Get Involved: Toddler Storytime at Children's Fairyland

Last year I had the pleasure of attending Toddler Storytime at Children's Fairyland in Oakland. Moving back to the East bay has been great for so many reasons. One of the big ones has been being able to bring my kids to many of the places I loved as a child. Every school kid in Berkeley and Oakland makes trips to the Oakland Museum of California, and so does my family. We also became members of Children's Fairyland. Walking in, seeing that friendly dragon and the coffee stand shaped like a pumpkin brought back a flood of memories I didn't know I had. Like Tahiti, it's truly a magical place.

Robert Liu Trujillo

Fairyland however, is more than just story book themed attractions and rides for people under 5 feet tall. The park also puts on educational and community programming. I attended Toddler Storytime with my youngest child, where we saw a fantastic artist and author, Robert Liu Trujillo read his book Furqan's First Flat Top. The day also included local community and city sponsored literacy groups, who talked with parents, led fun activities and gave away books. It was very cool, Yo and I had a great time. 

"Great," your thinking, "why are you telling me this? Is this an #ad?" Well no, it's not. Sure, I think it would be great for you to bring your kid to Toddler Story Time, or to sign your older kid up for the Children's Fairyland summer theater camp. (Dude, I totally wish I had gone to summer theater camp here when I was  kid. It looks really cool.) But that's not why I'm writing this. I'm writing this to encourage you to get involved as a reader at Toddler Storytime.

Children's Fairyland is holding their next round of trainings for readers coming up on November 2nd and 3rd, 2018. Dads, they are specifically looking for you. In fact, the event I attended with my kid was specifically geared towards dads. But I'm sure they'd be happy to have you come read any week.

They are looking for adult volunteers (18 and older) who want to be trained to lead toddler-specific Storytimes on the outdoor Emerald City Stage. Volunteers will commit to two days of training and lead approximately two Storytimes per month. Readers should be comfortable engaging with and leading a group of children, parents, and caregivers. In the training, you will develop skills in reading aloud, song leading, and other fun literacy-focused activities. We strongly encourage men to apply!

Toddler Storytime takes place on Fridays at 10:30 a.m. and 3 p.m. with 20 minutes of interactive early literacy activities: reading aloud, singing, and movement. It encourages language development in a joyful environment. The training is led by Fairyland’s librarian, Angela Moffett, who is also a teen services librarian at the San Francisco Public Library.

Training dates:
Friday, November 2, 9:30 a.m.–4 p.m.
Saturday, November 3, 9:30–3 p.m.
The training is highly interactive and both days are required!
 
If you or someone you know would like to become a Storytime volunteer, please email Vicky Chen at outreach@fairyland.org. You'll be asked to complete a short questionnaire to find out more about your experience and interests.


Please give them a look if you're in the East Bay.

Having a Reader

 A cool thing happened over the weekend, my son learned to read. Not in a miracle phonics thing you buy off of late night TV way. He's been learning to read for years now. I'll admit, I was actually starting to get anxious about it. He's recently six-years-old and I remember that by six I was reading on my own, a lot. But until last week The Boy wasn't doing it.

It's not that he couldn't read. I was pretty sure that his not reading was due to his general abundance of caution. The kid doesn't like to do anything until he knows he can do it. He's not a huge risk taker. This is a kid who used to walk to the curb, sit down, swing his legs down and then stand up because he didn't trust himself to just step off the edge. So he kept asking that things be read to him, which is fine with books but can get tedious when walking down the street.

"Dad, what does that say?"

"Dad, what does that say?"

"Dad, what does that say?"

"Dad, what does that say?"

"Dad, what does that say?"

I DON'T KNOW!!!! No, not really. But buddy I believe that you can read it if you really want to. He's spent the last several months sounding things out as if they aren't meant to be words. He's been sounding like Dory speaking whale in Finding Nemo, "Puh Huh Own Buh uh uh Ka" No bud, it says "Phone Book."

I don't know what happened over the weekend. Maybe his curiosity finally overcame his fear of failure. The result is that he's reading. Ever since the weekend it's been,

"Hey dad, that says 'bike repair'."

"Hey dad, that says 'beer and wine'."

"Hey dad, who's Jim Beam?"

OK, I swear I'm making these examples up.

The point is that suddenly having a reader is awesome. It opens up a whole new world of possibilities. Now when I'm cooking dinner and he wants a story he can read one. All on his own. Even better, he can read one to his sister too. The other day in the car he read her Fox in Socks. That's some next level ish for a kid who just a few days before claimed he couldn't read the header on the Cheerios box. Now he's asking me what riboflavin is. (And of course I'm like, "Let's look it up!")

If you already have older kids maybe you know the joy of suddenly having a reader. If you have younger kids, I'm telling you there's a light at the end of the tunnel. Pretty soon your little ones will be able to involve themselves in the joys of textploration, which come to think of it probably comes with a whole other set of parenting pit falls.

But I'm not going to worry about that today. Today I'm stoked that my son just became a little more self sufficient. Me and my buddy Jim can figure out the rest as it happens.