{"id":35696,"date":"2026-04-03T09:30:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T13:30:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/?p=35696"},"modified":"2026-04-02T22:17:43","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T02:17:43","slug":"going-beyond-storytime-at-pla2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/2026\/04\/going-beyond-storytime-at-pla2026\/","title":{"rendered":"Going Beyond Storytime at #PLA2026"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Coco Pacheco from Downey City Library led a fabulous presentation at #PLA2026 about how to expand storytime by incorporating STEM, movement, art, and sensory activities.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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She shared that their storytime attendance has skyrocketed in the last few years after changing the format from doing a craft after storytime to doing various activities. Here are some ideas I gathered of activities to do after storytime that aren’t crafts: dancing, bubbles, parachute play, process art (stamping with rubber ducks, sticking small items on contact paper), playing with toys, puppets, building with boxes, sensory bins, and decorating cupcakes.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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I appreciated that the session was very interactive! We did a scarf song, bilingual song, and sound & motion drawing. Thanks to Coco, and I hope you all can incorporate some of these ideas into your storytimes!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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All photos courtesy of Conference Guest Blogger, Jen Pace Dickenson<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Jen Pace Dickenson<\/strong> (she\/her\/hers) is the Youth Services Librarian at\u00a0Polk County Public Libraries<\/a>. Over her 13 year career there, she has created many new programs for all ages while also developing a diverse and vibrant collection and managing most of the marketing. She was teaching English to children in South Korea in 2010 when she read the book\u00a0American Wife<\/em>\u00a0by Curtis Sittenfeld, and had the epiphany that she should become a librarian. She is looking forward to hearing Bryan Stevenson speak at the opening session, as she has been a longtime admirer of his work with the Equal Justice Initiative, and getting books signed by authors in the exhibit hall to add to her collection.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Please note that as a guest post, the views expressed here do not represent the official position of ALA or ALSC.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you are interested in submitting a guest post, please read and fill out our Guest Blogging Interest Form<\/a>. We would love to hear from you!<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Coco Pacheco from Downey City Library led a fabulous presentation at #PLA2026 about how to expand storytime by incorporating STEM, movement, art, and sensory activities. She shared that their storytime attendance has skyrocketed in the last few years after changing the format from doing a craft after storytime to doing various activities. Here are some ideas I gathered of activities to do after storytime that aren’t crafts: dancing, bubbles, parachute play, process art (stamping with rubber ducks, sticking small items on contact paper), playing with toys, puppets, building with boxes, sensory bins, and decorating cupcakes. I appreciated that the session was very interactive! We did a scarf song, bilingual song, and sound & motion drawing. Thanks to Coco, and I hope you all can incorporate some of these ideas into your storytimes! All photos courtesy of Conference Guest Blogger, Jen Pace Dickenson Jen Pace Dickenson (she\/her\/hers) is the Youth Services…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":431,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":"","_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[134,151,3151,136],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35696","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-guest-blogger","category-live-blogging","category-pla-2026","category-storytime-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35696","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/431"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35696"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35696\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}