Jake and Tricia at Storytime
If you have not yet been to a story-time at a local library I highly suggest you try it. Many of the local library branches offer toddler times, preschool times and some even have a baby lap sit time. Check your local Library for the listings. Story-time is a free “classroom experience” with a teacher and a plan. The children are able to be guided by the teacher to dance, sing and play games together. They also learn how to listen to different books and they end with creating a special art project that will soon be on your refrigerator. It is a wonderful pre-preschool experience for little ones. Your child feels secure because you are there with your child. As a parent you are able to escape from the house and speak to adults for a change of pace as well as a change of scenery. There is no ongoing commitment or sign up forms you just show up at the assigned time if you can make it and let the fun begin.
Toddlers and especially 2 – 4 year olds seem to drink it all in at story- time. From the time we walk in the door and my children try to find the first letter of his/her name on the letter carpet. To the time they get to listen to stories told from a teacher they wear a permagrin (permanent smile). It is great exposure for shy children to interact with a teacher, especially when it is acceptable even recommended that the parent let the child sit in their lap during story-time.
Who doesn’t love to hear a good story. To sit on the edge of your seat and wait for the page to be turned. Whether it be a person reading it to you or that “narrator” in your head. Don’t we all love to get caught up in a good book to be transported somewhere else in time out of our own little corner of the world? Storytellers have been around since the beginning of mankind. Oral tradition was how people learned of their ancestors and the traditions they should carry on. The Bible originally came from stories told generation after generation until finally they were written down. If you go to church most places the minister or priest acts as a storyteller, preaching, homilizing or reading scriptures of the Bible.
Have you ever attended a Corn Island Storytelling Festival? Storytellers from all over the United States spellbind their audiences from outdoor stages in parks where families gather for an evening of intrigue and imagination. It’s as though the park melts away and you are the hero in the story.
You as a mom are a storyteller! What stories do you tell your child? Do you tell your child stories of your childhood? Mine eat those stories up. Do you tell your child stories of how you dated your spouse, stories of the world, the good ones hopefully not too much of the bad? Do you tell your child stories about God? Does your child know the story of Christmas? Does your child know about Noah’s ark or Adam and Eve? These are stories every mom can tell simple yet interesting.
Tonight when your child asks for a bedtime story instead of absentmindly reading or reciting the Rainbow Fish for the 1,000th time try telling a story. Tonight be a storyteller who takes your child to another place in time, your childhood, your courtship or even to God. If you make the effort to take that little journey out of time you may just form a memory that lasts a lifetime not just for your child but for yourself as well.
