About the Blog || About Katie || Current Storytimes || Retired Storytimes
Throughout the years, I’ve done several different kinds of storytimes at my first library. Here’s a run-down of what happened at each one.
All Ages Family Storytime
My weekly storytime was an all-ages family storytime. Being a very family oriented community, this is the format that works for us. Parents were able to bring all their kids and not feel like they were causing a problem by having a sibling in the program meant for baby lapsit. Throughout the storytime, I tried to provide modifications so that everyone could participate and I kept a variety of materials available in case I needed to switch things up. I only posted what I used in my programming write-ups.
Afternoon Storytimes
I began offering Afternoon Storytime in the fall of 2010, with an age range of 3-7 and their siblings. This was a smash-success for the first year and a half and then attendance began to waver. After receiving the grant for “Growing Readers,” it was decided to stop doing Afternoon Storytimes and replace it with Growing Readers.
Weekly Growing Readers Storytime
This was a storytime for beginning readers. I did this afternoon storytime for ages 3-7 and parents were encouraged to attend as well to gain more tools to use to promote early literacy and beginning reading in their homes. This program was started after receiving a Target Early Childhood Reading grant in 2012.
Weekly Outreach Storytime
I did a weekly outreach visit to a local daycare facility. The kids ranged in ages 2-5 and I have anywhere from twenty to forty kids at each storytime, depending on attendance. While I love all storytimes, I probably looked forward to this one the most because of the reaction of the kids. I rang the doorbell to gain entry and once I opened that door, I could hear the Pre-K classroom shouting, “MISS KATIE, MISS KATIE.” It was the closest I will ever come to being a rockstar.
Other Outreach Storytimes
I was available for local daycare and preschool visits, to be scheduled at the request of the facility. Sometimes these were monthly, sometimes they were seasonally. If I wrote up any of these visits, I tried to give a brief overview of the age range since it varies from place to place.
storytime katie 
Hi Katie!
First off, I love your blog! I’m a new Children’s Librarian and it’s been so helpful!
I have a question for you… my library has always only offered one story time a week, a kind of free for all. My position used to be part time but they recently changed it to full time and decided that I needed to offer two story hours. Toddlers are primarily my audience for the one already in place, so I’m planning the new one to be for slightly older kids. Do you keep your themes the same for each story time? I’m trying to establish whether or not I can use the same themes… at my library we also have circ duties so I don’t have a lot of extra time to plan something completely different.
Lindsay, I just discovered Katie’s blog and am enjoying it. In a previous job, I had two storytimes, one for toddlers (2-3s) and one for 4-5s. You could use the same themes but you can also use longer books for the older kids which is nice. I usually used early readers for the younger children. My storytimes don’t have a theme where all the books have to match the theme because it gives more freedom of choice and I like to highlight new books. However, to give the kids something to look forward to, I select a theme like Hats and have the children bring in a favorite hat or talk about a favorite hat and we start Storytime with a show and tell session which seems to help them listen better when it’s my turn. 🙂 This doesn’t work as well with large groups but then you can divide the theme into two weeks and have half the group talk one week and the other half the next week. Have fun!
Hello Katie would love to see more and learn from your ideas do you have a Facebook page ?
I do have a Facebook page, but I don’t post on it anymore.