Circus Storytime

In an attempt to catch up on programs I’ve done in the past, I’ve neglected the other fun part of my job: Story times! At my library, we take turns planning a story time theme for the week. I love the circus (or, the storybook circus; not the real circuses that mistreat people and animals) and so I planned a circus story time.

My weekly story time is for ‘Family’ which is usually caps at age five. But I also have to make sure my colleagues with Toddler story time sessions have something to read. My group changes from week to week. Sometimes it’s all babies and sometimes it’s kids who can read along with me. It keeps me on my toes! Here are my circus picks:

• Circus Family Dog by Andrew Clements
• Painted Circus by Wallace Edwards
• Polo and the Magician by Regis Faller
• Sidewalk Circus by Paul Fleischman
• Circus Girl by Michael Garland
• Circus Opposites by Suse McDonald
• Thomas the Circus Boy by David Mervielle
• The Secret Circus by Johanna Wright
• Amazing Animals: Elephants, by Katie Rigg
• If I Ran the Circus by Dr. Suess

I know there are a lot of other circus books out there, but I wanted to try titles the kids may not have heard before. One neat thing about our story time plans is, we always include a non-fiction book. Sometimes we just look at the pictures and talk about a couple facts on the page, but it shifts the focus and shakes things up.

I’m going to be honest: finger plays are not my favorite thing. In theory, I love them. In practice, though, my particular group tends to get distracted by the switch-up. Going back and forth between books and finger plays doesn’t always work for my sessions, but I include them in the plan anyway:

Sally the Camel (Sorry, not typing that one out!)

I Know A Little Clowny
I know a little clowny, going to the fair
A funny little clowny with flowers in her hair
Oh shake it little clowny, shake it if you can
Shake it like a milk shake and do the best you can
Rumble to the bottom and rumble to the top
Turn around and turn around until you have to stop
STOP

The CD I used was In Tents by the Recess Monkeys. I like to play music before story time, as everyone settles in. I also play it during our craft.

This week, we painted with popcorn. Initially, the idea was to paint the actual popcorn with a brush. If you combine food coloring and milk, you can paint the popcorn different colors. Instead, we just dipped the popcorn in paint and let them roll it on the paper. The week before, we’d done apple stamping and nobody wanted to eat the apples. The popcorn, though, seemed more appetizing, and we had to keep reminding children not to eat the painty popcorn.