Story time resumes at library, Celina Record

Preschool story time resumes at Celina Library Lisa Ferguson, lferguson@starlocalmedia.com Jan 7, 2016 Following a winter holiday break, weekly preschool story times are scheduled to resume at the Celina Library on Jan. 15. It’s possible librarian Linda Shaw is as excited for their return as are the youngsters she reads to each week. “I have a good time. I love the kids,” said Shaw, who has been Celina’s head librarian since the facility opened six years ago. She began hosting story time soon after. For most of those years, the event has served as a weekly field trip for the toddler-aged children who attend Friendship Corner Preschool on the nearby campus of First United Methodist Church of Celina. Up to 40 students and their teachers visit the library at 10:15 a.m. on Thursdays for story time, which the public is also invited to attend. Last fall Shaw added a second, smaller weekly preschool story time to the library’s schedule. It takes place at 10:30 a.m. Fridays and includes a kid-friendly craft-making session that typically complements the theme of the books read that week or a seasonal holiday. So far, the largest group Shaw has entertained during Friday story time was seven children (as well as their parents and caregivers), though she hopes attendance will increase in 2016. “It’s not only for the kids, but it’s for the moms, too,” she said. “They meet each week and it’s a way to connect to people who have kids like they do.” Before each story time, Shaw selects age-appropriate picture and rhyming books to read to the children. “I pick books by authors that I know and by the pictures in them,” she explained. The selections are often inspired by requests she receives from the children. Books from the “Pete the Cat” series, about a blue kitten and his many adventures, are particularly popular with the youngsters, as are classics by Dr. Seuss. She incorporates props, such as a flannel story board, to tell such timeless tales as “Humpty Dumpty” and “Hey Diddle Diddle (The Cat and The Fiddle).” There’s also a puppet named Booker the Bobcat. “He’s shy and doesn’t say much at all,” she said. “He hides his head a lot and makes faces, but for some reason the kids love the puppet and if I don’t bring him with me, they ask where he is.” Music plays a big part in the story time sessions. Shaw leads the children in singing songs, and encourages them to follow rhythms by rattling plastic “egg shaker” instruments and waving colorful scarves. “It’s a real interactive story time,” she said. Shaw, mother to six and grandmother to five, said she enjoys talking to the children while reading stories. “I’m able to say things and look out at them and look into their eyes, and they are paying attention. That’s (building) listening skills … to anticipate what’s coming next,” she explained. “I’ve read books that rhyme where you’d think that the words are way too hard for them, and I’ll ask them if they know what the word means, and they don’t know, so we talk about what it means and then I’ll use that word later on.” Cara Booth has seen the positive results firsthand. She teaches 3-year-old students at Friendship Corner Preschool and said it’s not uncommon for the youngsters to imitate Shaw and their story time experiences once back in the classroom. “They’ll sit just like the librarian does, and they’ll turn (a book) around and they’ll talk their peers through the story and show them the pictures the way the librarian does,” Booth said. “Or, they’ll sit down with their (dolls) sitting in their lap and read to them.” Story time also introduces children “to basic sight words that they’re seeing, that they’ll recognize,” Booth said. “They’ll see that a word starts with the same letter as their name and they recognize that. It helps with the early learning of letters and sounds.” Shaw said she hosts story times partly because she’s “hoping parents are picking up on what … they most certainly should be doing at home,” which is reading to their children, “so that when they go to school, they have the pre-literacy skills they need to succeed.”