Going to story time at the local library is a fun outing for children. If your child is reluctant to practice reading, having her pretend that she is the librarian during story time and inviting friends over to your story time is a great way to make reading exciting!
In this activity, your child plans the story time, makes a flyer to invite friends, creates a coloring sheet for the guests to color, and performs the story time.
What You Need:
- Book that the child can read
- Paper
- Crayons or markers
- Chair
- Props, such as glasses, hats or scarves
- Stuffed animals or dolls (optional)
- Video camera (optional)
What You Do:
- Tell your child that she is going to pretend to be a librarian and she is going to host a story time for her friends. If you do want to invite people over, you can “invite” her stuffed animals and dolls to the story time.
- Have your child pick out a book or two that she wants to read for story time. Tell her that she also gets to sing any songs and ask the audience questions about the book.
- Sit with her while she practices reading the book for story time. Brainstorm with her about questions to ask and any songs she could sing. Talk about the characters in the book and how your child should do the different voices to differentiate characters.
- Tell that she needs to make a flyer advertising the story time. On the paper, have her write the name of the book she will be reading, time, date and place of the story time. Have her draw a picture on the flyer that represents the book so that everyone will know what the book is about.
- Talk with your child about what the book is about and have her draw a coloring sheet to pass out at the story time. If possible, make copies of the coloring sheet for all of the guests.
- Pass out the flyers to invite any friends or family members to the story time.
- On the day of the story time, show her the dress up props and help her dress up like a librarian for story time. Glasses and scarves are always fun!
- Have your child decide where she wants to have story time and set up a comfortable chair for her at the front of the room.
- When the guests arrive for story time, have her greet them and show them where to go.
- Have your child welcome everyone to story time. Help your child as needed during story time, but encourage her to run the show by herself.
- Encourage the “librarian” to ask questions and interact with you and the other “children” during the story time. (If you did not invite friends to the story, you can “be a child” at the story time. You can also pretend to be the voice for the dolls or stuffed animals that are also in the audience.)
- After she has read the book and sung any songs, have her pass out the coloring sheet and crayons to the guests. You can also pass out blank paper for guests to color as needed.
- When the story time is over, have your child thank everyone for coming.
- After the story time, praise your child for a job well done and talk about what part she enjoyed the most.
If your child loved her story time experience, you can make it an ongoing event, or even invite her friends to join in a story time group and all participate in reading to each other!
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