storytime katie

For information on how virtual storytimes work at my library, please visit this post.

Materials

Books

Friendshape by Amy Krouse Rosenthal
My Heart is Like a Zoo by Michael Hall*
Press Here by Herve Tullet
Walter’s Wonderful Web by Tim Hopgood*

Extension Activities

Flannelboard: Color Zoo*

Flannelboard: The Shape Story*

Prop Sticks: Where is Shape?*

Props: Song Cube

Planning

Shapes is an always popular, great theme to do and I thought it would work well virtually since I could have the kids draw shapes in the air or make simple shapes with their hands along with our materials — both great fine motor activities.

I definitely anchored this storytime with Tim Hopgood’s Walter’s Wonderful Web since it’s such a wonderful book about shapes, but also it’s a great social-emotional book about perseverance. I wanted the kids to hear a great message about trying again and again.

I also chose to use more visual-based props — like “Where is Shape?”, which is a take on Thumbkin with cardstock shapes on popsicle sticks — rather than the usual recorded music break that I had previously used at in-person storytimes.

How It Went

Some of the kids chose to participate by drawing shapes in the air/making them with their hands and some kids didn’t. It wasn’t a wholly successful adaptation, but I feel like those that wanted an additional way to connect with me and the materials enjoyed it.

I saw some great engagement during Color Zoo on the flannelboard — I asked the kids to either make animal noises or to move like the animal featured on the board. Some of the animals take a little longer to identify — ox and lion — so I did wind up giving clues since we weren’t in an environment where I could call attention to the kids giving the correct answer.

And lastly, My Heart is Like a Zoo gave me a great early literacy tip/extension activity to pass on to caregivers at the end of the book. I brought the book close to the camera and explained that the illustrations were made up of different sized hearts. Then, I suggested that caregivers continue that activity at home with either hearts or various cut-out shapes.

Another great storytime that I was quiet pleased with.

For information on how virtual storytimes work at my library, please visit this post.

Materials

Books

Charlie Chick by Nick Denchfield & Ant Parker*
Early Bird by Toni Yuly*
Grumpy Bird by Jeremy Tankard*
Riki’s Birdhouse by Monica Wellington

Extension Activities

Flannelboard: Three Little Birds

Flannelboard: Ten Fluffy Chickens*

Prop Sticks: Blue Bird, Blue Bird*

Props: Song Cube

Puppets: Two Little Birds*

Planning

Another storytime that was converted to virtual. This was my last pre-pandemic scheduled storytime and I wasn’t going to let the planning go to waste!

After the success of doing emotions storytime, I definitely chose Grumpy Bird as my opening book for this theme since I would be able to engage the kids with making grumpy faces. I also encouraged the kids to get up and walk in place during the walking portion of the book — doing my best to keep a screen as interactive as possible to create a quality screen time experience. I also have to admit that I have a delightful “I’m WALKING” grumpy voice.

I planned to ask the kids to identify the color of the bird in the prop stick activity that was inspired by Mollie. I made all the different colors of Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? and used the rhythm of the text as my rhyme. To make this work via Zoom, I cut down my colors to just: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple. Then, I planned to ask participants to type the first letter of the color in the chat (R, O, Y, G, B, or V) or the name of the color I brought out OR to hold up an item that was the color they wanted to guess to their webcam.

How It Went

Both of the books were definitely enjoyed by the group! I was curious to see if Charlie Chick, which is a pop-up book, would translate over Zoom and it totally did. I honestly think it might have worked better than in-person because everyone was centered in one area and I didn’t have to “pop” each page multiple times so it could be seen.

“Ten Fluffy Chickens” was a great flannelboard because I could see the kids following along by clapping during the “cackle, cackle, cackle” part right before the reveal. Since this is such a short flannelboard, I always do it several times to build that repetition. By the end of the third time, nearly every child was following along!

I really felt like I was getting into a Zoom rhythm at this point. The butterflies (for me!) had definitely settled and it felt like everyone had settled into how virtual storytimes were working for us.

For information on how virtual storytimes work at my library, please visit this post.

Materials

Books

Hooray for Hat! by Brian Won*
I Feel Teal by Lauren Rille
I’m Worried by Michael Ian Black
The Rabbit Listened by Cori Doerrfeld*

Extension Activities

Flannelboard: Go Away Big Green Monster

Flannelboard: Pete the Cat & His Four Groovy Buttons*

Prop Sticks: If You’re Happy and You Know It*

Props: Song Cube*

Planning

This was my first virtual storytime, back in June of 2020. I definitely wanted to kick off virtual storytimes with a discussion about emotions and feelings. I wanted to support the kids and their caregivers during this time of upheaval, and to hopefully give caregivers ways to continue to talk openly about emotions and feelings.

I also chose to use The Rabbit Listened because it features a non-gendered child. It was important to me that every child could see themselves in Taylor.

How It Went

Have I ever mentioned that Hooray for Hat! is one of my favorite books? I probably have and it should come as no surprise that it was a great hit over Zoom. I really loved seeing my friends’ GRUMPY faces, as well as their hands raised as we said “Hooray for hat!” I had some children turn their cameras on especially so I could see their GRUMPY faces.

For our first flannelboard, I did Pete the Cat and asked the kids to roll their hands along with me and to clap for the “POP!” portion. This was a great way to monitor if everyone was following along with me. I don’t know if they sang Pete’s buttons song since our Zooms are muted, but they definitely rolled and popped along!

During The Rabbit Listened, I took the time to ask a lot of questions and brought the book close to the webcam so the kids could really see what Taylor’s face looked like and the kids could talk about how they thought Taylor was feeling. I invited them to participate in several ways: they could tell the grown-up in the room with them, they could type the name of the emotion, or they could make the face.

Lastly, we finished up with “If You’re Happy and You Know It”, with more emotion face-making encouragement and a flannelboard telling of Go Away Big Green Monster which I asked the kids to use their arms when we repeated “GO AWAY!”

Since this was my first, I planned a lot of different ways for the kids to interact with the materials and with me — I had NO IDEA how they would adapt to storytime on a screen. I’m very pleased to say that they were engaged and attentive and that we really had a meaningful storytime together. I definitely had to cry out my emotions — both sad and happy — after we had closed the Zoom room for that day.