Story Time Goals for 2014

I've been giving some thought to my goals for library services in this new year. Last year was all about STEAM in so many ways, and I'll continue to spend considerable time on my own STEAM initiatives as well as promoting STEAM at conferences in 2014. What I decided, though, as I reflected on the fact that 2013 birthed the Storytime Underground movement, is that my story time skills could use some expansion.

I gave that general goal some thought, keeping in mind that the heavy majority of the story times I provide happen at large outreach locations and thus have few story time "extras" (i.e., parachute, shakers, bells). What I came up with were two monthly tasks for myself to both spruce up my story times and push my librarian skills, as well as a goal to better use the plethora of resources out there in libraryland.

My 2014 story time goals:

1) Share a new (to me and my kiddos) ukulele song every month. That'll be a total of 12 new songs added to my repertoire by the end of the year. Since I'm the sort of person who needs a chord sheet in front of me in case my mind fizzles out come story time, I'll be putting together simple lyrics-and-chords sheets and sharing them here on the blog (copyright permitting, of course).

2) Create and use a new felt story every month. My personal felt story collection currently consists of a store-bought Little Red Hen. It's an okay, generic set. With plenty of encouragement and tutelage from the fantastic folks at Flannel Friday, however, I am embarking on a journey to create 12 felt story sets that work with the way I tell stories.

3) Pay better attention to the resources being shared by outstanding story time librarians, and go beyond just bookmarking them "for later." I'll keep a close eye on Anne's Instant Professional Development series, for example. And I'm ALWAYS grateful to see the storytime badassery that Cory links to at Storytime Underground.

With some thought and hard work, I'm going to make my 2014 story times even better than their 2013 cousins. If you've got tips to help me achieve these goals, I'd love to hear them in the comments or on Twitter. And love and support to you as you aim still higher for your own library services this year!