Text selection, magical garbage, digital identity crises, family estrangement in children's literature, a bear called Brian, and trying not to cry over spilled coffee at storytime.
As someone who has to run a Storytime and Rhymetime class every single week, I appreciated the shout out. It is such a challenging program to run! But five years of doing that made reading my own book at my launch much less daunting.
Storytime is such a great thing to offer, and those who manage it successfully need to be applauded! We used to do a little craft session after our storytimes, so perhaps I over-complicated things as well. Easy to get carried away with these things. For storytime novices, I'd suggest keep it super simple. Also, thank you so much for sharing. x
Oh no, I love an optional craft activity at the end! Even just some colouring-in. I've been at storytimes where they do bubbles, or play with scarves, and that can be fun and really sensory, too. But agreed it's best to keep it simple when starting out. Maybe some people over-think it!
Thank you for your comment, Jo! I've been loving your Substack. I laughed a lot at your post this weekend about parents behaving worsely than the children at your storytimes. I believe it!!! x
You're very, very kind, Karys. Thank you so much. When I first read this comment I thought you meant champagne with storytime, and I thought perhaps that's the best idea yet! But I realised you meant blowing bubbles - or at least, that's what I now think you mean...
Oh no, a whole coffee down your shirt! 😱 Thanks for recognising that Storytime can be quite a full-on job for librarians. As a children’s librarian myself I love it though, I have been doing it for nearly 10 years now so I think having programs designed for different age groups helps. At our library we do a 30min program for toddlers (16mths-2yrs) which usually only includes one or two books and lots of action rhymes and dancing and then we have our 45min preschool storytime (for ages 3+)
which includes 3 or 4 stories, a couple of songs and a craft. This works really well for us 😊
It sounds like you really know what you are doing!! That’s an amazing run. My hat is off to you, a very hard job, but a very important one. I really meant it when I said storytime has saved me as a parent.
That age split sounds perfect. The one I went to this week was aimed at 1-5 year olds but the majority of kids were under 18 months. So to be fair, the books chosen were probably just more suited for the upper part of that range, and they didn’t show!
I hope I didn’t come across as too negative, anyway. As I said, I know I couldn’t do half the job the librarians do! It’s an interesting thing to try and get right and it’s easy to have an opinion from the peanut gallery!
As someone who has to run a Storytime and Rhymetime class every single week, I appreciated the shout out. It is such a challenging program to run! But five years of doing that made reading my own book at my launch much less daunting.
I applaud you!!! I'm sure your community does, too.
And I'm glad to hear the skills came in handy with your debut release! :)
Storytime is such a great thing to offer, and those who manage it successfully need to be applauded! We used to do a little craft session after our storytimes, so perhaps I over-complicated things as well. Easy to get carried away with these things. For storytime novices, I'd suggest keep it super simple. Also, thank you so much for sharing. x
Oh no, I love an optional craft activity at the end! Even just some colouring-in. I've been at storytimes where they do bubbles, or play with scarves, and that can be fun and really sensory, too. But agreed it's best to keep it simple when starting out. Maybe some people over-think it!
Thank you for your comment, Jo! I've been loving your Substack. I laughed a lot at your post this weekend about parents behaving worsely than the children at your storytimes. I believe it!!! x
You're very, very kind, Karys. Thank you so much. When I first read this comment I thought you meant champagne with storytime, and I thought perhaps that's the best idea yet! But I realised you meant blowing bubbles - or at least, that's what I now think you mean...
Hahahaha I did mean blowing bubbles but maybe you and I could collaborate on a champagne storytime one day? I think it would be a big hit! 🥂
BUBBLES FOR EVERYONE!!!
Oh no, a whole coffee down your shirt! 😱 Thanks for recognising that Storytime can be quite a full-on job for librarians. As a children’s librarian myself I love it though, I have been doing it for nearly 10 years now so I think having programs designed for different age groups helps. At our library we do a 30min program for toddlers (16mths-2yrs) which usually only includes one or two books and lots of action rhymes and dancing and then we have our 45min preschool storytime (for ages 3+)
which includes 3 or 4 stories, a couple of songs and a craft. This works really well for us 😊
It sounds like you really know what you are doing!! That’s an amazing run. My hat is off to you, a very hard job, but a very important one. I really meant it when I said storytime has saved me as a parent.
That age split sounds perfect. The one I went to this week was aimed at 1-5 year olds but the majority of kids were under 18 months. So to be fair, the books chosen were probably just more suited for the upper part of that range, and they didn’t show!
I hope I didn’t come across as too negative, anyway. As I said, I know I couldn’t do half the job the librarians do! It’s an interesting thing to try and get right and it’s easy to have an opinion from the peanut gallery!
And yes, the coffee situation was pretty devastating 🥲