These Bible stories have been adapted for children aged two and under using songs and manipulatives. The goal of this method of storytelling is to be developmentally appropriate for young children. They love to touch and play with everything. We purchase many of the manipulatives we use in these stories from websites like Oriental Trading U.S. Toy, and Constructive Playthings. We repeat each story, except the Easter story, a minimum of four times. Click here for a suggested yearly calendar.
The children in our two year old program have a class schedule of 20-30 minutes of free play and get acquainted time. We then go to the story room for a 15-20 minute storytime. Following storytime, they return to class and participate in craft time. We sometimes include a snack and end our time with fun worship songs like those by Jana Alayra. Because we have at least three rooms in our two year old program, we often rotate the schedule in the room so that each classroom can have a separate storytime. We value a small group approach to learning in spite of being a large church.
Storytime for our younger children takes place in their own classrooms. They like the security of staying in one room so the storyteller moves from room to room. Our storyteller brings a large bag into the classroom and the children gather round for storytime. It really is amazing how the site of the storybag excites the young children. They drop whatever they are playing with and move to the story area.
If you need additional stories for your program, please visit Palma Smiley’s website. She is the pioneer of this form of storytelling and our church owns all of her books.