Resources for Planning Storytimes || Librarian Blogroll
Flannelboards
Flannelboards are one of my favorite things about storytime. (It speaks to my crafty side. :D) While I do spend a fair amount of time on Pinterest finding new flannelboards to create, these are the sites that often offer tutorials and patterns for making your own.
Fingerplays, Rhymes, & Songs
In the beginning of my storytime journey, I spent a lot of time trying to find fingerplays, action rhymes, and songs to match my theme EVERY week. Since then, I’ve really entered into a rotation of tried-and-true favorites that best serve me and my patrons. Yay for repetition based learning!
Themes
Most of the time, I come up with themes by spending time in the stacks reading through picture books, but every now and again, I venture online to see what themes are common.
Crafts
At one of my previous libraries, I did a craft project with each storytime. These were the days BEFORE Pinterest. Here are some of the sites that I found particularly useful:
- All Kids Network
- Busy Bee Kids Crafts
- Crayola Crafts
- DLTK’s Crafts for Kids
- First School
- Kids Soup *Subscription Required*
- No Time for Flashcards
storytime katie 
Thank you for putting this together. I can’t tell you how much it has helped me. I just started at the library in January and became the Children’s Specialist(with no formal training).
Thank you! Congrats on your new position!
So I have a feeling your website is going to be an excellent tool for me. I Just got my first full-time position and I am going to be a Children’s Librarian and I am freaking out!
Congratulations on your full-time position! If you need anything, please feel free to reach out!
Dear Katie: I usually don’t leave comments. Even though I have been following you for over 2 years and you are my go to for inspiration on books and songs for my daycare children, this is the first time that I publicly wanted to thank you and tell you how grateful I am for all the work, resources and love you share with all of us. God bless you!
Thank you, thank you for the comment. And especially: thank you for reading!
Need a little help. I teach transitional kindergarten and am using a magnetic flannel board the adheres to my whiteboard. The pieces keep falling off while we are trying to interact with the story or lesson I am presenting. Any suggestions on how to keep the pieces from falling off?
I would check to make sure that the magnet backing is enough to support the weight of the piece. And then to make the magnetboard tilt on angle is possible to help the pieces stay up. Other than that, I only work with felt so I’m probably not the best person to ask.
I made your Little Mouse, Little Mouse flannel board and so many people want me to make one for them. I am helping with a boutique for the Orff National Convention in the fall. We are trying to raise money to provide scholarships for music teachers to get additional training in Orff. Is it o.k. for me to make these flannel boards to sell at the boutique? It really is a great cause.
I can’t give permission because the template wasn’t mine to begin with. Sorry!
Your resources are awesome and I use them almost daily. Just FYI..Canton Public Library link does not work and Perry Public Library.
Hi Katie, I live in the small rural mountain community of Monteverde Costa RIca. I have a 3 1/2 year old and my husband and I are avid readers. There are two community-type libraries in town. One is at the Quaker school (our son now attends this) and the other is a more recent small volunteer run community library. The children’s books are NOT in good condition (I am talking mold, ripped/missing pages, eaten by mice). As a country, while the literacy rate is 98%, over 51% of people haven’t read a book in the last 12 months. Books in Spanish are expensive and hard to come by. As you can imagine, all these factors lead to low rates of early reading. I am currently working on a couple of grants to see if I can’t launch an early reading book bundle program in the Quaker school preschool classroom. The idea is to do this as a pilot here and hopefully expand to the larger community. I have used your site before (a few years ago I volunteered a little to read stories to kids at the public library) and am very appreciative of the materials you have layed out. I am wondering if you might be willing to share the contents of the activity cards with me so that I can use them in the book bundles (aka not re-invent the wheel)? Anyway, anything you can share is greatly appreciated.
Hi Myriam,
I wish you the best of luck with your Book Bundles. Unfortunately, I do not have access to the activity cards anymore as I do not work at that library and was not allowed to take them with me. What’s on the blog is all that I have of them; hope that helps!
The following link under Fingerplays / Action Rhymes is not working
Miami-Dade Public Library Nursery Rhymes
it’s giving me an error message.
Thank you for letting me know. I removed that link.