Storytimeland

This is basically a play on the old "boy who cried wolf" tale with a twist. One, it's a shark instead of a wolf (but I bet you figured that out, smarty pants) and it's our boy crying wolf who is also pretending to be the wolf (or shark, in this case) in order to get the local swimming-hole all to himself.

The kids seemed to like it well enough. It was funny and a good longer book to read toward the beginning. I had a quibble with a talking shark moment in an otherwise "realistic" picture book, so I just left it out. The story works just fine without any talking sharks. Maybe you like it. Leave it in then!

Next up was one of Jonathan London's Froggy books, which always get them going: Froggy Learns to Swim.

I love Froggy books because they are funny and really lend themselves to audience participation. I usually "prep" the audience by letting them know that whenever we see the word "Frooooooooooogy!" all big across the page, we are all going to yell for Froggy together.

This one also adds the fun element of yelling out "Bubble Bubble..." when Froggy's mom is teaching him  how to put his face in the water. She asks him to repeat after her, so I just ask the audience to do so, too. By the time you get to the part where's she's asking him to "Chicken, Airplaine, Soldier" (look, it makes sense, just read it!) then the kids will probably play along without prompting.

It was at this moment that I realized that my next selection Turtle's Race with Beaver by the Bruchacs...

 

...was entirely too long an option for the third story. What was I thinking? But it is such a good story, I wanted to mention it anyway.

So instead I grabbed this one:

 

Suzy Lee's fabulous wordless picture book, Wave.I know, not strictly about swimming, but the kids aren't picky and they usually enjoy telling me the story.

We did watch a great video of Let's Give Kitty a Bath (also not about swimming, but there is a swimming pool in it... also it is very funny) and then worked on our craft. I took so long to write up this post, that I have actually forgotten what that craft was. Can't for the life of me think of what I might have done.

Ooops!