I meant to bring my camera yesterday and get photos of the additional felt pieces I’ve made for Where’s Spot by Eric Hill, but, of course, forgot.  But today’s post is more about the process of presenting this story in felt, because yesterday’s storytime was an excellent example of how a felt story can spark something in younger kids in a way that a story in print doesn’t.

For yesterday’s storytime, I loosened up my presentation of the felt story considerably, and did more of a storytelling/felt presentation than a precise retelling of the story.  I paid attention to the reactions of the kids, and drew out the suspense more than I do when using the book (I should note that I’ve used this book more times than I can count for storytimes, since it never seems to get stale for the kids).  It was amazing to watch their expressions as the story progressed, and to see how completely and totally involved they were in the story.  Very, very cool.

And the best part was that in the Quiet Time section of the storytime, which came right after the feltboard story, all of the kids chose to read Where’s Spot with their parents.  Every single one of them.  (Good thing I had multiple copies available!)  So seeing and hearing the story in a felt version actually inspired all of the kids to go back to the original print version of the story – who could ask for more than that?