I’ve started doing Family Storytimes at Naperville Public Library, 95th Street, so I’ll be sharing my planning sheets here on my website for each storytime that I do.

At NPL, our storytimes have weekly themes. Each Children’s Services Librarian and Associate signs up to plan the theme for 1-2 weeks each storytime season. When we plan a theme, everyone doing storytimes that week will draw from the planned theme. The planner will pick out board books and picture books, flannel stories, songs and rhymes, and puppets and then put them in our storytime baskets so everyone has access to the materials. We also have a “Letter of the Week” that usually goes along with the week’s theme (ie, F or S for a Five Senses theme).

Rebecca posing with a bobcat puppet, prepping for a storytime with a cat theme.

We use an overhead visualizer in our big community room to show books and rhyme sheets via a projector. My storytime planning documents include an outline of my planned books, games, songs, flannels, and puppets, as well as a rhyme sheet for each flannel and rhyme I plan to do so everyone can follow along.

Naperville Public LIbrary Meeting Room set up for Family Storytime (projector screen pulled down, tables below screen with books and puppets, a flannel board off to the left for flannel stories)
Naperville Public LIbrary Meeting Room set up for Family Storytime (projector screen pulled down, tables below screen with books and puppets, a flannel board off to the left for flannel stories)

You can see a list of my themed storytimes and access my planning sheets here. I started with a planning sheet from my coworker, Nicole, and changed the design and modded it to fit my needs.

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