Kids feeling left out or sorry for themselves, and kids learning about friendship. An accidental storytime theme developed. I started by picking one of my favorite books: Unicorn Thinks He's Pretty Great by Bob Shea about that grumpy goat and ever upbeat unicorn.
Not necessarily needing a specific theme, yet wanting a thread of similarity to run through my book choices, I next picked Duckling Gets a Cookie? by Mo Willems. Funny, and an act of kindness changes an attitude. I'm starting to like where this is taking me.
An accidental find at the library was a perfect fit for this different friendship"theme" storytime: Number One Sam by Greg Pizzoli. Sam isn't number one for once but his friends still cheer him.
I picked out Ferdinand by Munro Leaf. It's better to be yourself than just join the crowd. Not entirely happy with that choice, but I didn't want to over think the whole thing.
Later, out of the blue 2 more "perfect" books came to mind that would work for this storytime: Adventures of Beekle by Dan Santat (see my post about this great book)and Enemy Pie by Derek Munson. I recently read Enemy Pie and thought, yes, kids would get a kick out of it AND it teaches a lesson. (Dad is making a pie that will get rid of enemies).
There are sooo many great choices! Too many for one storytime, but options are always great to have. Will kids get all the subtleties in the books? Probably not. Will they see you need to give people a chance because they could be a great friend? Hopefully. Will they have fun listening and playing during storytime? Yes they will!
It's great to have a storytime you're excited about and all ready to go at the first opportunity! All you need to do is throw in a few action songs, a couple fingerplays, and the ever popular (well, maybe not) craft (Duckling headband with feather and beak) and let the fun, AND learning begin!
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