"story time", "song time", "this time", "that time"

[Susan]

My little guy is 12 months and doesn't yet have much of an attention span. Our typical day, when we're at home, is spent with him wandering from toy to toy, occasionally to me, back to a toy...

I've heard moms talk about story time and the like. At what age is it appropriate to institute such a thing? At what age do most kids get an attention span long enough to sit and have a book read to them?

Also, what other "times" have you instituted? And again, at what age?

[TtownAnne]

I'm at a loss - we have no "times"! When I mention storytime, it's an actual program at the library; Storytime with Ms. Helen. I'm not organized enough to be that structurred in our daily stuff. On top of which I prefer to follow Caroline's lead - what's the point of "song time" if she's feeling active and doesn't want to sit down and sing?

[Cortney]

We go to storytime at the library. :) Other than that we do lots of reading, singing, etc at home throughout the day.

[aylhu]

IN all honestly, whenever anyone talked to me about reading to my daughter, I felt a bit guilty. She just WAS NOT into it until about 18 months. Thank goodness, because I got pregnant around then and it was great for me to just sit with her and read when I was nauseaus! Now, she loves reading. But it was well after a year of age.

[Karly]

I agree with aylhu. It took Tyrus a while before he was interested in books. I just kept putting them in front of him, because it was important to me that he like them. I'm not sure exactly when (I could look back in my journal and find it) he began to take an interest in them, but I do know he was older than a year.

Now, we have story time every day before nap time. I find it's a nice way to wind down before he sleeps, and it gives us extra snuggles. Sometimes, if the day works right, we have story time before he goes to bed at night. That doesn't always happen though, because sometimes Alexis is fussy then, and needs my attention.

The only other "times" we have are bath time and breakfast and lunch time. :lol:

[Karly]

Okay, I just searched my journal, and it looks like he was right at about sixteen months when he'd let me read 4 books to him at a time without wandering off. :)

And then, at nineteen months, I have this posted:
~ He's finally decided he loves books before naptime! Yay! Each day, right before bed, I tell him it's story time, and we get 7 or 8 books from the shelf. We will read each one and he'll giggle and point out the things he knows in the pictures. When we're done and I say it's time to go to bed, he'll jump down and go try to get more books...! He's such a charmer.

[aylhu]

Yes, we HAVE to read before each nap and bed time. Helpful for all of us to settle down and relax. She goes through phases where we read the same book each night for a few nights. Green Eggs and Ham was her favorite awhile ago for WEEKS! I admit I started editing to make it shorter!

[AahRee]

Katie is the opposite - she'd have *storytime* all day if I let her. I have to limit it, or I'd get hoarse from all that reading. Fortunately, she has a few books she can *read* to herself (one word per page with a large picture of what the word says above, so she can identify the picture and *read* the book... anyway...) I do a lot more of what Anne does, but since Katie would be content to sit and read all day, I do have to nudge her a little to do other things. So, we're instituting *school* time. We're using the ideas from the letter of the week preschool curriculum, and we're doing this for about a hour a day, or until her interest fades, whichever comes first. That way, I feel like we've done something productive, because I tend to feel like I haven't accomplished anything at the end of the day, so it's nice to have something to point at and say, *we did this*, kwim?