I haven't posted in a while, but I thought the return to storytime after our library's spring break was a good time to re-start. I absolutely love storytimes (they're one of my favorite parts of my job) but doing 5-7 a week for a 17 week session sometimes feels like a lot. I found myself only ok with a lot of my themes and finding songs that my very young 2 year old group would like felt like such a chore. Plus, my preschool group right now is preferring longer books and activities over most songs, so it was tough catering to that group and staying on theme. Instead, I've been playing around with the idea of not doing themes at all.
I don't know if no themes would work for everybody. I know I have at least one coworker who really finds her inspiration in themes and enjoys the detective work that comes from finding that one book about mustaches that really does work for two year olds. I felt, however, that families were leaving my storytimes a little unsatisfied and I could find a way to make them have a little more fun.
An post on Jbrary's website (which you can find here) came at the perfect time for me. If you haven't read it yet (and you should), it's all about the flow from activity to activity in storytime, rather than focusing on a theme. This has been working fantastically for me and even though I do have a few themes in my pocket to round out my spring, I feel so much more confident just throwing away my theme if it isn't working for me.
After all of that, we have had a lot of fun in February and March! Here are some books (some older, some newer) that my groups especially enjoyed, along with which group read them:
(Big Kids- 4 & up)
(Twos, but I suspect my older kids would love it, too)
(Twos)
(Big Kids- 4 & up)
(Twos)
(Big Kids- 4 & up)
(Big Kids- 4 & up)
(Twos)
(Big Kids- 4 & up)
(Twos)
(Big Kids- 4 & up)
(Big Kids- 4 & up)
(Twos)
(Big Kids- 4 & up)
(Big Kids, Threes, mixed-age preschool outreach)
(Twos)
(Big Kids- 4 & up)
(3s, Big Kids, mixed-age preschool outreach)
(Twos)
(Big Kids, but I plan to test it out on my twos group as well)
What do you think about no-theme storytimes? Have they worked for you? Leave a comment and share!
They work GREAT for me. We call our preschool story time TREASURE Time with the books being inside a treasure box and our mascot being a bassett hound dog that helps me dig through the library to find the best treasures! I share old favorites, new books to test out on a group, etc. Sometimes themes emerge by accident :) Our play time after story time is a combination of making things out of recyclables, using legos, magnatiles and other building materials and puzzles and games.
ReplyDelete