I'm Library Danielle. :) I've been officially working in libraries since the ripe old age of 14, and volunteered for a few years before that. Books were my refuge as a kid, so it made sense to me to want to be IN a library. At that point though there wasn't much going on in my library. I think there was a story time for preschoolers, but it was just stories and maybe a paper craft. No songs, no fingerplays, no flannelboards. Just books. Which is how I was taught to run my programs when I progressed up the library ladder. I branched out a bit to include interaction and activities in my story times, but the rest was never encouraged. As the years went by and I kept moving up I often to wondered about the "more" for story times. I heard about others using sign language or props in their programs and was interested, but again, it wasn't encouraged. And when I was moved to a Young Adult position I tabled story time and didn't think to much about it anymore.
But now I'm in a new library where I have open permission to run story time as I see fit. Which is super encouraging. And it means that I can try new things- like songs and flannelboards. I'm not too keen on the singing, even though I know the kids don't care, after so long I'm still self conscious. But I'm singing. And experimenting. And hoping that I can find a niche for my programs. Right now I'm running five programs a week- two baby/toddler programs, two preschool programs, and one all ages program. I may switch the baby/toddler programs into two individual programs so one baby and one toddler, but I'm not really that confidant about my baby program skills yet. I know it will take some experimenting and I just have to get my feet wet, but it is intimidating.
I'm starting this blog to help me organize my ideas and plan story times. I want to be able to share ideas, problems, and issues and get feedback from the wonderful community of libraries and story tellers out there. I joined a wonderful group called Flannel Fridays and I want to share things that I'm coming up with. Not that my flannelboard collection is very big, but it's growing and I want more. My story times have a lot of potential right now and I want to begin to reach it, so I'm taking the first step by putting my ideas out there for comment. I'm really hoping to get feedback from my colleagues on how to reach that level I'm trying to. :)
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