Storytime: Birds!

Books we read:

Grumpy Bird by Jeremy Tankard

Peck, Peck, Peck by Lucy Cousins

The duckling gets a cookie?! by Mo Willems

I should note that I paperclipped sections of all these books to abridge them a bit.

Action rhymes to use:

Little Bird

There was a little bird who lived up in a tree, 

Chirping at the clouds that floated by. 

Then that little bird flew on down to me, 

Landed on my shoulder and winked his eye. 

He said, "tweet tweet," 

I said, "tweet," back, I didn't know what else to say. 

Then that little bird flapped his wings 

and flew himself away.

See Mr. Mike's version here for the accompanying actions.

Hickory Dickory Dare
Use several bird puppets; ask the kids what kind of bird it is before each repetition. I started with a parrot.

Hickory dickory dare
the parrot flew up in the air! (throw stuffed parrot up in the air)
Farmer Brown brought her back down (make bird puppet fly back to table)
Hickory dickory dare

Repeat with other bird puppets- owl, rooster, flamingo, etc.

Songs: 
Mother Gooney Bird

Extra fun: 
On a whim, I connected our big TV to my laptop and brought up our local Peregrine Falcon webcam on the big screen to be left on during storytime. This was at the side of the room, and it wasn't such a big draw as to be distracting during storytime. I explained the concept of a live webcam and some interesting falcon facts (did you know they can dive for food at speeds up to 200 miles per hour?).  It worked out great- a neat, easy to set up curio for kids to look at as they are putting on their coats and getting ready to go. At one point the parent falcon brought home some food for the fledglings, wowing all the children. In the future I look forward to including more live animal webcams.