PJ Storytime: Dinosaurs

There’s no shortage of dinosaurs books in the library, but some great new ones grabbed my attention this past year.

I also finally found the time to create a flannel I’ve been thinking about for the longest time. I’ve always thought that the book “Shape by Shape” would be fun as a flannel but there were a few logistical issues that I had to overcome. I finally had success and started out the storytime with the flannel adaptation.

Song Cube

While not a new idea, the song cube has been popping up all over my feed and so the Storytime Bandit could not resist stealing this great idea.

If you haven’t heard, a song cube lets you roll the die to see what song you will sing next. Others have used tissue boxes as the base of their story cubes, but I’m a bit impulsive and since we use the long rectangular tissue boxes, I didn’t have the patience to buy and use a full box of tissue before I could begin (and there was no way I was going to waste all those tissues). So I decided to take a chance and make a cube from cardstock and lots and lots of packing tape.

Storytime Songs and Music

I’ve been wondering how to freshen up my storytime this year. I realized, looking back at my old plans, that I tended to use the same few songs from only a few CD’s. I’d begun using recorded music at the end of my storytime more and more, and I think it may become a permanent pattern. If I’m going to try and add a music element to my storytime each week, I definitely need to expand my repertoire.

When I started searching out new music for storytime, I stumbled upon the debate of CDs vs. A Cappella. The pros and cons of both are discussed on  Mel’s Desk and That’s So Juvenile, Hi Miss Julie made the wonderful point I tell my parents all the time: Kids don’t care about the quality of your voice. Sing anyway! And Future Librarian Superhero takes a strong stance against recorded music during storytime,  and makes a great point that this give the caregivers at her storytime no excuse to not sing at home. This conversation has been popping up around my library system as well lately, and so I wanted to add my voice to the chorus.