Here’s a fun group activity I have used with my toddlers storytimers. I do 2 Toddler Times each week. Toddler Time is a registration-required lap-sit storytime for ages 20 months to 3. We have two sections of up to 20 kids. It runs during the school year for 4 6-week sessions. As we all know, this age group is a bit funky. I have tinkered around a lot with my storytime planning, routines, demeanor, etc, to strike the right chord with this age group.

As we all know, repetition is HUGE at this age. But let’s face it, even the most solidly beloved storytime traditions, can get stale after a while. So I start fresh with new rituals at the start of each new session. This has been hugely successful with both parents and kids!

The kids are a bit sad to say goodbye to the old routines at the end of the session, but they also get excited to see what “new, weird things Ms Cate comes up with” on the first day of a new session. And by week two, they recall the old routines fondly, but they are also excited to repeat the new ones. And I think learning to tolerate a bit of the bittersweet sadness that comes with getting older is an important experience for kids and parents alike.

At some point, I stumbled upon a box full of perfect little paper squares. I believe they were originally cut for a Minecraft program. It gave me a kooky idea: Let’s make a special storytime keyboard! First, I showed the group an old keyboard. We passed it around, and let kids push the buttons. I explained that it was called a QWERTY keyboard because the first 6 letters…yaddayaddayadda…They all love the word QWERTY, btw.

Then I taped a big piece of contact paper on the wall sticky-side out. I invited storytimers to take turns picking squares, and placing them on the contact paper. As each kid came up, I stood by with a marker, and she told me what write on the key. We started with letters, and once we got the whole alphabet on the keyboard, we moved on to other stuff, leaves, flowers, animals… We had a ball.

I brought our “storytime keyboard” each week, and used it to “type out” each storytimer’s name as a good-morning routine. The kids loved this greeting activity. More importantly, this little ritual enabled me to get all my storytimers’ names down by week 2! I can very, very tricky. And, of course, this has great letter knowledge practice going on!

Happy FF! I am hosting the FFRU, so stay tuned!