Montessori Storytime: Theme Camping

Theme: Camping

Introduce myself – My visuals are a camping scene built out of a construction paper fire, stuffed animals with cotton ball marshmallows

Opening Song as needed: "We are here for storytime" sung to the tune of Mary had a little lamb or London Bridge- either works. *from Simply Super Storytimes (JR 372.4 CAS)- after just one story time session, the kids totally caught onto this song. They like when I turn my voice down absurdly low.

First book: Camping Day by Lakin, Patricia

Second book: Shake My Sillies Out by Raffi - this is an action book. You can get up and move to the words or sit and watch the pictures.

Activity: "Missing Camping Gear" *from A Storytime Year (JR 027.6251 DAI) p 153-158 1. Place pictures on the board while discussing the gear needed when you go camping. 2. Turn the board away and remove a picture while saying: We are going camping, we gathered all our gear. We placed them in a pile, now something is not here.What is missing? 3. Encourage the kids to identify the missing item. Repeat the game, removing more and more pictures to make it more challenging.

Third Book: Down by the Bay by Raffi – Do you want to have another book with a song or do you want to do a sound effects story? When you go camping, you can sing camp songs. Here’s another book with a silly song. I’m sure you’ll figure out the rhymes.

Sound Effects Story: Adam Alan’s Camping Trip. *from A Storytime Year (JR 027.6251 DAI) p160-163 Photocopy

Fourth book: Toasting Marshmallows: camping poems by George, Kristine O'Connell – this book doesn’t have a specific story, but is made up of little poems that describe the experience of camping. Not all poems rhyme like our first book or some of our songs, but if you listen to the words, you can hear they create a rhythm and then make music with their sounds that repeat. If you want to get comfortable and lay down, that’s okay. These poems are for dreaming in your head.

Ending Song as needed: Raffi's The More We Get Together