week 6: monster mash

An abbreviated entry this week because I have some mega-deadlines bearing down on me (and they are not fun either, so I am likely to take any excuse I can find to procrastinate). Plus no storytime next week, so there's that bad news out of the way as well. On to business.

Maybe you've heard about Bay Area traffic, maybe you haven't. I'll tell you this: bridges suck. I have to cross a particular bridge to get to storytime on Thursday, and this Thursday the bridge was insane. Public transportation is not a realistic logistic option of the particular location I do storytime at (at least from my point of departure), so I drive. Or, on Thursday, drive a little, sit for a while, drive a little, sit for a while longer, drive a couple feet, etc., etc. Unusual for that time of day, and the fifty (usually 25) minute trip made me a few minutes late for storytime. Ugh.

Class 1 and 2

I was a little flustered for this first storytime, what with being late and all. We persevered. Ghosts in the House! received a surprisingly mediocre reception, and that was a slight bummer. I then proceeded to slaughter "The Ghosts Go Gliding By," but I am pretty sure no one really noticed. We skipped There Was an Old Monster due to time constraints, and Pumpkin Trouble was well-received. Not a lot of LOLing, but the kids seemed really interested in the story. I definitely will consider using it again.

Class 3 and 4

What a great storytime! I think I took a lot of things I wrote-slash-thought about over the course of last week to heart, and got some really good results. Also, having more time to settle in really helped as well, which makes me feel crummy about the first storytime.

I don't think I wrote about this (I meant to) but I decided to go with two books and a felt board story to accomodate Class 3 and 4's shorter attention spans. This worked wonders. We did There Was an Old Monster! (which they loved, and which I will use again for sure) and Pumpkin Trouble, which (again) didn't get a lot of laughs but really seemed to capture the kid's interest. They seemed to particularly like the concept of the Pumpkin Monster, and someone (Aroyal, maybe?) yelled out to me, "You're the Pumpkin Monster!" Highlight of the day, no doubt.

We did The Three Billygoats Gruff for our flannelboard story. Or my version, anyway. They loved it! We'll be doing another flannel story next storytime, and probably for the foreseeable future. I also used the flannel board with singing BINGO, with less successful results. I mean, it was fine but whatever.