First Annual Storytime Swap

HAPPY FLANNEL FRIDAY!

Wow!

Looks like I missed almost the whole month of November! 

We've been busy at our Library with lots and lots of changes ~ which included a new director and then no director again after less than 6 weeks! Looks like many more changes to come for us! Wish us luck.

Also, I was on a two week vacation which was extremely nice and wonderfully relaxing. <3 It was hard to make myself return to work and a "normal" existence this past Monday but ~ here I am! ;-)

I am happy to be back to blogging and to the Round Up ~ I truly missed contributing to the Round Up each Friday. I look forward to getting back in the swing again.

As happy as I am to be back, I am even happier to share a fun and exciting idea with all of you.

How many of you have ever participated in a Cookie Swap during the Holidays?

They are one of my family's favorite events during the month of December.

So...

I thought I would tweak the idea behind Cookie Swapping and offer an opportunity for anyone who might be interested in something new and different. 

Would that be you? I hope so!

How about a chance to participate in our very own...    

Drumroll, please!

I hope lots of you will be as excited as I am about this!

The rules for our First Annual Storytime Swap are very simple.

For our swap, we will be exchanging something other than cookies. BUT! If you would like to include some cookies, I am sure your exchange partner would not mind. I know I wouldn't! :-) 

I thought about this idea for quite awhile and I very much wanted this swap to reflect all the creativity and excitement that I read each week in everyone's blog posts in our Flannel Friday Round Ups.

That's why I decided that it would be awesome if we exchanged:

 Storytime Props!

Your exchange item can be:

  a Flannel Board set,

a Magnetic Board set, 

 

a Felt Puppet set,  

 

a Storytime Prop 

or really anything at all that YOU love to use in your storytimes to help your storytime friends feel connected to books and have fun learning.

This is all about sharing YOUR excitement for one of your favorite storytime books, fingerplays, songs, creative movement activities, etc.

The exchange will be set-up like this:

1)  Each person will contact me before December 20th by email at storytimeabcs@gmail.com

(Please be sure to email me a second time or tweet me one Twitter using @StorytimeFun or message me on Facebook if you do not receive a confirmation email within 48 hrs. I don't want to miss anyone but we all know that sometimes the cyberspace monsters eat emails or they end up in a SPAM folder somewhere.)

2)  Please include your first and last name, full address ~ including zipcode ~ and the type of item you would like to share with someone else. ALSO ~ please include the answer to this question: Are you willing to be paired with an INTERNATIONAL partner? Our Flannel Friday group is very lucky to be Internationally popular but I know that the cost may be higher to send items out of the country. Please indicate if you are willing to spend that little extra to partner with one of our very creative Internatinal members by answering the above question in your email to me

3) On December 21st, I will place all names in a hat and draw two out at a time. Those two people will be exchange partners. They will send each other the item(s) that they want to share. I chose this way of exchanging so that each pair of partners will be spending about the same amount of money to mail their items to each other.

4) If you would like to participate more than once, please let me know. The number of times you exchange is only limited by your commitment to spend the money necessary to mail out your items. I personally will probably exchange with several people because I really love getting surprises in the mail that are just for me ~ okay, okay, I guess they wouldn't be only for me because my storytime friends will benefit from each exchange I make! How exciting is that?!??!! I know my storytime friends will love it!

5) Once partners' names are drawn, I will contact each person with the name and address of their exchange partner. Contact information will include: name, snail mail address, and email address. Then you are free to visit and learn more about each other so that when you share the storytime item at your storytimes, you can also share a little about the sender.

6) When signing up for the exchange, please be sure that you will be able to mail your item before December 30th. That way, everyone should be receiving their new storytime item before the middle of January.

I hope you are as excited as I am about the chance to have

new storytime props for next year!

This is going to be soooooooo fun!

I hope to hear from many of you very soon!