Story hour for children
Story hour for children is held every Saturday at the International Library of Children's Literature (ILCL).
Participation in the story hour is open to children from four years old to junior high school age and their guardians.
Children's interests vary, and we attempt to satisfy the minds of children brimming with curiosity by presenting a mixture of Japanese stories, tales from around the world, modern picture books, science picture books, books with wordplay, and nursery rhymes.
Story-hour activities sometimes start with nursery rhymes and may also include storytelling: telling stories from memory without looking at the book, and reading picture books.
Sharing a single story with other participants opens up a completely different world from that of reading by themselves.
How to conduct a story hour
1. Beforehand
- Publicizing the story hour session
- At the ILCL, we announce the story hour on our website, in our newsletter, and on library bulletin boards, etc.
- Planning a program
- We perform a story hour session with approximately 30 minutes of content on the whole. We put together a program, considering the age group, the interest of the story, and the overall balance.
- Introduction
- In the story hour, we include activities like hand games and nursery rhymes. Even children who meet for the first time at the story hour begin to open up to each other and find it easier to enter the worlds of the stories.
- Storytelling
- We may also incorporate storytelling to let the children taste the enjoyment of imagining the narrative world when they listen to a story. With children's reactions directly shown, the storyteller can learn what kinds of stories children like and how they enjoy them while appreciating the world of the story right along with children.
- Reading Picture Books
- We choose one modern or folktale picture book as the feature, and then a light, enjoyable picture book, or a book highlighting wordplay. We choose these books with an eye for the season and the children's interests, etc.
We enjoy a nursery rhyme at the end of each story hour. - Practice
- We not only practice each story or picture book thoroughly, we also practice them through each program.
We don't simply practice storytelling and reading by ourselves, we always present an actual performance in front of colleagues and get their feedback before the real story hour.
We confirm that the contents of the program are a good fit for the children, as well as the narration style, the voice volume, the way the book is held, etc. with comments by colleagues.
2. Actual session
We guide the children to another room for the story hour, where the children can leave their normal world behind and enter the world of the story more easily.
Once the story hour has ended, the children return to their normal, everyday world.
We hand out the day's program (listing picture books read) to the children at the end of the story hour.
3. After the story hour has ended
The books we have introduced at the story hour are on the shelves in the Children's Library. If a book strikes a child's fancy, they can grab it off the shelf.
In the Children's Library, you can see children joyfully listening to their parents reading the books which we introduced to them at the story hour.
