After several months of teaching myself new approaches to storytimes, I’m finally hitting my stride with both the Toddler and Infant storytimes.  It’s taken a lot of hard work, and I’ll admit to getting myself fairly worked up and stressed out about these two storytimes in the early months, but I’ve managed to find my own rhythm for each.

I’m still using Storytimes for Two Year Olds by Judy Nichols as my starting point for the toddler storytimes.  Nichols’ book contains a huge amount of useful information, suggestions, activities, and book suggestions, but she masterfully leaves enough room for the reader to add his or her own personality and ideas.  As I’ve become comfortable with the format and the age group, I’ve started to make each storytime my own.  Rather than depend on Nichols’ book suggestions (most of which are not in my library’s collection), I’ve found books that are in our collection that work beautifully with toddlers.  Instead of always using her suggested fingerplays and songs, I’ve pulled in some from Hugh Hanley’s collection that are more fun and less forced.

And, most importantly, I’ve mastered the art of using the flannelboard to tell stories.  Last week I premiered my masterpiece (so far, hopefully there will be more masterpieces to come): a full set of flannelboard figures for Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear? by Bill Martin Jr. and Eric Carle.  It took me several hours to complete the figures, but they’re pretty fantastic, and the kids loved the story when it was told in that graphic format.  Happily, too, I had the foresight to make the figures on my own time, with my own supplies, so they belong to me and not to the library, and can go with me wherever my future might take me.  Wise, wise, wise – I left far too many materials behind when I left my last job.

And Betsy Diamant-Cohen’s Mother Goose on the Loose curriculum has made the infant storytimes a breeze.  Now that I’ve been using the MGOL format for a few months, I’m finding that the kids and parents who regularly attend are relishing MGOL’s predictable repetition, and we are having a real blast together.  And Jennifer has started up a Wednesday morning session of MGOL, which hopefully will build and grow just as the Tuesday session has. 

Now that I’ve reached a level of comfort with these two storytimes, and now that I’ve built up a library of materials and lesson plans, I feel like I can relax more and enjoy each storytime more than before.  And, I’m left with more free mental energy to use for ordering books.  It’s all good, all very positive.

My ego took a major beating this morning.  Major.  During today’s “Mother Goose on the Loose” program, there was one child who kept crying – not constantly crying, but intermittently crying.  Head down on the floor, hands over the ears, absolutely miserable crying.  About half-way through the storytime, I realized that she only cried when I was singing.  When I was reading a story, or doing a fingerplay, she still looked a bit grumpy and out of sorts, but she didn’t cry.  As soon as I started singing, she’d wail in agony.

Of course, I do think there was more going on here than just my singing:  the child was about four years old, far older than the other kids attending, and she had to share her mother with her little brother who is about a year old.  And, she just gave off the vibe of being generally cranky and “off” today (mom’s exasperation was palpable).  I’m guessing that she’s probably coming down with a cold or the stomach bug that has ravaged the town.

But even figuring these factors in, her crying made me very conscious of my singing for the first time in quite a while.  I’ve gotten to the point that I just go ahead and sing during my storytimes, without pausing to think about how dreadful I probably sound, and as a result my storytimes have become pretty fun and fairly popular.  If I’m not self-conscious, I can allow myself to have fun.  If I have fun, everyone else seems to follow suit.  Today, though, I had a few minutes of awkwardness as I paid total attention to myself and my performance. 

Luckily, I was able to let it go after those few minutes, and soon I was singing again with gusto.  Sure, my singing stinks, but I haven’t heard any of the moms who sing like angels, either.  Perfect voices are not what infant storytimes are all about.

As reported previously, I have changed the format of my Toddler Storytime, so that it now runs in six-week sessions that require pre-registration.  In past years at our library, all storytimes have been drop-in, and some eyebrows were raised when I decided to switch this one storytime.  I heard a few mutterings that attendance would drop off, that no one would sign up.  I myself wasn’t sure what to expect; I only knew that I was going to go prematurely grey and wrinkled if I didn’t claim some control of the Toddler Storytime.

