I’ve been thinking lately that I’d like to ask storytime attendees for feedback with a short survey, and while I mulled over what questions to ask, I wrote down all the elements I bring to storytime aside from books: early literacy tips (for the grown-ups), scarves, shaker eggs, other musical instruments, flannel board, the song cube, the yoga cube, stuffed animals and puppets, various arts and crafts activities, bubbles, and music. I don’t use all of these in every storytime, of course, because that would probably be sensory overload, and it’s good to change things up; while the overall pattern of the program is the same each week, some elements are familiar and others are new. If you have a storytime program, do you evaluate it? What questions do you ask, and how? A quick search turned up a useful blog post from storytime goldmine Jbrary.

Here’s what we did today, with a group of about ten kids, including a couple of four-year-olds (welcome, because we had a couple of books that required sharp eyes – Sophie Johnson, Unicorn Expert and Where’s Walrus? And Penguin? – and the older kiddos are great at spotting the hide-and-seek characters).

• Hello and announcements
• “Hello Friends” song with ASL (from Jbrary)
• Name song (“____ is here today…”)
• I Wish It Would Snow by Sarah Dillard: I had planned to hand out scarves for this one, but I forgot. We talked about how we haven’t had very much snow yet this year. The adults were particularly engaged during this storytime – thanks, grown-ups! I also brought out one of our rabbit puppets, which I invited kids to come pat after the story.
• Yoga cube
• Sophie Johnson, Unicorn Expert by Morag Hood and Ella Okstad: This has a bit of hide-and-seek to it, so I passed out scarves for this one instead. The littler kids had fun with the scarves, and the four-year-olds spotted the real unicorn right away.
• Song cube: “Row Row Row Your Boat” and “Shake Your Sillies Out” (with scarves)
• Spots in a Box by Helen Ward: This is a new favorite of mine. I like the rhyme scheme and the art. On the final page, the dots are textured, so I invited kids to come up and feel the book.
• Yoga cube
• There’s Nothing to Do! by Dev Petty and Mike Boldt: This completes our quartet of frog books…until they write some more!
• Song cube: “Where is Thumbkin?” Everyone loved this. Even the littlest kids have the fine motor skills to do a thumbs-up! I sang the Cambridge Public Library version, which omits the traditional “sir.”
• Pouch! by David Ezra Stein: This late in the storytime lineup, I like books with less text, and this one is perfect. To start, I asked which animals had pouches, and the kids said “kangaroo!” I told them that all animals with pouches are called marsupials. Word of the day!
• Yoga cube
• Where’s Walrus? And Penguin? by Stephen Savage: Again, my observant four-year-olds were quick to spot the escaped zoo animals.
• “Goodbye Friends” song with ASL (from Jbrary)
• Clean up mats, color with crayons

Before and after

Instead of putting down blank butcher paper, I drew a few outlines of circles of different sizes before our program. That way, kids could color inside those circles, or make their own, or draw anything else they wanted. I even saw a yellow snowman…

This week’s storytime crowd was a little bigger than last week’s, and it was a mix of regulars, occasional visitors, and new faces. We had about ten to start, and about eight by the end, with some coming and going in between.

I started the way I usually do, with a welcome and songs.

• Welcome and announcements
• “Hello friends” song with ASL
• Name song (“___ is here today”)

Next, I asked a question: Does anyone know of an animal with long ears, a fluffy white tail, and it hops? Eventually the kids came up with “bunny,” and I brought out the rabbit puppet. Everyone got a chance to pet it before we started the story.

