Preschool Storytime can be a fun time or a frustrating time! It is all in the way you present it!
If you have often hear "I can't see!" and find that your children are not focused and more interested in pulling the string off their carpet squares, it's time to change up how you do things!
And, you've come to the right place to learn some fun, interactive ways to engage your preschoolers and develop a love of reading in each of them! Let's go!
Using props during preschool storytime is very, very effective.
Look over your favorite books and think about how you can use props with the story.
Can you add a stuffed animal, use a puppet or use finger puppets?
Here are a couple of examples:
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Owl Babies |
This is a great story to read to your preschoolers. Provide a stuffed owl and pass it around as you read the story. When the owl baby says "I want my Mommy!", the children stop passing the stuffed owl and all say the line together.
This is my all-time favorite book to read in preschool! A great idea is to collect toys from your classroom to represent each of the characters in the book such as the boat, the plane, the "snort", etc.!
Give each child one prop/item. They can say the line "I am not your mother. I am a ________" when you get to each part in the book. If you have more children than characters, double up! Have 2 plans, boats, cows, etc.!
Acting out preschool storytime is a so much fun! Our favorties have been Goldilocks and the Three Bears and Little Red Riding Hood. You can begin by reading the story through once and then assign children parts to act out as you read it again.
Most times this means you will read the story 3 times.
Think of ways to act out some of your children's favorite stories. Some ideas for stories that are gun to act out in a preschool group are:
Are You My Mother?Big books are excellent for preschool storytime. Make sure you look for books that are short in length and high interest for the children. Books with a repeating text or rhyming text work wonderfully as they are repetitive and children can memorize them and therefore be involved in them!
Big books are also great ways to learn about the parts of the books because they are so easy for all of the children to see. Here are some ideas to help your children learn about book parts:
There are so many great Big Books to choose from! Check out your local library to see what they have in stock. Below are some of my favorites! You can click on the link to read about the story line and read some Amazon reviews about each one!
To make them, trace the outline of a storybook character from the story or from a coloring book. You don't need detail. I have printed out color pictures, laminated them and placed dryer sheets to the back! They work great!
The children can help tell the story using a flannel board.
You may have a metal cabinet, side of a filing cabinet or a magnetic chalkboard or white board that you can use! Cookie sheets also work great AND can be placed in your preschool library area for the children to use on their own througout the day.
The characters for a magnet board are pretty easy to make.
Cut the characters out of old books, find characters online, or trace coloring books characters.
Laminate the pieces.
Put a piece of magnetic stripping on the back of each character.
Fairy tales are good for this kind of activity: Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Rumplestitlskin etc.
Magnetic story pieces or flannel boards stories offer a wonderful opportunity for children to retell stories. Make them available for children to use after you are done telling the story.
There are a variety of preschool storytime activities you can do to make a simple reading of a book much more fun for your children!
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