Boats

Rhyme Cube:  Click here for description.

Sign Language:  Word of the day was “Boat”

Opening Rhyme:

“Open them, shut them,
Give a little clap!
Open them, shut them,
Now put them in your lap!”

First Book:  App – Boats by Byron Barton (Oceanhouse Media)

So I finally have the equipment to do digital storytelling!  Thanks to a generous donation from our Friends group we were able to purchase a 70 inch flat screen TV and an Apple TV.  The Apple TV lets me wirelessly mirror whatever is on my iPad to the TV.  I had a few issues getting everything set up.  Even though we have a staff-only wifi network, it was too congested and apps ran slowly/stuttered when I mirrored them.  I decided to use my iphone as a hotspot and connected both the Apple TV and the iPad to that.  It was an easy fix!

Byron Barton’s book apps developed by Oceanhouse Media are awesome so I used this as an opportunity to recommend them to the grown-ups in the room.  Today was a great day to use the Apple TV because I had about 60 people at storytime.  Mirroring it to the TV made what would have been a 10 inch by 8 inch book into a 4 foot by 3 foot book!

Felt Board:  “This Little Boat Went…”

I got the idea for this felt board (and the clip art!) from Sunflower Storytime.

“The first little boat went chug, chug, chug.
The second little boat went tug, tug, tug.
The third little boat went row, row, row.
The fourth little boat went oh sooo slooooow.
Here comes the sailboat, watch it go!”

Song:  “I’m Sitting in a Boat”

I learned this song from Jbrary‘s Youtube channel.  Since it isn’t a well known song, I put the lyrics up on the screen (using the iPad and a presentation app called Keynote) and asked the grown-ups to sing along with me.  Here’s what it looked like on the screen:

“I’m sitting in a boat and the boat is rocking, rocking, rocking.
I’m sitting in a boat and the boat is rocking, rocking, rocking.
I’m sitting in a boat and the waves are oh so high, oh so high
In the morning, oh oh oh!”

Credit:  This song was written and recorded by Debbie Carroll for her album “Up and Over the Moon:  Giggle, Dance and Cuddle Songs for the Very Young”.  You can purchase the CD from her website DebbieCarroll.com

Second Book:  Little Tug by Stephen Savage

Digital Pictures:  Anchors and Oil Tankers

Next I planned on doing a felt board activity with the kids involving an anchor and some oil tankers.  Those are pretty big words so I thought I’d use the iPad to show some images and expand their vocabularies and background knowledge!  I used the Keynote app for this too.  First I showed a picture of an anchor and briefly explained how they work.

Next I showed the kids a picture of an oil tanker and explained that they are huge ships!  Since they are so big they need really big anchors – around 10 feet tall, and they usually have more than one anchor for a ship that big! [this fact is courtesy of my dad who used to be a captain on cargo ships – thanks dad 🙂 ]

For the felt activity I cut out the outline of an oil tanker in four different colors.  I also cut out a cute little anchor.  I told the kids to close their eyes as I hid the anchor behind one of the oil tankers.  I asked them to guess where it was hidden and we recited this rhyme:

“Little anchor, little anchor
Are you underneath the blue oil tanker?”

I then lifted up the blue oil tanker to reveal if the anchor was there or not.  We played this a few times. Here’s the felt board:

Third Book:  Sheep on a Ship by Nancy Shaw

Felt Board:  Sailboat Colors

I got this idea from Storytime Katie.

“Riding around in my little red boat,
Riding around in my little red boat,
Riding around in my little red boat,
Zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, Splash!”  (tune of 10 Little Indians)

I put up a different color sailboat for each verse.  We have a sailboat shaped die-cut so making the sailboats was super easy.

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Ukulele Song:

We sang “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” as I played the melody on the ukulele.  I included some silly verses too:

“Row row row your boat, gently down the stream
Merrily merrily merrily merrily life is but a dream.
Row row row your boat gently down the stream,
If you see a crocodile, don’t forget to scream! AHH!!!!
Row row row your boat, gently to the shore,
If you see a lion there, don’t forget to ROAR!!!”

(credit: Sunflower Storytime)

Goodbye Song:

Tickle the clouds
Tickle your toes
Turn around
Tickle your nose
Reach down low
Reach up high
Storytime is over
So wave goodbye!