Run, run, just as fast as you can!

I did storytime this week at the two public library branches (rather than at the Headstarts where we do them, too).  If I do say so, I rocked it!  At one, a grandma told me that his son never sat still for storytime like he did for me.  And for the other, a mom came up and asked me if I was a substitute.  I said no, I'm just new, and she said, "Oh - you're really good."  Whoo!

I figured out, though, that this creates pressure for the next time.  I have to rock it every time!  And I know what I did to rock it - I did a storytelling, rather than a book reading, to begin.  This allowed me to have eye contact with each of the children and preschoolers LOVE that.  Then also, I did three different fingerplays which were very intuitive so the kids could follow along quickly.  So I'm getting ready for next time - the week after Christmas I'm at the branches again, doing one on mittens, and the next week at the main library with the theme winter wonderland.  More on those later.

So here's the stories I did:

The Gingerbread Boy - my own telling of it, with a few clip art pictures - from a book! - that I colored with crayons.  FYI, do not use anything other than Crayola.

Then, I read The Cow Loves Cookies by Karma Wilson:

Then I read The Best Mouse Cookie by Laura Numeroff:

Then I read If You Take a Mouse to the Movies, again by Numeroff:

In between, the fillers were "One little gingerbread boy on the tray/He jumped up and ran away/Catch me, catch me, oh catch me if you can/You can't catch me!  I'm the gingerbread man!", "Where oh where is my gingerbread boy?", and "One little, two little, three little cookies."  Too much fun!