This may not be a groundbreaking idea, but I wanted to share my approach for avoiding storytime burnout. To give you some background, I run storytime sessions for babies, toddlers, and preschoolers. I also do several outreach visits to different classes and schools. To keep things fresh, I’ve been doing at least one special storytime each month to "shake things up." In addition to that, I run programs for school-aged kids, each with a different theme. Honestly, it was getting pretty exhausting, and the storytimes started blending together a bit. So, I decided to break the year into "units," kind of like a curriculum. Here’s what that looked like for me.
Unit 1 – January
Winter theme
Cold animals (polar bears and penguins)
Unit 2 – February
Love and kindness
Winter or cold animals continued
Unit 3 – March
St. Patricks Day or Green
Green
Unit 4 – April
Springtime
Bugs
Unit 5 – May
Bugs
Birthday (I know vain because my birthday is in May lol)
Unit 6 – June
SRP Theme
Ocean or Under the Sea
Unit 7 – July
SRP theme
Ocean or Under the Sea
August – No Storytimes!
Unit 9 – September
Back to storytime (back to school theme)
Back to storytime
Unit 10 – October
Fall
Halloween (or both themes intermixed)
Unit 11 – November
Food
And more food!
Unit 12 – December
Winter
Holidays
Additionally, in my library system, we need to publish our storytimes to a shared file. Because of that, some of the storytimes go back several years. I think it’s great to save those storytime plans so we can reuse them year after year.
If there’s a theme I really love, I just go with it! I don’t feel the need to force things that don’t quite fit. It’s totally okay to be flexible and not stick to a strict or rigid plan whenever needed.
For example, I hosted two toddler storytimes, a preschool storytime, preschool outreach, and two preschool library tours in April. The storytime I shared was a fun mix of bugs and spring themes. So, if there are two sessions in April, I usually do the same storytime each time. Repetition is actually really helpful for young kids to learn and enjoy!
If you have a storytime method to make running storytimes easier, please share!
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