Opening Day!

I believe that Every Day Is Storytime in the lives of busy families. 

This blog is dedicated to exploring the fun of finding and appreciating the words and stories tucked into the corners of your family time together. From infants to adults, the sounds and rhythms coming from your own voice and the voices of others can make for wonderful ways to connect with each other and the world: all from the telling of or the listening to a story as classic as The Little Red Hen, to the making up of your own The Tale of What I Had for Lunch Today to the repeating of a poem or song as many times as makes you happy.

There are many remarkable, resource-rich blogs and websites out there for you with lots of storytime ideas and materials for you and for libraries, schools and daycares.  I am not skilled at all the computer wizardry that produces such amazing sites.  So I shall just share on my own simple terms and hope you can make use of what I have to offer.  My focus is to supplement your parenting efforts with my creativity in celebration of the amazing opportunities of childhood.   

I recently retired from over thirty years of developing and presenting programs for children at a public library.  I designed over forty themed preschool storytimes. Each storytime consisted of an opening song, which I wrote, usually three books alternated with action rhymes, songs or finger plays, sometimes a cut-and-tell story, a flannelboard story told with felt figures, and a closing circle song.  We always had such a good time with stories and words of all kinds! 

When I could not find enough material to fill out my plan, I just wrote it myself.

With this blog I publish some of my writings for you to use with your preschool children as you experience these exciting and crucial developmental years together.  I consider preschool to be any age before five.  Perhaps someday I will put all of this into a book, but for now I include a booklist, some activity ideas and a few suggestions for creating your own stories.  Some posts will feature some of my poems or song lyrics (you can make up your own melodies) or fingerplay/action rhyme.  I want to help ensure Every Day Is Storytime in the life of your family.