Mother Goose is a common theme for a preschool storytime, but you can expand from just the rhymes to include more stories and games. I use Rosemary Wells’ two Mother Goose Collections to kick off the storytime, then add some exciting picture book editions of single tales like THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT. The craft can be as simple as gluing cotton balls to a cut-out of a lamb, to accompany “Mary Had A Little Lamb.” Or, play a “matching mittens game” to follow “The Three Little Kittens.” These are my favorite books to use for Mother Goose storytime:
Opie, Iona and Wells, Rosemary. MY VERY FIRST MOTHER GOOSE and HERE COMES MOTHER GOOSE. Children are familiar with Wells’ characters, and I use these two books to introduce certain characters like Humpty Dumpty, that we will see in some of the other books.
Hennessy, B.G. THE MISSING TARTS. With delightful illustrations by Tracey Campbell Pearson, this book serves as a rhyming guessing game. See if the children can identify the Mother Goose character in each rhyme before you get to the end of a verse.
Ahlberg, Janet and Allan. EACH PEACH PEAR PLUM. This also serves as a guessing game if you have a small enough group to spot the Mother Goose characters hidden in each illustration.
Galdone, Paul. THREE LITTLE KITTENS. This picture book story of the popular rhyme will have kids singing along.
Marshall, James. OLD MOTHER HUBBARD AND HER DOG. This longer rhyme will introduce some new vocabulary to kids, and Marshall’s cartoon illustrations modernize the story.
Pearson, Tracey Campbell. SING A SONG OF SIXPENCE. One rhyme illustrated as a picture book; this is fun paired with THE MISSING TARTS.
Imai, Miko. LITTLE LUMPTY. Lumpty knows the story of Humpty Dumpty, yet he still ventures onto a wall. He’s stuck there until his resourceful mother thinks of a solution to the problem.