Last night I stayed up until ten o’clock working on two more feltboard stories:  versions of Mouse’s First Halloween by Lauren Thompson and Humbug Witch by Lorna Balian.  I’ll use the mouse story with this morning’s toddler storytime (replacing the hugely unsuccessful Leaf Man by Lois Ehlert that I used in the two Monday toddler storytimes), and I’ll use both stories with this afternoon’s preschool storytime. 

Halloween is just about my favorite holiday, and I’m really looking forward to these two storytimes.  It’s a great feeling when I find a story that translates well to a feltboard retelling, and an even better feeling when I actually have the time to create the felt pieces.

In other feltboard news, last Friday I hosted a preschool class for a storytime, and used my in-process pieces (in-process because this is such an involved story to translate to the medium of felt) for Where’s Spot? by Eric Hill.  The kids loved the story, and one even cried out mid-story:  “This is cool!  It’s just like a puppet show!!”

Someday, I promise, I’ll post a few photos of my felt stories.  I’m having so much fun making and using them that I’d really love to share them with the three people who read my blog…or is it four?  🙂

I just had the oddest comment from a kindergarten teacher who had come to observe the preschool class that attended my infant storytime this morning.  This teacher and I had talked ahead of time about how it might be a bit interesting, having a group of preschoolers joining in with a storytime that’s intended for babies; we were wondering how well it would work out. 

And after it was all over, the teacher came up to me and said, “You know, that worked out incredibly well!  They were very attentive!  And, of course, it really helps that you have a lovely singing voice!”

Wait a second.  Did she just say that I have a “lovely singing voice”???

She did.

I’m in shock.

Storytime went ok – not great, just ok.  The thing about being nervous is that it can wreak an otherwise great storytime:  I’m not having as much fun, I’m doubting myself…and then everyone else doesn’t have as much fun, and they start to look at me a bit funny, as if they’re thinking, “She’s not all that.  Hmmmm.”

And, there are the stupid errors.  At the end of the storytime, I said, “Ok, let’s sing our closing song now!!  The song we always sing at the end of storytime!  [I inserted the name of the song here, and I’m honestly not sure whether I said “The More We Get Together” or “If You’re Happy and You Know It.”]  Here we go!!”  And then I started to sing “The More We Get Together,” which is our opening song, not our closing song.  I caught myself halfway, finished the song, and admitted that it was the first storytime of the year and I’d made a mistake.  And then we sang the correct song, “If You’re Happy and You Know It.”  Sigh.

Let’s hope I’m not nervous again tomorrow morning, for my first Mother Goose on the Loose program in a while.  Sigh.  (And hopefully I’ll sleep tonight, too.  That would be good.)

Storytimes start again today, and I’m ridiculously nervous.

I’ve done this particular storytime (Toddler ~ Babies) before; I know more than half of the kids and parents who will be attending; and I stayed a half hour late on Saturday and got to work a half hour early today (off the clock, of course) to do prep work.  And, as usual, I did prep work yesterday (Sunday), and when one of the books I’d planned on using was sub-par, Jim drove me to the library at Patriots half time to pick up a different book.

There is absolutely NO reason for me to be nervous.  But I am.  Wish me luck!

Now that I’m about to start back up with the Toddler Storytimes (a week to go and counting…), I’ve been going back to the first lesson plans that I created last year.  And, well, they’re substandard.  That is to say, by the end of last year I’d worked out a nice system for these storytimes, and I’d gotten rather picky about the quality of my felt pieces for the feltboard stories.  These early plans just don’t measure up to the standards that I had set once I got in the flow of the toddler storytimes.  And thinking back, I didn’t even have a feltboard on which to tell feltboard stories at the very beginning of last year.

So I’m kind of starting all over with these early plans.  Reselecting books to use and recommend (I’d made some lousy choices early last year), redoing felt pieces, rewriting the handouts that each child receives at the end of the storytime.  Granted, I’m much more experienced with the whole system now, and thus am able to speed through the preparation process much more quickly, but…I had sort of thought I was done with this when school finished last June. 

If I’m honest with myself, these toddler storytime lesson plans and handouts and materials will never really be finished.  The more I do the storytimes, the better I’ll get at them, and I’ll have to tweak my resources to reflect my increased knowledge and experience.  Which isn’t a bad thing: these storytimes will only be good if I’m truly engaged in them, and I won’t be engaged if I’m just regurgitating a plan I wrote two or five or ten years earlier.  Not to forget that there are great new books being published each year that should be considered for use either as the books that I read to the group or for the quiet time reading between parents and children. 

Just like any job, it’s tempting to get settled into a rut and not put forth the effort that one did at the very beginning.  But that type of work ethic doesn’t do anything for the quality of your job performance, nor does it bring much personal satisfaction for a job well done.  So I’ve come to peace with the reworking of these toddler storytimes.  Actually, I might be enjoying the planning process more this second time around.  And now I think it might be time to make those felt pieces for that first storytime of the year, the “Babies” storytime.

I’ve been a little preoccupied with building up my library of felt pieces for storytime.  The three most recent highlights are:  felt pieces for Eric Hill’s Where’s Spot, which proved to be quite a challenge, but turned out very well; pieces for Robert Kalan’s Moving Day, which were a hit; and pieces for Margaret Wise Brown’s Big Red Barn, which took a looooong time to make.   All those farm animals!!!

The deeper I get into creating flannelboard stories, the more complex my creations become, and the more time I spend each weekend making them.  It’s a vicious, though rewarding, cycle, and a cycle which has taken away from my blog writing time over the past several weeks.  On the bright side, though, there are only three more storytimes left in this school year, and then my library will be complete except for a tweaking here and there.  (Though I suspect my tweakings will be time-consuming, too, since my standards are a lot higher now than they were in September when I began this project.  Sigh.)