Many thanks to Valerie Spooner, the new youth services librarian at the Rusk County Community Library in Ladysmith.  Valerie comes to libraries from a rich early childhood background, and she took the time to send us a blog post about her first storytime!

• I introduced our opening song (Hands Go Up) http://elementarylibraryroutines.wikispaces.com/Storytime, we sang it twice
• I introduced myself to the kids and families and I said hello to each of the children – I had nametags at the entrance, so I was able to call everyone by name.
• I told the kids what we would be doing
• I read Mr. Wiggle’s Book by Paula Craig and we talked about it as we went
• I read Read It, Don’t Eat It! By Ian Schoenherr and we talked about it as we went
• I introduced the poster activity. Since we could only have four children at a time working on the poster, I also had some book care booksmarks for them to color while they were waiting their turn. The bookmarks are from http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Book-Care-Rules-Coloring-Page-and-Bookmarks-FREE-855552
• After everyone was done painting, I called them back to the storytime squares and sang the Listening Rules Song from the Second Step Early Learning Kit http://www.barrington220.org/cms/lib2/IL01001296/Centricity/Domain/1999/ELC_Song.pdf
• I read Forest Friends go to School, available at http://crisscrossapplesauce.typepad.com/files/forest-friends.pdf and here’s her website http://www.kindergartenkindergarten.com/2011/08/teaching-rules-and-routines-taking-care-of-books.html. They really liked this – maybe because it was so similar to the Mr. Wiggle book so they knew what to expect, or maybe because they could tell that the writing, stickers, etc. were real.
• I thanked them for coming, then I introduced our closing song (Tickle the Clouds), and we sang it twice http://laptimesongs.com/tickle-the-clouds/