Author: Evelyn

13½ possible ways to play with/tell a known story – or – ’13½ ways to use your hands’.

Evelyn

13½ possible ways to play with a known story and bring it alive with the children, without using a book or a CD. A graduated series of steps towards building confidence and simply practising. Everything is hard until it’s easy… learning to walk, putting on your own clothes, becoming bilingual as a three year old… practise, practise, practise. Skill is secondary, ability to live with occasional ‘failure’ is imperative!

1. Jim Weiss has the first and most simple ½  step. Take a story book that you already know and read every second page but use your own words to ‘read’  the one in between. http://vimeopro.com/user13058727/greathall/video/48033909 from 4 minutes in, he covers the element of connection and respect, the neuroscience of storytelling. At 11.33 he tells you how to read every second page and paraphrase every second page. At 13.00 he talks about working with children who had never been read to or knew stories. At 15.00 he tells a story from Sherlock Holmes. (pretty good). In this image he is being the hare in ‘The tortoise and the hare’.

 

 

 

2. Take a story you already know and add gestures. Make up your own or ask the children for ideas and then tell it more than once so that the children can anticipate and join in with the story. Here is the story of Cucaracha, which is suitable for very young children who are very comfortable with copying gesture. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpcHgob2i5A you can do this with any simple story. They love to join in and anticipate.

This Australian woman has created gestures to go with a short poem she has learned. http://raisingchildren.net.au/articles/telling_stories_mook_mook_owl_video.html

A very simple thing to do… and gives the children a change from the perpetual old and rather ‘tired’ favourites like Five little ducks or Head shoulders knees and toes.

 

.Louise Coigley, who is a speech and language therapist, also talks about rhythm and gesture. Brilliantly. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVvMQR6jTYc

 

 

 

 

3. Take a story you already know and act it out. Here is a family having a great deal of fun acting out the story of the three little pigs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uo2LDDbwlRg

Children playing out the three little pigs at a childcare centre.

4. Take a simple known story and support the children to take part by making the gestures and singing the chorus as the story progresses. Here is a storyteller telling the story of the Hare and the Tortoise. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_032nPgwdM This is a performance but the basic building blocks are the same.

 

 

 

 

This chap also teaches the children how to do their part. He also does a running commentary sharing with us how he does what he does…the importance of eye contact, the use of names and so on. It is true that it is not a well known story! one must adapt! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJU5L3ZYODU

5. Take a simple story or a simple verse and learn how to tell it with sign language. Try ‘Baa baa black sheep’ or ‘ Goldilocks and the three bears’ or ‘The very hungry caterpillar’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ePOq_S04p8

and check out the animation, vitality and generosity of this story teller doing the three little pigs.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gw8u29Fa1Ag

and then there are these gorgeous young brothers (3 years and 17 months) who are bilingual in spoken language and ASL Here they are reading/telling a book together . https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fha8ZsdxupI

And a child telling the story of Little Red Riding Hood in sign language. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDFxr6dMJUE Amazing.

6. Take a story you all know and paint it.

The three little pigs.

Mr Gumpy’s Outing.

7. Take a well known story and create a string game around it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQkJpTVIyeA. This one is a classic and marvellous rendition of the famous story of Jack and the Beanstalk  and his goal in this instance is to entertain rather than teach but it would make a great springboard for teaching simple string figures like the witches hat. Or the story of the annoying  mosquito which is easy to learn.

8. Take a known story and try to recall the sequence with the children, such as Going on a Bear Hunt. Maybe have the images of the story shrunk to a smaller size and then glued onto stones and put the stones in the right order.

9. Take a well known story and find the appropriate table top puppets to act it out. Use fabric of different colours to suggest a river, a mountain, a lake or snow and ice. Leave the props available for the children to tell the story, or their variation of it!

10. Take a well known story and find the appropriate animals and act it out in the garden and take photos and make your own story book for the children, with the children.

11. Tell a well known story and encourage staff to ‘act it out’/ be ‘in role’  in front of the children in the course of the day and stay in role (on dress up days!) The children were delighted, aghast and initially stunned when Cruella Deville told Cinderella she had to tidy the resource room instead of have lunch! problem solving indeed! moral dilemmas abouding! social justice issues……but fun!!

Cinderellla and the two ugly sisters and a handsome prince! They actually came as Maleficent and Cruella Deville but they were perfect as Cinderella’s sisters. Not planned but it would be great to choose a story to share. Jack and the Beanstalk, Frozen…… not many with a lot of females actually??

12. Take a well known story and tell it out with playdough. No photos of the children because of privacy issues (in many of the photos on this post).

Jack and the beanstalk.

13.Take a well known story and create our own story books about it or create a puppet set. 