Amazingly, it has all worked out beautifully.  So many families registered on the first day that I decided to add a second time slot which meets immediately after the original time slot, and now both time slots have ten children and their caregivers signed up for the six week session, the perfect size for this age group.  The benefits of pre-registration are many, but here are my favorites:

• Since I have a list of names to work from, we can all wear nametags and get to know each other.
• I have the ability to stress the importance of arriving on time (it’s the first bulleted item on the registration letter).
• The children will benefit from consistency of attendance, both their own and their storytime-mates: we’ll be able to grow as a group, and to establish a true group dynamic.
• Room set-up and book selection are majorly simplified for me.  I know exactly how many carpet squares to put out, and how many books to request from other libraries.
• And having the two time slots meet back-to-back means that I only have to prepare once for two separate sessions. 

The Infant, Preschool, and Saturday storytimes will remain drop-in, for a variety of reasons, but the benefits of containing the scope of the Toddler Storytime have been enormous.  Rest assured, if demand increases, I’ll add a third time slot.  The intention is to make the program better for everyone, but not to leave anyone out.  It’s all good.

After two rather difficult Toddler Storytimes (difficult for me, that is), I’ve made the decision to do what I knew all along was the best thing: switch to using pre-registration for this age group.

Though I fully understood that pre-registration was preferable for this age group and for the focused, curriculum-based model that I’m using, I had initially decided not to use pre-registration because of the small size of the town and because a Toddler Storytime is a new concept in this town.  I had hoped that I would be able to roll with the unpredicability of a drop-in toddler storytime, but the last two weeks proved that Judy Nichols (of course) is right in her admonition to pre-register no more than 12 children.

Not yesterday, but two weeks ago yesterday, attendance for the toddler group was 26 adults and kids, including three babies.  Many people arrived late, and not all at the same time, so my “flow” was interrupted over and over again, and I had to keep reining in my highly distractible audience.  Very difficult, and not very pleasant; it’s hard to move the storytime beyond ordinary when your audience isn’t focused or fully involved. 

Then, one week ago yesterday, attendance was only 12 adults and kids, and the group dynamic reflected the scattered nature of the previous week.  Kids were less attentive than they had been in weeks before, and the group didn’t congeal as nicely as I had hoped.  Part-way through the storytime, I made my decision, and announced to all present that the storytime would be shifting to 6 week sessions requiring pre-registration by the end of November. 

Group dynamics aside, another huge benefit of pre-registration will be ease of preparation.  If I know for sure how many kids are signed up, then I know for sure how many materials (nametags, handouts, giveaways) to create, saving valuable time and energy.  I spent the better part of the Sunday before last making two dozen clown nametags (and please do remember that I don’t get paid for any time I spend on the weekend doing prep work), and ended up using only six of those nametags.  Sure, I can use them again, but I would have liked to have a more relaxing weekend, too.  Life is short.  Why create stress when it’s not necessary.

So this past Monday’s Toddler Storytime will be the last drop-in storytime for that age group.  We’ll have a two week hiatus (Veteran’s Day and school vacation week), then begin our first 6 week session on November 26.  I’ll take sign-ups through the Friday prior.

Got a visit yesterday from a mom and a little girl who had attended my first two- and three-year-old storytime on Monday.  At the end of the storytime I handed out a “medal” to each child that said either “I’m a Big Boy!” or “I’m a Big Girl!”, and this mom said to me yesterday, “You have NO idea how much that meant.”  And then she went on to explain that her daughter had shown off her medal all day on Monday, to everyone she saw.  But more importantly, this little girl also told her mom on Monday that she didn’t want to wear diapers anymore.  It was the turning point in this one little girl’s life, and she hasn’t worn diapers since.  Wow.

I can’t really take credit for this, though.  I turned to a classic tome to get me going on this toddler storytime, Storytimes for Two-Year-Olds by Judy Nichols (the 1987 edition), and I used her “Babies” lesson plan to the letter.  I was afraid it would be a bit hokey, but obviously it was perfect.  Thanks, Ms. Nichols.  You know your stuff.