Return of STORY TIME! Eric Carle Theme

If you have been reading my blog for awhile, you know that I LOVE story time. I love attending them and I love planning them. In the past, I have done a story time at the elementary school where I worked for little brothers and sisters who were not yet old enough to attend school. I’ve done a story time at a local detention center for the little brothers and sisters of the kids at the center (during visitation) and I’ve done a story time at an apartment complex that fed into my elementary school for all ages. It has been awhile since I had a regular “gig,” but now I’m back!

As you may know, I am now an Instructor for the School of Library & Information Science at the University of South Carolina. We, of course, have a large academic library on campus. Many of the faculty/staff/students have children of story time age, so I decided to start offering a monthly story time over the summer (presented by my office) at Thomas Cooper Library. The first one was a couple of weeks ago and I decided on an Eric Carle theme. It is the 50th anniversary of The Very Hungry Caterpillar, after all. This is not the first time I have focused on Carle for a story time…you can read about the other time at this link. 

Here’s what I did!

While I was waiting for people to come to story time, I put out a Carle puzzle from home (helps to have a little person of my own for these things now), some Carle coloring sheets and crayons, and a Carle matching game. Most of these things can be found on Amazon.

First book, to get everyone settled, was Calm with The Very Hungry Caterpillar. 

Then I let them pick the next title – they picked (and acted out) From Head to Toe

After that, we read The Very Hungry Caterpillar and I introduced the craft. Simple fine motor skills practice with a hole bunch that I found on this website.

One thing that I did not share (but, meant to!) was an augmented reality app – My Caterpillar AR. 

Next time will be a CHICKEN theme!

VBF