I always work to incorporate music and singing in storytime. Kids love singing, and, as we all know, it can play an essential role in early literacy development. Vocabulary development, rhyming, and the ability to pick out the smaller sounds in words are just a few of the benefits of incorporating songs and singing in your storytime.
There are lots of easy ways to incorporate music in storytime. Many songs have been made into full-length picture books.
The Wheels on the Bus by Paul O. Zelinsky is a classic song that children recognize and love. This version has lots of flaps and movable parts that are particularly fun with smaller groups of kids.
David A. Carter’s If You’r
e Happy and You Know It is a fun pop-up book. Kids love singing along, and the pictures are big and bold enough for a larger group.
Whenever I use Pete the Cat: I Love My White Shoes in storytime, kids beg to have it repeated. Singing! Dancing! Learning colors! It’s all good!
Kids also love the newest Pete the Cat book by the team of Eric Litwin and James Dean, Pete the Cat: Rocking in My School Shoes.
In a recent storytime, I projected a video by Jim Gill featuring Beethoven’s Five Finger Symphony onto a large screen at the front of the room. Kids and grownups alike clapped, danced, and sang along, and then they begged to do it again!
There are so many ways to incorporate music in your storytime. What are your favorite ways?