The list is absolutely infinite but my patience with computer technology is not!! so 13½ is where I am stopping. It certainly gives you a taste of the infinite possibilities for incorporating stories into one’s practice. This post does not even start to address the creative possibilities for collaborating and improvising new stories with the children. Or for supporting children to create and record and retell their own stories.

I hope this has been useful!

14. p.s how ironic! I did  not include a storytelling mat as another way to tell a story. Here is an image of the mat I made for ‘Going on a Bear hunt’, complete with house and bed and all the landscapes. About a metre diameter.

 

Nikau palms…what can you do with them? A rich resource indeed!

Evelyn

What indeed? Cots. caves, guitars, masks, funnels, trolleys, roofs, art…. a long list. So here they are! First some images and then some

An interior of the Nikau Palm Grove at Kohaihai – Kahurangi National Park, West Coast, New Zealand

 

creations

 

 

 

 

 

.So there they are … glorious and lush and frequently dropping these magnificent bowls.

And Maori used them for medicine but especially for roofing. I was going to have a  nikau  roof for my first  house and I received lessons from marvellous women in Kennedy Bay. The fronds have a pleated groove down the centre like a little drain, so if you place them the right way up, once woven, they naturally guide any water down off the roof. Check out this website for more details of building strategies.http://www.mangatowai.maori.nz/WharenikauA.html

 

Some young people doing the Duke  of Edinburgh award  followed a similar principle to make this beautiful roof.

http://cuehaven.com/2014/02/03/duke-of-edinburghs-hillary-award-grove-hut/

 

It did not endure the weather because they did not do what the Maori people did, which is to create the delicious patterns that you see from the inside underneath and then stack heaps more fronds on top,,,and replace them annually or so. It makes it look rather scruffy but then it works and it is still beautiful from underneath.  See the other link above.

What else can you make? this woman learned how to weave table decorations and hangi covers and got to learn how to make fire and all sorts on a wonderful day in Pakuranga.

http://annasfoodsafari.blogspot.co.nz/2011/06/closer-to-home.html

But then there are the true and whacky artists like Julian Rosenberg who creates gorgeous and functional musical instruments using the dried nikau bowl as the sounding chamber. They are all different shapes and they all play beautifully.

http://www.moehaumusic.info/links-to-other-artistsmusic-supplies-and-audio-engineers.html

And James Harcourt who creates masks out of the nikau frond and does delicious artwork on them. This is his website link.

http://www.jamesharcourt.co.nz/nikau-masks.html

 

or you can simply paint on them….or make a bronze art work out of the shape….

And then there are my ideas!!  A cradle, a cave, a home, a bowl, a go kart, a funnel…. and there are no doubt many more! You will see one drying upside down on my stove because it rained and when I finally decided to take photos, it had reverted in shape somewhat. You have to wedge them open while they dry and once dried, they hold their shape with vigorous determination! The cave I cut part of the front away… dead easy while damp, very hard when dry… much more brittle. Good luck.

 

 

Temperaments, princesses and seasons.

Evelyn

After reading A Storyteller’s Way,I decided to challenge my habitual, default ways of  ‘assembling’  stories. About six months ago, I used this wonderful image from Olga Levichko as a provocation for how to embellish and bring a story to life, but in such a way that it could appeal to all four temperaments. The temperaments are something Rudolf Steiner used as a lens with which to appreciate ways to approach different children, and to meet their needs. The concept of the four temperaments originated in ancient Greece and can be read about here on Wikipedia. They  include choleric ( stroppy feisty leaders), sanguine (funloving, easygoing, butterfly nature, easily delighted and change focus frequently) melancholic,( inward, sensitive, prone to perfectionism, and a bit moody) and phlegmatic ( self- sufficient, peaceful, observers who prefer stability and are kind).

Obviously no child fits one  temperament exclusively. Most children have a great deal of sanguinity and as we mature, it is  hoped that we will eventually have an even balance of all four temperaments. I was delighted this evening to take a simple online test and discover that they ‘diagnosed’ me as the one temperament which I usually fail to have even a whisker of (phlegmatic! getting older must help!)

The personality types can also be summarised as  the desire to undertake a task in a ‘fun way’ (sanguine) or in ‘my way’ (choleric),  or the ‘right way’ (melancholic) or ‘ the easy way’ ( phlegmatic). Equally, I realised, one could compare them to the seasons, or rather, the effect seasons have on us. Spring brings  all that good  humour and friendliness out in us, and then summer sees us getting things done and making impulsive strong gestures  and plans, and autumn brings with it a certain melancholic awareness of loss and the imminence of winter blues, whereas once we arrive in winter, it is a great opportunity to sit back,  hibernate, take it easy, eat a bit more and take a break from the busyness of the year.

So, Ashley Ramsden and Sue Hollingsworth brought their anthroposophical understandings to the business of storytelling. Each group of children will have a mixture of all the temperaments and it is possible, and a good idea, to choose and tell stories which will appeal to all four temperaments. And  within one story, one can be sure to include a bit of the sort of thing which lights each particular fire.

