The theme for today's virtual Family Storytime is "Let's Try It."  This theme focuses on social and emotional skills.  Let's face it, even as adults, trying something new can be scary or daunting, or both!

This theme acknowledges that sometimes if we try something new that mistakes might happen or we might not be as successful as we had hoped and that it totally okay!

Our family storytimes are pre-recorded videos that get posted to social media (our library's Facebook page and our library You Tube page) for a very limited amount of time.  

Today's theme is "You Are AWESOME". I planned this storytime with social emotional learning in mind - with an emphasis self-acceptance.  

Our family storytimes are pre-recorded videos that get posted to social media (our library's Facebook page and our library You Tube page) for a very limited amount of time.  ​

​Our family storytimes are pre-recorded videos that get posted to social media (our library's Facebook page and our library You Tube page) for a very limited amount of time.  

Today's Family Storytime was all about my favorite topic - MUSIC!  We sang, danced, and had a blast!

This program is for children of all ages and their adult caregivers.

Today's Family Storytime gave me an opportunity to use all of my current Storytime Favorites - songs, action rhymes, and books.  

If you haven't read a Jan Thomas book in storytime - you are missing out!  Her books are interactive, have clear pictures that are great for big crowds, and are a real hoot to read aloud.

​Our Family Storytime program is for children of all ages and their adult caregivers.

Today's storytime was a little different from my usual family storytimes because I was joined by a guest reader from our community. This was my first storytime co-presenting with a community member.

Here are a few suggestions for facilitating a storytime with a guest:

• Choose several books for them to read - if you have a document camera make sure that you have duplicates of your book choices so that they can hold the book and read it while you project the pages up on the screen
• Send the book choices and storytime plan to your guest before the "big day" so that your guest has time to look over what you will be doing
• Have your guest come a couple of minutes before storytime starting so that you can go over the plan

I have always wanted to do a Family Storytime that was underwear themed and this week was my chance!  We had an UNbelievable time!  The crowd favorites today were Froggy Gets Dressed, "The Laundry Pokey" from Librarian is on the Loose, and the flannel board story Alien Gets Dressed.  

Today's Family Storytime theme was art and colors!  We had our usual amount of fun, but some of today's favorites were Laurie Berkner's "These Are My Glasses", Samantha Berger's What If... (that full page spread with a unicorn is always delightful), and Pancake Manor's "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes" because of the added verse of "head, shoulders, knees, and muscles!"

It's no secret that I'm pretty partial to unicorns, but I think dragons are pretty awesome too.

I decided to try something new for this storytime and for this blog.  I tempted the Sprites of Technology and switched between two devices throughout storytime: our ELMO document camera and the laptop that we have hooked up to our projector.  I used the document camera to read physical books and I used a Google Slide presentation to project the lyrics to songs or the words to action rhymes. 

Since I am working as a full time children's librarian, and because it is summer reading, I decided to start sharing my storytime outline and Google Slide presentation on the blog.  It takes me 5 minutes versus 45 to put a post together now.  I hope that you enjoy the new format :0)