So I had really high falootin' concepts about trying to do a Library themed storytime in honor of National Library Week. But as I keep learning, again and again...this is almost never a good idea with preschoolers, for a number of reasons.
1) They are already library users. Their caregivers already value our services, otherwise they wouldn't be at storytime. So, I'm preaching to the choir.
2) It is really hard to find picture books written about libraries that A-appeal to preschoolers and B-are short and fast-paced enough to hold a preschooler's attention.
3) There are almost NO transitional activities or songs that are library related.
So, after beating my head against a wall for about a week. I gave up and decided to free-form the story time. I picked out books that I like to read.
We told Eric Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar with a Puppet.
We did read A Library Book for Bear by Bonny Becker .
I played my ukulele and we sang There was an Old Lady who Swallowed a Fly. We read If you Give a Mouse a Cookie by Laura Joffe Numeroff.
I let them play with egg shakers while we sang Ten on the Bed.
For our craft, I just emptied out the odds and ends of our craft storage onto a table. We had puff balls, googly eyes, pipe cleaners, beads and jewels all stored up and inherited from past librarians. So I dumped it all out with some glue and paper plates and I told the kids to build an animal that might live in the library.
All in all an awesome Storytime. We didn't even haveta bother with nametags.
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