One of the things that I love about storytime is that is it dynamic and interactive. Often I go into a storytime with a plan, and an idea of the way things will go, but children are a wily audience, and today was no exception.

I was doing a classroom storytime with the theme of Friendship. In my packet was Chris Raschka's Yo! Yes? about two boys striking up a friendship with very few words but a lot of meaning. As I told the kids, sometimes its not just what you say, but how you say it. Also, a fantastic lesson in punctuation. 

Anyway, we had gorgeous sunny weather today, and as a result, the teacher gave the kid extra recess time before my storytime, so these 3-4 year olds were super rambunctious and wiggly. To try to grab their attention I asked them to say the title along with me, and so I got a big YO! and a huge YES? and then I started the story.

To my surprise, the kids repeated every word I said, as I read it! It turned out to be so much fun! All of our voices in a call and response of  "Yo! Yes? You! Me?" put a whole new spin on the book and actually had the kids using the different intonations that the changing punctuation require. Supercool. Supercool!

Just goes to show, storytime is never quite what you expect.