I realized that I have not been doing a good job of documenting the books I read to the Nursery and Early Age classes. Here is a list of what we have read together so far this year:
Caterpillar and Polliwog
Waiting
Tap the Magic tree
Pick a Circle, Gather Squares
Going on a Leaf Hunt
Billy’s Picture
Farmer Duck
Leo the Ghost
Ghosts in the House
Chicken Sisters
Extra Yarn
The Surprise
The Nursery and Early Ages classes came to library today. We read one of our favorites – Tap the Magic Tree – and the children acted out the movements from the book with newly fallen leaves.
Then everyone chose a book to take back to the classroom.
As Valentine’s Day is approaching, I read My Heart Is Like a Zoo, by Michael Hall, to the Nursery and Early Ages classes. The illustrations are of animals that are crafted from heart shapes. 
The Nursery just emailed me a picture of a heart-shape animal that they created because they were inspired by the book!
Today, I read The Story Blanket to the Nursery children. It is the story of an old lady who can’t get any wool yarn to use to knit new socks for a child, so she unravels the blanket that the town children sit on when they come to hear her stories. She continues to use the yarn for garments for the townsfolk and the story blanket shrinks and shrinks. Finally, everyone figures out what is happening and they collect yarn from their own blankets to contribute so the old lady can knit a new story blanket.
I read the same story to the Kindergarteners, but paired it with No Roses For Harry. The theme of the day was unraveling!!!
I just received the book The Mouse Mansion and wanted to share it with the Nursery and Early Ages classes. The author of this beautiful book created a 100-room “dollhouse” and filled it with furniture, accessories, and little handcrafted mice. She photographed different scenes and wrote a story about two mouse children who live inside.
The Cat Who Wouldn’t Come Inside also has handcrafted illustrations. The author, Cynthia Von Buhler, based the story on a personal experience. While living in Boston, a feral cat began visiting her porch. Day after day, Cynthia fed it and tried to lure it into her warm home. This went on for a long time, until the cat became very ill. On its very last day of life, it entered the house and died in her arms. The story she tells in the book has a different ending – the woman joins the cat on the porch and they enjoy their time together outside.
I borrowed the Aftercare’s dollhouse and put some mice in it for the children to play with as they chose their library books.
I had some interesting conversations today with the Nursery, Early Ages, and Kindergarteners. I asked them if they remembered last year’s Thanksgiving, as I realized this morning that some of these children are barely 3 years old! Sure enough, the younger the child, the less they remembered about the Thanksgiving holiday.
We read a few different books – Happy Thanksgiving, Biscuit!, A Turkey for Thanksgiving, and Setting the Turkeys Free. Some of the children had already made turkeys in the classroom. While I love the traditional handprint turkey, I thought we would try a washi tape variation. The Kindergarteners traced their hands, turned the paper over, and laid down stripes of washi tape. Then they cut on the lines of their handprint, glued on a googly eye, and were ready to gobble!
BookCraft 