Sensory-Friendly Storytime Theme: Sheep

This month for outreach I focused on sheep… for no particular reason, except there are some really cute sheep books available!

For this group of kids, I end up seeing eight classrooms that are combined into four storytimes with a range of ages and disabilities.  And the group changes throughout the year and since I only get a chance to see them three times during the school year, it can be an almost new group each time making planning somewhat difficult.  But, over the years I’ve done this I’ve learned a lot about what grabs kids’ attention.  Puppets usually work really well (for most kids) and a lot of kids love sing-along books.  So this time around I took out a little fingerpuppet named Scorch (he’s a dragon!) and the kids did a great job being gentle with him.  

We then read a few stories, played Peekaboo (farm) on my iPad (which the kids absolutely love!), sang along to Mary Had a Little Lamb (skipping verses along the way) and did a flannelboard of It Looked Like Spilt Milk.  The kids overall did really well and some of them definitely expressed their interest in certain books.  So overall, I think it was a big success!

Storytime Plan

Opening: Open, Shut Them

Puppet Meet & Greet: Scorch (dragon)

Book 1: Time to Sleep Sheep the Sheep by Mo Willems / Russell the Sheep by Rob Scotton

App: Peekaboo (Farm)

Book 2: Where is the Green Sheep? by Mem Fox

Song: Mary Had a Little Lamb by Mary Ann Hoberman

Book 3: It Looked Like Spilt Milk by Charles G. Shaw (flannelboard)

Closing: The Wheels on the Bus