The beginning of the storytime season is always tough for me. The kids are still getting into the conventions (sitting still, listening, etc…) and I’m still finding the level of books for them. I’ve noticed that the kids at my current library won’t put up with a story heavy book, they need interaction with every page, or I lose them. Today was rough. I had a pretty articulate 4 year old who wasn’t getting into the books. He started out by getting up and going back to the caregiver (not his mother who was elsewhere in the library and therefore not there to keep him on task, but the mother of his friend who was passive to the point of being non-exsistent) every few pages. Then we moved to a fingerplay, and he was jumping up and down in front of me trying to snatch the puppet I was using off of my hand. He settled down ok for the next book (Yo! Yes! by Chris Rascha a surefire hit), but came up and stopped me in the middle of my action song to tell me one of the other kids had “tapped his shirt”. We stopped there and talked briefly about this issue (while the other kids wandered away). At this point I ended storytime with our last song, “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes” and mom came back in the room. He did fine with the craft, but mom was giving him the attention he wanted at that point.
I don’t expect every kid to love every thing I do. We get such a wide range of ages and abilities it’s almost impossible, but parents need to expect, enforce and model good behavior. I’m thinking about requiring parents to stay with their child for the duration of storytime, although I can anticipate complaints as some of our kids come in a group with a sitter or day care mom. I don’t want to discourage anyone from attending but I feel I am justified in expecting a certain level of courtesy from my young attendees.
I’ll have to work on my format.
Sparkly Things 