Lunch!

Super-simple way to incorporate a puppet into story time. Based on Denise Fleming's book, Lunch.

Puppet:
mouse

Props:
I made simple felts of :
a turnip
a carrot
pea pod
an ear of corn
an apple
a bunch of grapes
a slice of watermelon

Mouse is hungry. AAH! Mouse spies our picnic while we're napping! She eats through:
a crisp white, turnip; a crunchy orange carrot; a sweet green pea pod; a crisp ear of yellow corn; a juicy red apple; a sour bunch of purple grapes; and a slice of pink watermelon. Then, she takes a nap until DINNERTIME!

The kids thought this was funny and enjoyed guessing the fruit and vegetables as I pulled them out of our picnic basket.

The Stubborn Pumpkin (Pre-K)

I modified The Stubborn Pumpkin by Laura Geringer to suit a Halloween/Pumpking storytime. I wanted a little more drama than the original story. In my story, the farmer, Bell, Nell, Fifi, Pup, and Mop are seen by a little mouse wandering through the garden. Little mouse offers help and they all laugh at her. I told the children, "mouse is small, that's true, but mouse is smart," and mouse climbs up on the pumpkin, chews through the thick stem and tells everyone to try pulling now. The pumpkin rolls off, and farmer bakes his famous pumpkin pie, giving mouse the biggest slice.

I used a combination flannel board and puppet to tell this story. All of the pieces are felt, except the mouse. For the mouse, I used my small Folkmanis glove puppet.

Hooray! An easy addition to your puppet-story repetoire.

The King, the Mice and the Cheese

Or, as I called it, The King, The Mouse, and The Cheese.

I used this skit as part of a "royalty" themed storytime. I have to say it was one of the most successful stories I've tried with the preschoolers so far. The story is simple, repetitive enough for kids to help with, and funny. It took little prep effort and reaped big rewards. Some of the children stayed after our craft to reenact the story with the puppets again--magic.

I can't take credit for adapting this book to a puppet story; Steven over at Beyond the Book Storytimes (http://btbstorytimes.blogspot.com/) recently posted this idea and I ran with it.

Puppets:
mouse
cat
dog
lion
dragon (in the book it's an elephant)

Props:
a faux block of cheese
a small paper crown that fits your mouse

I adapted the story a little to suit our needs. I kept all of the animals singular, I changed the elephant to a dragon, and in the end I made the dragon afraid of mice so that he flew away--the king was so elated to be rid of the mean lion that he crowned the mouse and decided to share his cheese.

It worked really well and was a lot of fun!

In the Pond

I used this song in conjunction with Walt Whippo's Little White Duck, so I used puppets pertaining to the narrative. You could use any puppets related to pond life.

Puppets:
tiny mouse
white duck
green frog

"The Animals at the Pond"
[Tune: The Wheels on the Bus]

The mouse at the pond goes
squeak, squeak, squeak,
squeak, squeak, squeak,
squeak, squeak, squeak
The mouse at the pond goes
squeak, squeak, squeak
all day long.

Continue with the other animals.

Easy and fun!

House for Mouse

Puppet:
mouse

Props:
Flannelboard
Nine felt houses--all different colors
felt mouse, hidden under one of the houses

Introduce mouse and explain that he is looking for his friend so storytime can start. Tell children to be quiet as mice as we help mouse search. We say the following rhyme:

"Little Mouse, little mouse are you in the _____ house?" Continue until we go through all the houses.

Once found, mouse can say that we're ready for storytime.