Whenever I’m giving advice to new storytimers, I recommend keeping as much of their storytimes the same from week to week, changing out the books and maybe a song or two each time. This helps families learn the words and tune of each song through repetition, and helps build a familiar structure, which a lot of young children thrive on. Even though I rarely do branch storytimes anymore, the kids immediately know, when I walk into the room, that we’ll be doing When Cows Get Up in the Morning, Roly Poly, Open Shut Them, The Elevator Song, and Zoom Zoom Zoom.
This week I decided to try something new to close out our session (I was filling in our a colleague). We started our morning off with our usual When Cows Get Up in the Morning using a variety of animal puppets. After our active moment songs, we wrapped up our program by singing all the puppets back into their travel basket with a version of the folk song I Love My Rooster. I first learned this song through the Maribynong Public Library’s Zoom Storytime, and I’ve loved it ever since. It’s a cumulative song, and we had great fun trying to remember the order of the puppets as our list of animals grew longer.
I’ve been doing them for a decade now, above all, I implore new programmers not to take everything too seriously, and to have fun. When there’s joy in your face and enthusiasm in your voice, it puts everyone in a better mood. Then it doesn’t matter as much if you forget the tune to a song, or mix up the words in a rhyme. You can laugh it off, and the group will laugh with you. Storytime is supposed to be fun, not perfect!
Here’s what we did:
Hello Song: Hello, Friends!
Wake Up Song: When Cows Get Up in the Morning
Book One: The Busy Little Squirrel
Hand Songs / Rhymes: Roly Poly / Open Shut Them / I’ll Take You Driving in My Car (starts at 05:11)
Book Two: Every Color Soup
Action Songs: Zoom Zoom Zoom / Head and Shoulders / The Elevator Song
Cool Down Song: I Love My Rooster (starts at 10:59)
Goodbye Song: Goodbye Friends!
I owe a major debt of gratitude to the good folks at the Maribyrnong Libraries, especial Ms. Christine – my son and I watched their online story times during the dark times, and I learned so many wonderful songs and rhymes that I use in my story times now! I actually learned that a wattle tree is an Australian acacia tree!