So, here are my four attempts to begin a story, related to the picture above, in ways that would inspire the four different temperaments. Check them out. What do you think?

So temperament one , choleric, might like a story which starts like this: ‘It was a cold, snowy night but the animals still needed to be fed. Olga grabbed her coat and her big blanket and her boots and stomped out into the deep drifts of snow. ‘Dog’ she bellowed heartily into the swirling mists, ‘Get over here at once, you rascal!’

For a sanguine child, who likes details so they can really sink into the story,” The sun had long sunk below the horizon and the moonlight sparkled on the crisp snow like a thousand beautiful tiny diamonds. An owl hooted in the distant dark of the forest and Olga pulled her warm coat closer around her ears and snuggled into its cosy furry collar.

For a melancholic child, maybe ‘ It was so dark outside and her father and mother were not yet back from the village and someone needed to get the sheep into the pen.She wanted to help and she could hear the bleating of the baby lambs and she could just imagine her favourite, Wagtail, and how scared he would be out in the open and of course, there were the wolves.

And the phlegmatic. Actually Olga looks somewhat phlegmatic doesn’t she… she does not look at all melancholic..but of course these elements can be brought in through other ways.. a snarling wolf would satisfy a choleric’s hunger for action and vigour, and the shivering cat trapped in the snow in the dark and in need of rescuer would appeal to the sympathies of a melancholic child ( melancholic had a different definition for ancient Greek doctors from what it means now – another post maybe.

So, finally. phlegmatic. It was warm and cosy in the cabin with the flames of the fire fitfully flickering and Olga felt deliciously drowsy after her meal of borscht and freshly baked bread, She rested on the sofa and stroked the snoozing cat and gazed out the window at the snow which swirled around the house, wrapping it in a coat of wintry white.

(Sorry, Olga, the choleric is about to get their turn again! , but at least there was a bit for phlegmatic Olga – it’s all about balance.

What I realise, when I set myself a little exercise like this, is how I ( and probably everyone else who isn’t consciously trying) will tend to invariably tell (and choose) the same sort of story with the same combination of emotional moods and variations on similar action/stillness ratios). Keeping the four temperaments in mind helps to keep the tone, mood and speed, varied and richer.

Cholerics like action/ verbs…. sanguine like details/ adjectives, melancholics often use more nouns and words that describe emotional states and moods, while phlegmatics like alliteration, repetition and lingering a little longer before moving on (that’s a fairly cursory summary but you get the drift….ha, a pun to end on! )

And four images that sort of  manage to link the season, the temperament, the mood and the energy….. not sure, but some super great photos there from Kirsty Mitchell ( autumn ) and Margarita Kareva (winter).

 

 

Geometry concepts evolve into the story of The Squabbling Leaves.

Evelyn

I went for  a walk and was musing on the possibilities of various plants that I could take with me for a one day relieving opportunity. Building houses with  strips of gum bark found yesterday while lying under the trees’ leafy shade, and then huge dried karaka  leaves. Looking at different leaves and possible ways to use them. My focus shifted to the fact that they have ERO visiting and want me to incorporate  maths into my mattimes and impress the inspectors.

Then thinking of the geometrical shapes of houses… teepees, yurts, castles, mansions, caves and so on. And the language for the shapes and started thinking about all the different shapes, and then textures, and then sizes of leaves. Curved,  pointed, round, triangular, square, thin, wide,  large and small, wrinkly, shiny…. so  many wonderful descriptive adjectives. Another inadvertent language outcome.

 

 

It became obvious that just talking about shapes would be a whole lot less engaging than if I could weave the geometry and attributes of the different leaves into a story.I picked some and as I walked home a story evolved!   And here it is:  The squabble of the leaves….

I was also thinking about some key qualities that good children’s stories often have… repetition, rhythm, rhyme, including experiences, events, objects that are meaningful to the children/child, giving space for memory and imagination,using voice and gesture.  And through the process of walking and dreaming and considering, I came up with a story. I wondered about the 100 day challenge and whether I should give myself that discipline so that I get better at it!

The mother returns for her baby……
The baby fairy surrounded by the competitive leaves.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So this might be a story for a group of children who are very competitive and lack a sense of community. One could tell it more than once and one could also do the same thing with flowers… some have scent, some have medicinal qualiities and some have longlasting qualities, others have colour for dying fabric, and others become vegetables. Many varied virtues… each different, each valid. A simple message, a powerful message!

 

Here  is a wonderful imaginative story somebody wrote about the evolutionary adaptation of the pitcher plant, complete with repetitive refrain!

 http://www.itellyouastory.com/fairy-tales-fables/fable-fairy-tales/1317-wonderful-pitcher-plant.html 

pitcher plant Rather well