I Love My Library! Blog Serices: KCLS Tell Me a Story; Fantastic Free Resource (and best kept secret on how to use it!)

Tell Me a Story is an ENORMOUS collection of finger plays and songs our librarians use in their story times (King County Library System). They began in 2008 and are adding new ones all the time.There are hundreds of great songs and finger plays, even in different languages. Many, but not all have videos you can watch to learn hand motions and movement. I don't know about you, but I ALWAYS want to see a video when I'm looking for a new finger play or song. Unfortunately, there is no way to tell by looking at the master list which have videos and which don't. So how do you find only the finger plays and songs that have videos?  

Read below for the best kept secret- how to find ALL the videos in one place!

Go to the Tell Me a Story Page ( here is the link http://tmas.kcls.org/  )
Don't forget to bookmark it! 

• In the categories list on the right, select "videos." This will now bring up a list of categories that are ALL videos!
• If you look at a video and want to go back to the list of videos only, be sure to hit your back button or you'll be taken back to the main categories page, not the videos. 
• If you want to find some of the archived videos, click on a year (archived years are at the bottom of the list). 
• Now, once again, select "videos" from the categories list. 

This may sound a bit complicated, but once you've done it it will make sense and you'll be on your way!

I was so excited when I discovered how to find only the videos, because for these songs you really want to see the movement and hand motions, or how a librarian used puppets and props. Of course if you're just looking for words, you can work from the general list. Some will have videos, and some won't. Our librarians keep working to add videos to all of the songs and finger plays. But until they are done, you now have a way to locate those wonderful how-to videos!

So try this out and let me know how you like it. Remember, it's FREE and anyone with an Internet connection can use it. 

 

Finger Plays are great for fine motor skills and vocabulary! 

Does your library offer something you want people to know about? Let me know and I'll help spread the word!