surprise! it's storytime

Well, well, well. My first day back at work after Midwinter was something of a surprise. A double-decker surprise, I suppose. First, I know I had to actually go to work until I was on my way back from the airport Tuesday afternoon and got a text. Second, I showed up Wednesday right as the library opened and boom! talked to NAME REDACTED and she wanted me to do storytime. Both storytimes: preschool and toddler. Which kinda makes sense in the big picture, of which more anon.

So I had very little time to prepare. NAME REDACTED thrust books into my hands, and I pulled up my storytime plans from earlier; maybe you remember the one? Also the other one? I used those, plus the pre-selected books (with one key exception). I won't bore you with the actual plans themselves (mainly because I have pretty sketchy notes and can't remember the name of one of the books I used for preschool storytime). Duh, Planting a Rainbow.

Preschool storytime was up first, and there was a pretty good crowd, especially considering my first outing drew exactly zero participants (school was not back in session yet). We had well over 50 kids, which is pretty good I think. Flying a little blind was liberating in a way, but of course in the back of my mind I thought "aw jeez, if NAME REDACTED sees me blow storytime I am totes screwed." But I had a secret weapon. Not Go Away, Big Green Monster! Not Press Here, either, since I've seen NAME REDACTED do that several times and wanted to use one of my favorites. So I chose Chicken Butt! as my last book and boom! it was a huge hit. Not a surprise hit (Ms. Helen had recommended it to me long ago), but a really nice way to wind things up; it's so gratifying when storytimes work toward a really great moment where everything feels in synch. We laughed our fool heads off and wrapped up with shakers.

Toddler storytime was hecka smaller but it was a great crowd. I do love the different vibe of toddler storytime, and Wednesday gave me some ideas about tweaking and improving my toddler plan. My two books were (duh) Red Light, Green Light and El Libro de Colores de Azulín. Oh my goodness El Libro de Colores de Azulín is SO GREAT! If you are looking for a Spanish language toddler storytime book, you can't do much better. It engaged the younger kids, the older kids, the caregivers, everybody. Simply concept but really well done. For our close, we made a band with shakers and marched around the storytime space. That's one of the advantages to having a smaller group!