20 Years of Storytime

In January I posted this pic in Instagram with the caption “2016 = twenty years of planning storytime.”

In 1995 I graduated library school, and in early 1996 I landed my first library job and was given a weekly storytime, so that’s where I’m starting my official count. Unlike a lot of librarians, I had NO experience with storytime before I went to library school. So my children’s services class was the first chance I had to put together a storytime agenda.

Guess what?

It was pretty mediocre.

How do I know?

I still have it!

I look at this plan and I think of ALL THE THINGS I have learned about storytime, and kids, and presenting, and cognitive & physical development, and group dynamics, and early literacy, and children’s literature, and ten other things I am forgetting at the moment, over the thousand storytimes I have shared.

I would grade myself much more harshly than my professor did! 🙂

Out of this entire list, I would, maybe, keep The More We Get Together, Where’s My Teddy, and Teddy Bear Teddy Bear in a storytime I planned now. I put storytimes together in a completely different way. I look for different qualities in my rhymes and fingerplays. My time is more evenly balanced between books and activities. This doesn’t even feel like one of “my” storytimes!

I love that I can look back and see how far I’ve come. I can’t wait to do another 10 or 15 years of storytime and see where I end up!

What have you learned since you’ve started storytime? What’s different about your storytimes now?