Urban Safari Storytime

Albert Paley's work on display at the Corcoran Galleries, July 2014

I recently had the wonderful opportunity to facilitate a storytime at the Corcoran Gallery of Art during a family event they held called "The Ultimate Urban Safari", based on their summer exhibition, American Metal: The Art of Albert Paley.  Paley is perhaps best known for creating the portal gates to the St. Louis Zoo, Animals Always (2006).

The Ultimate Urban Safari involved activities about animals of all types so it was easy to come up with a theme for the event's storytime.  Since this was a family program and I was expecting a variety of ages in my audience, I picked out two selections to choose from during the storytime (for a total of four books) for each storytime.  By having this variety, I was able to tailor and adapt each storytime best to the needs of my audience, along with the all-ages-friendly songs and rhymes I chose to use.

• Opening Song: If You’d Like to Read a Book, Clap Your Hands! 
• (If you'd like to read a book, clap your hands! If you'd like to read a book, clap your hands! If you'd like to read a book, listen up and take a look!  If you'd like to read a book, clap your hands!- Repeat with "stomp your feet, sing hooray!")
• Count the Monkeys  by Mac Barnett OR Way Far Away on a Wild Safari  by Jan Peck 
• Flannel: Five Little Monkeys (Jumping on the Bed)
• If I Were a Jungle Animal  by Tom and Amanda Ellery OR Little Mouse  by Allison Murray
• Flannel and Song: I Went to the Jungle One Day (London Bridge)
• How to Wash a Wooly Mammoth  by Michelle Robinson OR My Rhinoceros  by Jon Agee 
• Finger play: I Had a Little Turtle
• The Baby BeeBee Bird  by Diane Massie OR Birds  by Kevin Henkes 
• Ending Book and Song: If You’re Happy And You Know It  by Jane Cabrera
• Closing Rhyme: Our Hands Say Thank You 
• (...with a clap clap clap, our feet say thank you with a tap tap tap.  Clap clap clap, tap tap tap. And we roooolllllll our hands to say, "Goodbye!")

Of course I wore a safari hat.

Overall, this was a very successful outreach event.  I was able to connect with many families who were otherwise unfamiliar with either our library's location or programming, and even have had one little girl and her mother visit us almost every week since the storytime (this was over a month ago, I know, I am behind on blogging)!  It is also a great experience to be able to adapt your storytime for an all-ages audience.  Frequently, even if I have planned a storytime for Preschoolers and all babies show up, I need to quickly adapt anyways- and this is an important skill for any librarian to have.  And the setting was not too bad either... I believe I was in the Director's Office! The Corcoran is a beautiful building that houses even more beautiful art to see- this outreach was definitely worthwhile in many ways.