Storytime Planning

While the general public might think that planning storytime is just grabbing a few books off the shelf and tossing in a few songs, planning a storytime isn’t that easy! But, if you do it well, the rewards are completely worth it! You’ll have both the kids and caregivers completely enthralled. And with a little planning, I can help you create the best storytime lesson plans that work for you.

My first caveat in this post is that storytimes will look differently for every single librarian, teacher, caregiver, and parent. I spent eight years offering storytimes at my library and while myself and a coworker could do the exact same theme, we’d often choose different books, songs and activities – even our delivery of the program was completely different!

But, what I think is daunting is the sheer volume of picture books, children’s songs, and advice on the internet. How do you pick the right books? What type of song makes a kid want to get up and dance? How do you engage the caregivers in the room to be involved in the program as well? These are all great questions that I hope to answer for you today!

Getting Started

If you’ve never been the storytime leader in your library or school, the first step is to observe. (Make sure to introduce yourself first and ask if you can observe!) See what other storytellers at your library or school do. Take note of the age group of the kids, the theme of the program, and how the storyteller interacts with the families. While I am going to direct this more to librarians and teachers, this could work just as well as an informal way to create themed-reading at home too! After the program, ask questions. Librarians, especially, love to share and will often take an excuse to help someone else out! Some simple questions might be:

• Why this theme?
• What was your favorite part?
• What surprised you about the reaction from the group?
• What would you do differently next time?

Now that you have a better idea of what a storytime looks like, now’s your chance to create your own lesson plan!

A few points to keep in mind when creating a lesson plan:

• Who? – What age group are your creating this for?
• What? – What type of storytime are you creating?
• Where? – Where are you providing this program?
• When? – What day and time? But also, how long is the program expected to be?
• Why? – Why are you creating this specific program? What are your goals?
• How? – How are you going to structure your plan?

Basic Structure

A typical storytime structure includes an introduction, reading 2-4 books, interspersing some songs, rhymes, fingerplays, and maybe offering an activity or craft at the end. You can download a basic template here if you want a starting point for your program.

To Theme or Not to Theme

First things first, are you going to base your storytime on a theme? Many librarians and teachers like the support and structure of a theme. It doesn’t even need to be too involved – round things, or a specific color or letter. You could also be much more specific and pick a specific animal, season, or activity. Themes are great if you’re trying to introduce kids to a specific concept or idea. And they work really well when you’re overwhelmed by too many choices.

But, on the opposite side is to go theme-less and focus on picking just the best books you can find for the age group you’re working with. Or go with a semi-theme and choose your favorite read alouds which is a great way to transition away from themes into the wild frontier. Going theme-less allows you to pick and choose what works best rather than what fits neatly into a specific mold.

Once you decide on what theme you’re going to do or not do, we can move forward selecting the content to fill up your lesson plan.

Selecting Books

For my storytime lesson plan, I typically like to have three books that I plan on reading, but will often have an additional one or two books in case I need to switch things up quickly! Selecting the “right” books depend on a lot of factors. The first and probably most important is to always remember the age of your audience. If you’re working with babies, check out my post on plannning a baby storytime. Toddlers need brief books as in very, very short! These will most likely have very little plot and very few words. If you try to read too long of a book, they’ll quickly lose interest and start being disruptive. Preschoolers are able to focus and sit still for a little longer allowing you to pull a little bit longer books with a little of a plot (beginning, middle, end).

Keep in mind, that you can also adapt a book to make it work for storytime, maybe try paper clipping a few pages together or skipping larger portions of text and paraphrasing. There are a lot of absolutely amazing picture books in this world that I would never, ever read in storytime – and that’s okay. If you love a book so much, create a mini-display to share these books with families who can check them out and take them home where they might work much better in a one-on-one setting.

And when you’re selecting books, don’t forget to incorporate nonfiction, poetry, and wordless picture books into your storytime lesson plan. These are all great options for introducing kids to all sorts of amazing literature! And when kids get to experience these different formats when they are young, they are more likely to pick them up when they become independent readers.

Storytime Introduction

My introduction is always the same. I like to start with a hello song to give families a chance to trickle in if they’re a few minutes late. Once we get settled, I introduce myself and go over our storytime rules. These are very basic rules, if you’re having a moment, please step outside to calm down, if you’re having a day, try again next time, don’t let the kids run around the room, and most importantly we ask parents and caregivers to be engaged and participate with us.

Once that’s done, I usually do a little fingerplay rhyme to get the kids engaged again, our library tradition has been “Open, Shut Them” and we’ve used it for literally decades! Then, before we start reading, I usually try to squeeze in a parent tip, something that coincides with what we’re doing in storytime that’s an easy piece of information to absorb to either reflect what parents and caregivers are already doing at home or to remind them of the importance of doing it at home!

