Book: Tops and Bottoms by Janet Stevens - This is the story about how Rabbit tricks lazy Bear into letting him use Bear's fields to plant three different types of crops and keeping the best parts for himself!
Activity: Shadow Puppets - the idea is to put up a sheet large enough that the whole class spread out could practice casting shadow puppets on the screen. I'd need some bright light sources as well. Teach the kids how to use their hands and fingers to make an elephant, duck, spider, snail, bird, dog, and alligator. Images will be sharper when closer to the wall. Images will be fuzzier when closer to the light. You can also make a shadow puppet stage out of a box and create stick puppets or use stuffed animals - anything to create a clear shadow shape. Ideas came from Shadow Night by Kay Chorao and Making Shadow Puppets by Bryant and Heard.
Tale: Finally, I thought I'd try my hand at telling instead of reading a story. I liked the story "Bruh Possum & the Snake" found in Sure As Sunrise: Stories of Bruh Rabbit & His Walkin' Talkin' Friends by Alice McGill. Perhaps some felt figures could help to even out the presentation.
I hadn't selected any songs to go with it. I suppose while the shadow puppet screen is up, we could easily do "Eensy Weensy Spider". Also "Froggy Went a Courtin'" (http://freekidsmusic.com/traditional-childrens-songs/froggy-went-a-courtin/ has interesting lyrics) would be cool as it follows the animal theme.
There are several trickster tails out there, for every culture. Find the ones you like best.
For fun, here's two pictures of me during a storytime. Photos courtesy Lake Cities Montessori.
