My First Storytime

Now I can truly say that I am an "official" Children's Librarian.  I have assisted with storytimes in the past, but until now I hadn't planned and facilitated one on my own.  Today I did a preschool storytime for 54 kids.  We have a lot of daycare centers that come to this library along with just a handful of parents and their children so the adult to child ratio is quite large.  The children were super cute as per usual, and were highly participatory which is what I love about this age.

 For this storytime, I chose two of my favorite books from when I was a child.  When I told the kids this, they looked at me like they were being let in on a big secret.  First, I read If You Give a Moose a Muffin by Laura Numeroff, and had the kids guess the numerous things that that silly moose was going to need next.

Second, I read The Little Mouse, The Red Ripe Strawberry, and The Big Hungry Bear by Don and Audrey Wood.  I created a flannel board display to go along with it at the last minute.  I think that this visual prop really helped them participate with the story even more, as they suggested ways to disguise the strawberry along with the plot of the book.  At the end, I pulled the two halves of the strawberry apart and pretended to gobble up my half of the strawberry. They got a kick out of that.

The only thing that I would change about this storytime is that I think it needed more active songs and rhymes.  I did "The Wheels on the Bus", "I Went to Visit the Farm One Day", and "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star".  These songs and rhymes were fine except for the fact that none of them got the kids to stand up and move around.  For a thirty minute storytime, I think they need at least one way of getting some of that energy out.  So next time, I think I will do something like "If You're Happy and You Know It".  I will also skip "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star".  I had originally thought that a lullaby would calm them down toward the end of the storytime, but instead they seemed a little to old for it and bored with it. Overall, I'm really happy with how it turned out and can't wait to do it again!