These tips can be as simple as saying both the author and illustrator’s names when you start the book or explaining that by using big words when you read aloud, you can help your little one increase their vocabulary. These shouldn’t be long, drawn out statements – quick, easy and to the point. I also like repeating them again when we get to a specific point during the storytime where you can use that exact tip. That way the parents and caregivers have now heard it twice and hopefully that gives it a chance to “stick”.

Selecting Transition Activities

Little ones have little attention spans, so it’s important for there to be a lot of movement, stretching, and break time in between sitting during the story. I usually try to choose at least a couple of different songs, rhymes, activities the break up storytime! Kids love repetition, so while it seems redundant and maybe a little lazy to you, it’s important for kids. I usually tried to read three books during storytime and always kept my introduction and closing the same. Keeping my transition between the first and second book the same allows kids that chance of repetition and then I only changed the transition activity between book two and book three.

I also tried to remember to incorporate things like fine motor and gross motor movement and practice, counting, colors, shapes, and other basic concepts, but don’t forget to have fun! If you’ve got a flannelboard, use that to provide kids with visual cues to match alone with the sounds they’re hearing.

Where to find these activities? Check out blogs, library and preschool websites, and YouTube! You’ll definitely want to check out Jbrary who does an amazing job of sharing songs and rhymes! I’ll warn you, after a day of creating storytime lesson plans, you’ll head home humming along to your new favorite Laurie Berkner Band song or the most recent Miss Rachel earworm. And you can pretty much make anything into a “5 Little [fill in the blank]” rhyme!

Closing

Again, I keep the same closing sequence for every storytime. It makes it easier to remember for you and the kids know that when I play “Shake My Sillies Out” we’re transitioning from storytime, back into the library. In my library, there is a much-loved monkey puppet that comes out to say goodbye and offer the kids high fives. I personally hate puppets, but when I tried to change the closing sequence, I had so many families comment, that I had to bring Woolly the Monkey out of retirement.

Craft or Activity

While the library I work at now doesn’t include a craft with storytime, the library I grew up in had a craft with every single preschool storytime. I think crafts and other activities that extend storytime beyond the books and songs have their place, but it’s going to be very dependent on what your library can offer and the expectations your community has.

If you’re of the mindset that your storytime would benefit from this aspect, I would strongly suggest looking into process art over product art. This allows kids to experience different mediums and art supplies without the need to produce something that looks exactly like the storyteller’s does. I would also encourage you to think beyond just crafting to science experiments, play times, and more. I would consider what would kids benefit from the most, whether or not you want to tie it into the theme, and how much time it takes to offer it. Many of my storytime lesson plans that I offer include links to crafts, activities, and process art, but almost all of the storytimes that I did, didn’t include this aspect in the program.

Things to Consider

My best piece of advice is to always, always, always make sure you read every storytime book before your program. You don’t ever want to be surprised by a word, pronunciation (I’m looking at you British authors who write rhyming books), or endings!

I was always afraid that I was going to forget the words to a rhyme or song in the middle of storytime. And guess what? It’s actually happened! Thankfully, a few of my “veteran” caregivers were ready to jump in and help me! But, I now also try to keep the lyrics to the song or rhyme typed up on my lesson plan, just in case. It’s not the end of the world if it happens to you, I promise. In fact, if you make a song sheet for your families, then you can encourage them to sing and rhyme along with you, making your job that much easier!

Don’t Be Afraid to Change It Up

Don’t feel like you’re tied into having to do a storytime a certain way. Yes, repetition is important, but if your general format just isn’t working, don’t be afraid to scrap it for the day or change it completely! I once had such a rambunctious crowd that I literally stopped reading a book right in the middle, mentioned that if they wanted to find out what happens, to borrow it after storytime and went straight into a handful of recorded songs to let the kids dance out their wiggles. Was it what I epxected? Not at all. But, it was better than trying to yell over the disruption and ignoring what was happening in front of me.

I did a lot of storytime over the course of eight years and I started looking for new and different ways to make them feel fresh for me. I’ve done a series of parachute storytimes geared toward an active preschool group, I’ve done a yoga series (probably my favorite) where the transition activity time was spent stretching in yoga poses. Make storytime work for you and the families you serve. If you’re not having fun, it’s not going to be enjoyable for the kids and they’ll pick up on that feeling, whether you or they realize it. Be excited about the books, songs, and activities and don’t be afraid to get silly!

I hope this post helps you feel more confident when starting your storytime process! Storytime is a fun and rewarding experience and I always say, if I’m not sweating by the end of the program, I wasn’t working hard enough! If you’re looking for a very basic template, start here, find out what works best for you and go from there.