Friday, February 4, 2011

Cookie Cutter Painting for Story Hour

I hosted story hour at the coffee shop this week.  We had a great time!  I began by reading three books:


My Heart is Like a Zoo by Michael Hall was a big hit with all of the kids.  It is a very cute book about how love is like different zoo animals.  Each page features a different animal created out of heart shapes.  C and R did book projects based on this book last week; you can see that post by clicking here.

The Best Thing About Valentines by Eleanor Hudson is a sweet rhyming story about making, sending, and giving cards on Valentine's Day.  This is a great book for preschoolers.  They especially love to see the messes made by the characters making the cards, and the cards that are dropped in the delivery process.  I think it's funny how much little kids like to laugh at chaos and disorder in books!

Our final book was Henry In Love by Peter McCarty.  We have a boy named Henry that comes to story hour, so a few of the children found this particularly funny.  I think this is the sweetest book about a boy named Henry, a girl that he thinks is just fabulous, and a blueberry muffin.

After reading, I gave each child a large piece of white construction paper, a heart shaped cookie cutter, and red glitter paint.


They had a great time putting the cookie cutters in the paint and stamping the shapes all over their papers.


They shared really well too, trading for different sizes and styles.  


Once again, we had a great story hour!  Thank you to all of the moms for attending and helping!  Thank you to all of the children for being great participants!  AND a very special thank you to Cuppers for providing a great space for story hour, and for providing free hot chocolate and juice for the kiddos!

Last, but not least, I want to wish my little friend, A, a speedy recovery.  She was unable to attend story hour this week because she had her tonsils and adenoids removed the day before.  We all missed her!
 

15 comments:

MaryAnne said...

I think it's so cool that you run this coffee shop story hour - and that the coffee shop hosts it! Very fun craft, too!

An Almost Unschooling Mom said...

A coffee shop story time sounds like so much fun for the kids and moms alike - great craft!

Kristi @ Creative Connections for Kids said...

Oh my...we have a tea room in a local town. I might have to host a tea time!

Natalie PlanetSmarty said...

I also love reading about your story hour adventures. Great craft for Valentine day, and all books sound lovely.

Laura said...

I meant to thank you for the Henry story...it is one we've read before but I'm always collecting Henry stories for my little guy. If you have any other suggestions...

Elle Belles Bows said...

Fun activity!

Good for you hosting the coffee shop story time too! You are one super Mom!!

Kerri

Ticia said...

I hope A gets lots of ice cream for that.

You're a brave woman to let that many kids use paint all at once.

Unknown said...

Those look like great books, I'll have to check them out. Love the stamping with the cookie cutters.

April said...

I remember we read the Best thing about Valentines last year when my daughter was fascinated with trains and the image of a train in it was her fav thing in the whole book!

Cookie cutter printing is the best.

I linked back to your buffalo hide craft in my recent post (just wanted to let you know!)

(V.Kerr) School Time Adventures said...

So smart to do cookie cutter painting.. love it!

Susana said...

We haven't read any of these books. I may try to request them.

Jack loves to paint with cookie cutters. Always leads to finger painting, but he loves it still.

Looks like your story hours are as fun as ever:-).

Jenny said...

How fun! We just checked out My Heart is Like a Zoo today and I can't wait to read it. Abby liked The Best Thing About Valentines too. I don't think we've read Henry In Love yet.

Anonymous said...

This looks like so much fun. I'm impressed that you do this each month! Hope you're starting to feel better yourself.

Debbie said...

I just bought tons of heart shaped cookie cutters, well not tons, but quite a few since they were on sale. We may just have to try our hand at a little cookie cutter painting.

Sherri said...

Great craft!!!