Pre-School Storytime Pattern

I've been asked to detail my storytime pattern - which is pretty fluid but usually goes:

Opening song (Usually "If you're happy and you know it")
fingerplay/flannelboard
book (the more difficult one)
fingerplay/flannelboard
book (the easier one)
this spot reserved for puppets, creative dramatics, music making, major movement stuff
closing ("Now's the time to say goodbye" or, currently, my goodbye couplets: "See you later, alligator" etc.)
[Handout of some kind]

It's not hard-wired.  The usual rule of thumb is Lead with the most difficult. 
I've done three books or one book.  I usually have more than two books available on various levels so I can adjust by what age I've gotten.  Sometimes it's mostly 3s, sometimes 4s.  And, if they're particularly squirmy, the whole thing can get thrown out the window.  And sometimes I let them decide - for Halloween they had the choice of the funny book or the scary one (and, of course, they almost unanimously went for scary).

Sometimes they want to do something more than once, which is okay for fingerplays but I don't like to do books twice in a row. 

There are some flannelboards that I also have Spanish versions of, so I will do it first in English and then repeat it in Spanish, such as "Juguemos en el bosque."  As the lobo gets dressed, kids learn some Spanish vocab. These materials were prepared for our foray into bilingual storytimes ... which went nowhere.  We might try to revive them as more of our Spanish-speaking population discovers the new library.

The puppetry and creative dramatics go towards the end because they have a tendency to get the kids wound up.  The creative dramatics will often follow or be within a particular book - acting out part of it.  With the puppetry (I'll have some little story I can act out), it's just hard to put the puppets away.  The kids don't like it.  And they want to hug the puppets, so it's best to do it at the end when they can get up and hug a puppet on the way out.  Puppet can be used anywhere in the storytime, but this spot is reserved for a whole story.

More on puppets: I don't like little hands up my puppets' bottoms.  I'm just that way.  Yes, they can hug them, but they are characters, not toys.  There is a puppet theatre just outside the storytime room that has puppets for them to use. 

The handouts can be as basic as coloring sheets or activity sheets, or I have created pages with one of the poems/fingerplays/flannelboards we shared that day.  They are either the Add To Your Traveling Flannelboard (the sheet of felt glued into the pocket folder) type where they also got some stick-on felt to make them hang on the felt sheet or the fingerpuppet generator: Five de-colored cliparts of frogs etc. and five strips to cut out and tape to the back of the clipart plus the poem.  Presto!

I used to have a Ning where I shared stuff like this, but they went capitalist on me.  Heh!  If anyone else starts one, let me know.