"Friends" Storytime

This week was my first storytime ever! It had a friends theme, and even though we have a centralized programming department, we are encouraged to supplement the tubs they send to us with selections from our own branches's collection. So, without further adieu, here is a list of what we did.

-Welcomed the children and introduced myself.

-Introduced theme and encouraged children to pick a stuffed animal "friend" to share their carpet square during the storytime.

-Read Sean Bryan's A Bear and His Boy which is a hilarious story, and a really easy one to think of questions to ask the children while reading it. My favorite was when the bear and his boy are browsing the stacks at the libary, I asked the children if they'd ever been to the library and about half of them said no. Has a great rhyme scheme and rhythm.

-Read Yo! YES! by Chris Raschka. This was a lot of fun to perform, as I split reading duties with one of my teen volunteers. We each read one half of the dialogue (all of the text consists of dialogue between two strangers, and I encouraged my volunteer to yell the dialogue back at me). The kids actually had us read this story twice.

-Read Mo Willem's Leonardo, the Terrible Monster. I had the kids give their best "monster noises" when Leonardo tries to scare the "tuna salad" out of Sam.

-Talked about how sometimes you have to look to find friends. Compared pair of people (friends) with a pair of socks and took kids on a sock hunt through the library. Gave each child a sock and instructed him/her to find its match.

-Read Sean Bryan's Girl and Her Gator.Similar to a Bear and His Boy, but littered with great wordplay and French phrases and a strong "be yourself" message.

-Read Diane Stanley's Goldie and the Three Bears.
-Played the sock game again (thanks to my teen volunteers for their excellent hiding skills)

-Talked about how sometimes our parents are our friends and had kids make Father's Day cards for their dads or another loved one. With their thumbs in white paint, they created a bunny's body and head, then used their pinky to make the ears. The caption read "Thumb bunny loves you!"

My sample craft:

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