck, hold it up
If you’ve got a red truck, hold it up
If you’ve got a red truck, hold it up
If you’ve got a truck that’s red, hold it high above your head!
If you’ve got a red truck, hold it up
If you’ve got a yellow truck, hold it up
If you’ve got a yellow truck, hold it up
If you’ve got a truck that’s yellow, wave it like a jolly fellow!
If you’ve got a yellow truck, hold it up
We sang Open Shut Them and read the book Minerva Louise and the Red Truck by Janet Morgan Stoeke. Stoeke’s series about this funny chicken is a real win for infants and toddlers!
We put our trucks into a pattern, singing “One little, two little, three little trucks…” and then seeing if we could a) predict what color comes next and b) see how fast we could say the repeated colors! (Red, yellow, blue, redyellowblueredyellowblue!!!)
We did a stand-up activity with the song “Peter Hammers”:
Peter hammers with one hammer (use one hand)
One hammer, one hammer
Peter hammers with one hammer all day long
Peter hammers with two hammers… (use both hands)
Peter hammers with three hammers… (use both hands and one foot)
Peter hammers with four hammers… (use both hands and both feet)
Peter hammers with five hammers… (use both hands, both feet and your head!)
We did a flannelboard version of an old song I remember from my childhood watching Sesame Street! It goes like this:
Three of these things belong together.
Three of these things are kind of the same.
But one of these things just doesn’t belong here.
Now it’s time to play our game!
It’s time to play our game.
We did a movement song called “Fire Truck” with the same melody as the song “Bumping Up and Down in My Little Red Wagon“:
Hurry, hurry, drive the fire truck (wiggle an imaginary steering wheel)
Hurry, hurry, drive the fire truck
Hurry, hurry, drive the fire truck
Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding!
Hurry, hurry, turn the corner (lean to one side while steering)
Hurry, hurry, turn the corner
Hurry, hurry, turn the corner
Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding!
Repeat with: “Climb the ladder” and “Spray the water”
We read Supertruck by Steven Savage. When all the most celeberated trucks in the city go to sleep for the night and a horrible heavy snow falls, the lowly garbage truck transforms to become… Supertruck!
We did a movement song about construction, which obviously employs a lot of trucks, using the tune “Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush”:
This is the way we pound our nails, pound our nails, pound our nails
This is the way we pound our nails, so early in the morning
This is the way we saw our wood…
This is the way we turn the screws…
We sang “Wheels on the Bus” to a CD recording I have, and then did another stand-up activity song about street safety to the tune of “Row, Row, Row Your Boat”:
Stop, look and listen before you cross the street.
Use your eyes, use your ears
Before you use your feet!
Then we saw the film “I Stink!” about a garbage truck, based on the book by Kate & Jim McMullan and available for checkout on the I Stink! DVD. If you have a toddler who is into trucks, you really have to try the Kate & Jim McMullan books!
Hope everybody had a great time today and I’ll see you next week!