I’ve been doing storytimes for 2+ years now, and I am currently doing four preschool storytimes a week. I typically feel pretty confident about my programming skills, but let me tell you, there are still times when everything just goes belly-up. No matter how carefully I plan, sometimes my picture books still go over like lead balloons, my finger plays are big-time duds, and all my little ones just want to run around in circles and bop each other on the head.

When everything just seems to be falling apart, that’s when I pull out the aces that I’ve cleverly tucked up my sleeves (and which I cling to for dear life when as my storytime ship seems to take on water at an alarming rate). Those aces are….

JUMPING SONGS

When in doubt, jump up, jump and get down! Movement songs harness kids’ energy, allowing you to work with your little ones, rather than against them. And don’t worry, these songs still pack an educational punch – they provide kids with an opportunity to practice listening to and following directions and expose them to new vocabulary. AND you get to fit in a bit of an aerobic workout into a largely sedentary profession, too! Everybody wins!

Here are a few of my current jumping song favourites (click on the song title to watch a Jbrary video!):

The Elevator Song

I use this song every.dang.day. It’s an all-time winner. When I’m working in an urban setting I ask kids what floor they live on, and work that into song, so I can sing it again and again and again.WINNER.

Zoom, Zoom, Zoom

Another classic, and one that kids would happily sing over and over again. I like to take audience requests as a way of getting the kids more involved in the activity, so sometimes we go to Saturn, sometimes we go to the stars, sometimes we go to the puppy planet (I don’t know why, just go with it), and sometimes we go to the robot planet, which means we have to sing and move our arms like a robot.

Sleeping Bunnies

Oh, how I love this song. It’s amazing how the mere mention of its name will get a rowdy group of preschoolers to quietly lie on the floor and pretend to be asleep. This is another great opportunity to get audience requests – some of our favourite verses include lions growling, dinosaurs stomping, kittens meowing, and frogs/kangaroos jumping. More jumping! Sleeping Bunnies is actually a fantastic way to help kids practice self-regulation – they have to practice soothing themselves, calming their bodies, staying still and waiting for instructions. A deceptively complex song.

Toast in the Toaster

This is such a simple little rhyme, which is really more of a chant than a song. I like to use this one as a bit of a wiggle break because it’s short, and not quite as wild and woolly as the other songs, making it easier to wrangle my little ones back into the program. I have also been known to put waffles and even Pop-Tarts in the toaster, again based on audience requests.

The moral of my little tale is this – kids are, by their very nature, wiggly, and some children are wigglier than others. There is a time for sitting still, and a time for moving, and that will likely change from day to day! Sometimes kids can sit still for an entire program and listen attentively to book after book, and sometimes….they can’t. And that’s okay! Learning takes many different forms, and can happen in all sorts of different ways. Just remember to have fun!