By: Holly Van Hoy
Are you lucky enough to have caregivers and/or community members offering to volunteer at your library during storytime, but feeling unsure how to include them? Here are a few ways that I have been able to welcome caregivers and community members as creative partners in my storytime sessions.
Hand Them a Puppet
A semi-retired healthcare worker who specialized in working with children approached me about “helping with storytime.” In just chatting about her interests, her work, and her special skills, we somehow stumbled upon her use of puppets in her work. Bingo! This volunteer comes to storytime twice a week and is comfortable looking at the books I have pulled for the week, rifling through our boxes of puppets, and pulling out a puppet friend or two that relate to the stories (or not)! The puppets welcome the children calmly and quietly, giving puppet high fives and hand hugs when requested. The puppets are a great foil to my rather noisy and bubbly personality, ensuring that all children and caregivers are welcomed in a way that is comfortable for them. As I read a book, I may ask the puppet a yes/no question or two to engage them in the story. For example, when presenting Bathe the Cat (2023 CLEL Bell READ winner), I read the book and this volunteer uses a cat puppet to bring the pages of the book to life, shaking their head “no” wildly when I ask if they like a bath! Fellow librarian Melanie Borski-Howard at Boulder Public Library goes further by including magnet letters and having the cat puppet scramble them around as the cat character does in the book! We’ll have to try that next time…
Read Bilingual Stories Together
I am monolingual and I only speak English fluently – and some days, even that’s debatable! I have approached caregivers for help to present bilingual books in storytime to great success. The back-and-forth conversation between the two characters in Bye Land, Bye Sea (2025 CLEL Bell TALK winner) is fun to read with two people! I am always sure to ask ahead of time to be sure the volunteer is comfortable reading aloud in their heart language. Sending the book home with them ahead of time is also a great way to bolster confidence.
Get Messy!
A storytime parent and her little guy told me they really love making all kinds of slime, goo and dough. They wanted to share their love of these messy projects with their storytime friends! This parent and I planned a month of Sensory Storytime that took over our regular storytime sessions. We put our heads together for a few hours, connecting a sensory activity with a few stories and songs. We gathered all of the materials, ingredients and books we needed for each week in four different boxes. At the start of each week, we pulled the week’s box, prepared any dough or gooey things we’d planned for that week, and set up an hour before storytime. By the end of the month, we’d converted several children (and grownups) who thought that they didn’t enjoy playing with slime, goo and dough! Try pairing Little Plane Learns to Write (2018 CLEL Bell WRITE winner) with sensitive skin shaving cream (or create a thick foam with baby shampoo and a little water). Spread a layer across a low table and encourage little ones to use their fingers to make loops, arcs and lines in the fluff.
* Note: Please follow your library’s policy regarding volunteers. Alamosa Public Library requires a background check and application form.
