"Boxes" was the theme for last week's storytime, but "train wrecks" may have been a better theme.
My "boxes" storytime was one of those storytimes I put a lot more work into than others. I made two brand new activities to share with them. I fiddled with the new activities and practiced every spare minute I had at work.
Both storytimes were filled with super rambunctious toddlers with grabby hands and an insatiable delight for life, overturning furniture, and completely poopooing all my fun activities.
After our hello song, I sprung an 80s ABC song on them that had this groovy instrumental piece between the first and second time we sang the ABCs. I told everyone to get out their best dance moves and dance with me. It was the longest ten or fifteen seconds of my life. In my second storytime, my favorite nanny saw that no one was going to dance with me and quickly jumped up and got jiggy with it. Surprisingly, this only made it more awkward. All around the room toddlers stared at us with faces filled with scorn and judgement. Ok, maybe that's a bit strong, but they certainly did not get up and dance with us.
We did our quieting down fingerplay and read Big Box, Little Box, which briefly saved the day. This book was the favorite thing in both storytimes. I was astounded (and still am actually) that a kid in each storytime had parts of the book memorized. Two kids had a fairly new book memorized! Go parents!
After I read the book I tried the activity, "puppets in a box," but with ready-to-go sounds. This failed because everyone was way too rowdy. I totally think there's a possibility it could work with a calmer, smaller crowd. When I saw, or heard rather, the second round of kids and parents getting their nametags for storytime I quickly got out the scarves as a backup plan.
This is the "Puppet in the Box" activity. Imagine a bigger box and puppets, really obnoxious sounds lovingly handpicked from youtube videos, and a large grownup trying not to blubber when no one gave a toot about any of the puppets, not even the elephant, which was the loudest.
My "Fox in a Box" activity also failed, but only in my first storytime. As soon as I brought out the magnetic pictures, six pairs of hands emerged, ready to grab them. I couldn't keep the hands off the magnetic pieces long enough to get through the activity and and cut it short. Thankfully, in my second storytime I did not have any grabby hands.
We read What To Do With a Box, did the hokey pokey, and sang our goodbye song. Only the hokey pokey was well-received.
After work on Thursday I went home and climbed straight into bed. My other option was to find a hole to bury myself in until I found something positive to say about the storytime (I was worried this would never happen). It took me a couple days to process my emotions. I initally thought I was being too hard on myself, but then realized the true reason for feeling so low about this storytime. It was so simple. I walked away from storytime feeling like I didn't engage everyone. It felt like there was always at least one toddler running wildly around the room, completely lost in their own world. There were also a couple toddlers I just simply couldn't connect with. I've been fortunate I've been able to connect with so many toddlers and caregivers in my recent storytimes.
After a couple days of searching for positivity and ways to grow, I can say I am proud of myself for bringing out the scarves for the second storytime. Everyone needed to have an outlet for all that energy between books, and my initial activities weren't the right ones for that. Going forward, I will always make sure I have something ready just in case everyone's struggling to focus.
I am also always going to have an interactive book in my pile to read. Big Box, Little Box was the perfect book for both storytimes and a great reminder that interactive books work well in rambunctious storytimes.
After much reflection, I'm ready to move forward. Next week we're going to read books about dinosaurs and I've got a brand new dinosaur dress and a brand new attitude. More importantly, we've got a brand new ABC song that has absolutely no beat, so nobody has to bust any moves during the alphabet.
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