One of my favorite sources for storytime books is my co-worker, Kristine!  She always has such creative ideas and is really big on reading books where the kids can participate in some way -- usually with them shouting out a word or phrase.  She first introduced me to Jan Thomas' books a couple of months ago, and while I'm not a huge fan of the illustrations, the stories are SO MUCH FUN!  They encourage creativity and audience participation; I even received a round of applause afterwards!!  An enormous compliment coming from a gaggle of 3-5 year olds:)

"Okay Everyone, Stand up!
No wait, I changed my mind, sit down!
No!  I mean stand up! . . ."

 What a great beginning to a book!  In this book, we play pretend and the kids get to act out the moves along with the story.  There's dancing like a chicken, wiggling, Big Scary Frogs, and of course, bugs.

I originally did this story as an "F is for FUN" storytime, along with Is Everyone Ready for Fun?  I think it was a great example of the Every Child Ready to Read's "Play" theme too.



Is Everyone Ready for Fun? As much as I like Can You Make a Scary Face?, this book is probably one of my all-time favorite fun books!  It reminds me of the "Magic Elevator" -- more to come on that in a later post -- I make all of the children stand up (for reals this time), and we pretend the storytime carpet is Chicken's couch!  We dance, wiggle, jump, and eventually (lie down and) nap on Chicken's couch, and watch as he becomes more and more agitated . . .

 I read this book while holding it up for everyone to see the pages, but I think it would also be fun to read with a chicken puppet and simply act out the scenes without a book.  It's easy enough to memorize, and Chicken's reactions are hilarious!  You could have a lot of fun with a puppet, or maybe even a partner to recite Chicken's lines.