• The Rabbit Listened by Cori Doerrfeld
• Yoga cube
• I Don’t Want to Go to Sleep! by Dev Petty, illustrated by Mike Boldt. We read I Don’t Want to Be A Frog! last week, and I’ve got the next two Frog books ready for the following weeks.
• Song cube: “Row, row, row your boat”
• When’s My Birthday? by Julie Fogliano, illustrated by Christian Robinson. I thought this went over pretty well despite its tall, narrow trim size (a little smaller than most picture books).
• Song: “Happy birthday” (no one in the room had a January birthday, or would admit to it if they did, so we sang to Julie, the author)
• Yoga cube
• Pete’s A Pizza by William Stieg: Kids were starting to get a little fidgety by this point, so I invited them to do the pizza-making motions along with Pete’s parents: kneading, tossing, adding tomatoes and cheese, putting it in the oven, cutting it up, etc. Worked pretty well!
• Song cube: “Shake Your Sillies Out” (with shaker eggs)
• Dog Blue by Polly Dunbar: A perfectly good book for storytime, but I should have skipped it this time; kids were getting wiggly and some were wandering out.
• Yoga cube
• Hooray for Hat! by Brian Won: The kids who remained seemed to like this one (it’s usually a hit, and a safe bet for the end of the line-up)
• Goodbye song with ASL
• Clean up mats
• Make snowflake wands with last week’s die-cut snowflakes and pipe cleaners
• Dance to “Shake Your Sillies Out” and “Twinkle Twinkle”

Most kids liked waving their snowflake wands during the music, but didn’t want to keep them, which reinforces my belief (based on observation and talking with other librarians) that at this age (2-3 years), any crafts are strictly process over product. Next week, I think we’ll be doing some gluing to go with Lots of Dots by Craig Frazier. Till then, keep warm!

For the first Monday “Step Into Storytime” session of the year we had lots of our regulars – about eight kids in the target age range (2-3 years) and one younger sibling. It was so great to see everyone again!

We started off with our usual “Hello Friends” song with ASL from Jbrary, and then we sang a name song because there were fewer than ten kids (with more than ten or so, it goes on too long).

• Don’t Touch My Hair by Sharee Miller features Aria and her hair, which she loves – and so does everyone else. It’s a colorful but firm message about consent, and the perfect length for storytime.
• I brought a different song cube this time to change things up; the first song we rolled was “Wheels on the Bus.”
• I Don’t Want To Be A Frog by Dev Petty, with illustrations by Mike Boldt is about a frog who would rather be almost anything else…but discovers that there is one big upside to being a frog. It is very funny (and there are more Frog books).
• Yoga cube (3 poses)
• We Don’t Eat Our Classmates by Ryan T. Higgins is one of my favorite picture books published last year. I was taking a little bit of a gamble that the kids’ attention would stretch to three longer books, and it worked. (Humor works!)
• Song cube: “Row, Row, Row Your Boat”
• The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle with flannel caterpillar, fruit, and (new!) butterfly (I got to play with the hot glue gun during the holiday hiatus from storytimes). I let the kids take turns coming up and taking off the fruit for each day of the week.
• Yoga cube (3 poses)
• Flyaway Katie by Polly Dunbar, even though it was a sunny day today, and a parent ended up taking this one home afterward – yay!
• Song cube: “Where Is Thumbkin?” I use the version of this I saw at a Cambridge Public Library storytime, which omits the “sir,” rather than the one I remember from childhood.
• The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats, even though we haven’t had any snow yet…we made our own! I handed out paper snowflakes (thank you, die-cut) to the kids (and then to the grown-ups), and at the line “New snow was falling,” we all threw them up in the air to make it snow.
• Goodbye song with ASL, stack up mats, bring out blocks to play with

1/9/19 Edited to add this piece from The Horn Book Magazine, “What Makes A Good Storytime?” by Julie Roach of the Cambridge Public Library, May/June 2016, including “Ten Tips for Reading Aloud.”

This morning was my last Step Into Storytime of the year! (I actually didn’t realize this until the end, when someone asked if there was going to be one next week, and I ran to check the calendar.) We started with seven or eight kids and ended up with about twelve, I think, plus a couple of babies.

