Jump and Jive: Storytimes for Two to Five-Year-Olds

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Fee: $75 for those in the California library community and Infopeople Partners, $150 for all others.

(An Infopeople Online Learning Course)
Tuesday October 26, 2010 – Monday November 22, 2010

Start Time: Pacific Time - Noon, Mountain Time - 1:00 PM, Central Time - 2:00 PM, Eastern Time - 3:00 PM

Are you ready to jump in and have fun with your storytimes? The two to five-year-olds attending them are ready to actively participate in stories, singing, puppet shows, and music and movement. Do you want to add to the repertoire of activities that you can use to involve young children, and their parents or caregivers, in your storytimes?

Used during a storytime, these activities are not only energizing and fun, they promote books and reading, and build early literacy skills. Join experienced children's librarian and expert storytime presenter Colleen Willis to learn how to:

  • Plan age-appropriate storytimes
  • Incorporate fingerplays, nursery rhymes, and poetry
  • Adapt a picture book into a simple puppet show
  • Jazz up your storytime with some "funtastic" music and movement

After taking this online course, you'll be armed with booklists, songs, fingerplays, puppet scripts, equipment suggestions, and websites to make your storytimes "jump and jive."

Course Description: In this four-week online course you will learn how to plan and deliver age-appropriate, literacy-based storytimes for two to five-year-olds and their parents/caregivers. You will be able to incorporate "parent patter" and concept understanding into your programs, as well as puppets, music, and poetry, with the goal of enhancing child development and early literacy skills. Through video demonstrations, music samples, and discussion forums, we will explore and share a wide variety of storytime components. By the end of the course, you will have puppet show scripts, song sheets, fingerplays, booklists, equipment suggestions, and recommended websites that will help stimulate the exploration of language and literature in your storytimes.

Preliminary Course Outline: Using your web browser and your Internet connection, you will log in to the Infopeople online learning site and complete the following learning modules:

  • Week 1: Early Literacy and Child Development
    • Brain development
    • Developmental milestones
    • Early literacy
    • "Parent patter"
    • Sample storytimes
  • Week 2: Puppet Play
    • Joys of using puppets
    • Puppet songs and rhymes
    • One-man puppet shows
    • Two-man puppet shows
    • Turning a good story into a puppet show
  • Week 3: Music and Movement
    • How music enhances the learning process
    • Caregivers' role in incorporating music into children's daily lives
    • How we use music concepts when planning storytimes
    • Fingerplays and nursery rhymes
    • Music and props
  • Week 4: Storytelling Fun
    • Book selection
    • Storytelling tips
    • Flannel stories
    • Reader's theater
    • Poetry
    • "Stay and play"

Time required: To complete this course, you can expect to spend two hours per week, for a total of eight course hours. Each week's module contains readings and various optional assignments, discussions, and online meetings. You can choose the options most relevant to your work and interests. Although you can work on each module at your own pace, at any hour of the day or night, it is recommended that you complete each week's work within that week to stay in sync with other learners.

Who Should Take This Course: Children's services staff and others involved in the development and implementation of storytimes for toddlers and preschoolers; anyone interested in learning how to incorporate early literacy skills into children's programming or looking for new programming ideas.

Online Learning Details and System Requirements may be found at
http://www.infopeople.org/training/learning_details.html.

Course Start: This 4-week-long online learning course starts on Tuesday October 26, 2010.

After the official end date for the course, the instructor will be available for limited consultation and support for two more weeks, and the course material will stay up for an additional two weeks after that. These extra weeks give those who have fallen behind time to work independently to complete the course.

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Available for contracting: 
No