Storytime is an essential part of children’s librarianship; it is the first time children are in a more “formal” environment to learn and develop school-readiness skills, and parents and caregivers learn more about early literacy skills. While we try to touch upon the five early literacy practices in our storytimes, there are other engaging early literacy programs that hit these skills! In this post, I will highlight some early literacy program ideas that you can create for your library. Playdough Playtime Who doesn’t love playdough? With this program, your patrons will be able to cover all five early literacy practices! The key to this program is having the right playdough mats for the children to work with. I have been conducting this program for over a year now and it continues to grow because it is fun and educational. Some playmats that I have provided include the alphabet, numbers, nursery…
Tag: storytime
Stuck on Storytime: Tips to Plan for Fall
Summer Reading is officially over at my library and fall programming planning is well underway. Even after a month-long programming break, part of me dreaded returning to weekly storytimes. After 10+ years of children’s librarianship, keeping storytime fresh with new themes, stories, songs, etc. is tiring. I felt stuck. Fortunately, there is plenty of help in past ALSC blog posts. Read on for some articles I found helpful in becoming unstuck on storytime, plus a peek at my first storytime plan for September 2023.
Ukulele Time: Bonding and Development
Our staff decided to have an informal “teach ourselves how to play ukulele” group during the month of August.
Storytime Felt Board Fun!
To make storytime a more interactive experience, storytime felt boards sets can be beneficial and used in different ways. Felt pieces can add a visual element to songs and provide an opportunity for children to be a part of the storytelling process. In this post, I will give you tips on how you can create felt pieces for storytime and some examples!
Share Queer Joy
I am afraid to put up a Pride display. That feels unprofessional to admit, but it’s true. I live and work in a very liberal area, and yet I am still afraid. From book bans to anti-trans bills to storytime protests, it is a very scary time to be under the LGBTQIA umbrella, an umbrella that feels paper thin against the onslaughts of contemporary hatred. This June, let us shine a light on books of queer joy. That joy can be so hard to keep alight on our own.
Universal Design in Storytimes-An Open Invitation to Play!
Have you ever broken a bone? Or accidentally injured your eye and needed to wear a patch? If so, you may have unexpectedly developed empathy for individuals who navigate everyday life with disabilities. Using universal design to create storytimes events helps libraries plan for successful participation and play. By using universal design, all people are assured opportunities to engage at the library!
Empowering Caregivers in your Community
Preparing children for a lifelong love of learning is a goal shared by most children’s librarians, although the ways we cultivate that joy vary vastly. There is, for example, no standardized way to deliver a storytime, and no prescribed set of programs a library absolutely must offer. This vagueness can be helpful because it allows us to cater to the uniqueness of our communities, but if I could suggest a common theme to incorporate into most children’s programming, it would be family engagement. The goal of family engagement, especially with our youngest patrons, is to empower caregivers to be their children’s first teachers. A recent research article from Frontiers in Psychology states that this movement is largely underway in spaces such as children’s museums, but also mentions that not every community has access to a museum, and that admission costs can be a barrier to families. Luckily, libraries are able…
5 Questions For Better Storytime Planning
5 questions to ask when planning the perfect storytime for your library audience.