• Welcome and announcements (this is where I should have mentioned that there wasn’t going to be a storytime the next two Mondays)
• “Hello Friends” song with ASL
• Name song (“____ is here today, ____ is here today, let’s all clap our hands, ____ is here today”)
• I Am Actually A Penguin by Sean Taylor, illustrated by Kasia Matyjaszek: Putting the longest book first in the set worked! The kids were pretty quiet and attentive and the grown-ups definitely enjoyed it. There is something to be said for getting the grown-ups’ engagement during storytime; it’s best if everyone enjoys the program.
• “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes”
• Yoga cube
• Just Add Glitter by Angela DiTerlizzi and Samantha Cotterill: I encountered this one in a storytime for three- to five-year-olds and thought it could work for the younger kiddos also – and it did! (We did NOT do a related craft program.)
• Song cube: “If You’re Happy and You Know It”
• Please, Mr. Panda by Steve Antony
• Yoga cube
• Little Owl Lost by Chris Haughton
• Song cube: “I’m A Little Teapot”
• Hickory Dickory Dock by Keith Baker: I asked the kids to make the animal noises on the appropriate pages (pig, horse, etc.) and they are so good at that.
• Yoga cube
• The Wonkey Donkey by Craig Smith, illustrated by Katz Cowley. (This one is so in demand in our library system right now that I bought my own copy.) We have a donkey hand puppet that I bring out as well, and the kids get to come up and pet it both before and after the book. And make the “hee-haw” sounds, of course! Lots of sound effects today.
• Song cube: “ABCs,” “Itsy-Bitsy Spider,” “Zoom Zoom Zoom, We’re Going to the Moon”
• Goodbye song with ASL
• Clean up mats and hand out Wonky Donkey coloring sheets (available on the author’s website) and bowls of crayons

Storytime this morning was incident-free! We had about twelve kids in the target age range to start, with a few more joining throughout, and some younger siblings, for maybe 17 kids altogether.

• Hello friends song with ASL
• Name song (“___ is here today, ___ is here today, let’s all clap our hands, ___ is here today”)
• Want to Play Trucks? by Ann Stott, illustrated by Bob Graham: A librarian friend of mine read this in her storytime for 3- to 5-year-olds, and I thought it could work as a lead-off book for 2- and 3-year olds too – and it did! It’s the perfect example of “find a way to play together”; the kids resolve their differences simply and easily, without much fuss, and it ends with ice cream, which everyone can agree on.
• “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes” to warm up for…
• …yoga cube! (3 poses)
• My Heart Is Like A Zoo by Michael Hall, with flannel board animals. I asked the kids to raise their hands (or wave, or point) when one of the animals in the book matched one of the ones on the flannel board (I have the crab, clam, penguin, owl, and frog).
• Song cube: “I’m A Little Teapot”
• Chu’s Day by Neil Gaiman, illustrated by Adam Rex: This one is always fun to read aloud because of the sneezes. This time I stretched the “Achoooo” all the way into the “Oops” (there are two wordless pages in between).
• Yoga cube (three poses)
• A Parade of Elephants by Kevin Henkes, with flannel elephants. I had five volunteers to put the elephants on the board (and one to take them down). We also did some marching, parading, stretching, and a related activity later.
• Song cube: “If You’re Happy and You Know It” (ending with “If you’re happy and you know it, sit back down…”)
• Where, Bear? by Sophy Henn: I encouraged them to say the repeated line “Where, Bear?” along with me.
• Yoga cube (three poses)
• The Steves by Morag Hood: This one is so funny.
• Song cube: “ABCs”
• Poems by Shel Silverstein (“Hug-O-War,” “Early Bird,” and “Pancake?”): These didn’t seem to go over as well as I remember from the last time I did them, but at least they’re short.
• Back to elephants! I passed out die-cut paper elephants in red, yellow, green, and blue, and sang “If you’re holding [color] today, [color] today, [color] today, if you’re holding [color] today, jump up and shout hooray!” The kids seemed into the song but not the jumping up; could be that if we repeated it for a few weeks, they’d become more familiar with it and more enthusiastic. The paper elephants aren’t even necessary, as we sit on colored mats, and I made sure we only had red, yellow, green, and blue ones today. I gave the kids the choice to keep their paper elephants or return them, and most of the kids returned them; one tried to stick hers to the flannel board.
• Goodbye friends song with ASL
• Asked them to come put mats away in piles according to color. Not totally successful, but they did all bring their mats up front, which is something!

Kirkus has been doing its “best of 2018” lists; here is the list for picture books. Not all of these are right for storytime, or right for two- or three-year-olds, but plenty are. Have a look – and, if you’re like me, you’ll feel the need to place about a dozen requests to the library. Happy reading!