Cat Storytime for all ages

 There is a somewhat new book by Emily Gravett called 10 Cats that I absolutely love, so I developed a toddler storytime around the title.   Yes, I put "all ages" in the title of this post because I firmly believe that storytimes can be adapted to suit all ages!  And really, we had all ages wanting to make the cat headbands.

I started with our opening song and Roly Poly and then went into  Cleo's Colors which I have been using at the beginning of each storytime.  I made velcro/felt board pieces out of the pictures at the end, and have kids come up when I get to the page with their picture.  They love it, and it was easy to put together.

Next I shared 10 Cats and the kids really enjoyed it as much as I had hoped.  On each page, we hunted for the different cats and talked about the mixed paint colors.  I went into another color rhyme after this.  It's something short I pulled out of the air under pressure to find a simple rhyme for littles.  It goes:

Kitty cat, kitty cat, loves to wear a matching hat.

Can you find the green  hat?   (the color changes for each cat)

I had 5 cats of different colors with 5 matching hats.  I would put up one cat and then call for the matching hat, which the kids had.  When I had a big group, I had half of the kids bring up their cat one at a time and then the other half would match their hat.   The kids LOVE to get up and put anything on the felt board, and the engagement is great - plus the applause when they do it!  Who doesn't love applause?  I used canva to create the cats and hats and will try to share it here. Cats and Hats on Canva   If you are able to access it, let me know!   The rhyme is something silly I made - please use it if you wish!

Lastly, I read I am Cat which has bright, lovely illustrations and also perfectly nails cats.  You could really finish off with any cat book if you need something more engaging for your kiddos.  My groups like this book and acting out being a cat.

We finished up making our cat headbands.  We used dot markers that I purchased from Amazon.   

Please note, I keep adding links, but I do not have an Amazon affiliate account and do not get paid for including them or if you click on them! 

The dot markers worked great because if the dots overlapped, then you could get the mixed colors.  Besides, they ended up looking much like the cats in Gravett's book!