Enjoyable and Easy Preschool Crafts For Storytime

Do you need ideas to get your young children to love reading? Are you in charge of storytime or circle time at your preschool or library? If so then read on Using crafts with the books you read to young preschool children and even older children is a great way to help them gain the skills they need for future book reading. Reading to children is a wonderful experience for both adults and the kids. Often children ask for book readings and indulge in the words and storyline of the book. To enhance a child's experience with the story, have a fun coloring page or craft idea to work on right after you finish reading. Doing a craft that goes along with the stories really helps to draw the child's imagination into the story, it can really bring the story alive for the child To start your storytime off right you'll want to pick great picture books that are fun to read aloud. once you have picked a story then find two more that follow the same theme and are also fun to read with great illustrations. make sure the book is fun for you to read, or you'll lose your audience pretty quickly. If you're bored, then they will be too. Then get your craft prepared. I really like to create coloring pages, based on the illustrations of at least one of the books I've chosen. I try to make the coloring page include cutting and pasting to complete the project. all of these; coloring, cutting and pasting help develop the children's fine motor skills as well as help them learn to create. To find the right craft to go along with the stories you read, you will have to look through the story itself for clues. There are two ways to locate the best crafts from the book. you may turn to the characters in the story and be inspired from them. another good option, is to base a craft on the story itself. for example; if the kids in the book were discussing a season, you could make a craft based on that particular theme, or if the people in the story were making something or looking for an item, you could invent a craft based on that idea. Once you have the right books picked and the craft prepared you might want to gather a couple finger plays or poems to add in the middle of the readings. I like to use simple finger plays that make the kids giggle and laugh. it helps get their wiggles out and get prepared for the next story. When you have all the things you want to use and present to the children in order, then you are ready to gather the children and begin your storytime. I usually start off by introducing myself, and the theme. Then I tell them we will be reading some stories, fun poetry and that we'll finish off with a fun craft to go with our stories. I usually have treats to reward the children with when they show me their finished crafts. That is my favorite part, when they show me their finished project. They are so proud of themselves and I feel such a rewarding glow knowing that I helped them on their path to forever love reading   Fun and Easy Preschool Crafts For Storytime  [l]