April 2014 Storytime Briefly

Since April is National Poetry Month, I took the opportunity to share a poem each week.  I have so many favorites that it was difficult to choose just a few, so perhaps I'll have to start sharing a poem a week in March next year.

We discussed similes and metaphors with the following poems and books:

• "Umbrellas" by Barbara Juster Esbensen
• Quick as a Cricket by Audrey Wood, illustrated by Don Wood
• Kitten's First Full Moon by Kevin Henkes
• "The Toaster" by William Jay Smith

I found a big red umbrella to pop open for "umbrellas bloom" in the poem, and when the red tulips in my flower beds bloomed a couple of weeks later, my daughters were quick to point out that the tulips were holding their "umbrellas upside down."

After discussing metaphors, I asked the children to guess the title of William Jay Smith's poem.  It took a couple of tries, but they guessed it.

We talked about color, and we read

• "Crayons" by Marchette Chute
• Blue Chicken by Deborah Freedman
• Bridget's Beret by Tom Lichtenheld
• The Noisy Paintbox by Barb Rosenstock, illustrated by Mary GrandPre

One of the first-graders refused to believe that Vasya Kandinsky could hear colors.  He just kept shaking his head and telling me that someone just made it up.  I suggested that he look it up when he got home, and he told me he would do just that.  He did enjoy looking at slides of Kandinsky's art, though.

We talked about the Beehive Book Award winners.  We read

• Twosomes by Marilyn Singer, illustrated by Lee Wildish
• The Princess and the Pig by Jonathan Emmett, illustrated by Poly Bernatene
• Mrs. Chicken and the Hungry Crocodile by Won-Ldy Paye and Margaret H. Lippert, illustrated by Julie Paschkis

Only the first two books were Beehive Book Award winners, but I've been looking for an excuse to read Mrs. Chicken and the Hungry Crocodile, and the switched at birth theme fit nicely with The Princess and the Pig.