Category: How children learn

There’s no right answer in storytelling. Just like life, you make it up as you go.

Evelyn

This was a story that developed collaboratively over a period of a couple of weeks  at a small daycare with children who mostly had English as a second language. It contains some marvelous examples of ways to incorporate different areas of the curriculum and specifically oral literacy into a storytelling activity. Here (with photographic examples) is the way it all  unraveled over a number of days. A shark and a crocodile were swimming in the sea 2

It began with new creations at the carpentry table,  and led to bursts of oral literacy, visual literacy, art work, written work, acting opportunities, singing,( to the tune of Five Little Monkeys jumping on the bed, plus hand gestures), small world play, role play,   and more. It greatly increased my appreciation of the potential of storytelling by,for and with the children, and meant that I  saw a  sudden surge of creativity in oral contributions,a playful interest in the sounds of words, an animated series of playful collaborative encounters in the playground as well as  a lively and creative interaction with the resources, each child confidently finding their own niche and level of engagement! ‘Lively’ is a complete understatement for what went down, and so much of it is, i believe, because in the realm of made up stories, nobody can claim to have the ‘right’ answers, an insidious and pernicious effect of the downward pressure from school as well as being the constant focus for some parents. It is our job, I believe, to constantly educate the parents as to what they are actually witnessing. Viz: it is definitely not ‘just playing’. However, children are profoundly motivated to play and this is why they learn so  much within contexts like this. We also made a book with all the stages of the story in it.  Here  is  a preceding sequence which also used alphabet tile reject pieces.   The story of DogDragon and Triceratops 

The story of the sleepwalking snake who learned how to tie knots!

Evelyn

An improvised snake-based knot -tying story!

(and song!) Such fun today! a very long

elasticated orange ‘rope’ and some hugely creative and animated children attempting to tie knots and play with it in every way imaginable! Their knot tying efforts galvanised me into finally experimenting with creating a story

to help children learn the basic  principle  of knot tying… and away we went…
Once upon a time there was a very very long and spotty orange snake who had a problem. ( quick desperate thinking to think why a snake might want to tie a knot in herself…. how does the brain work, i wonder?). The problem was that she was a sleepwalker and every night, when she was meant to be safely tucked into bed, she would slither out and find herself, eyes closed, slithering down to the park, or the playground or the river.. and in the morning, she would wake up and have to find her way home, which was hard. So she needed to find a solution. I asked the children for their ideas for a solution. She made strong gates and locked them? ( great idea, I agree, and draw them on the board of our story, BUT she found that she could find the key even when she was asleep!) Or, maybe she could tie a note around her neck, saying ‘If you find me slithering asleep please take me home to this address’. And that was a good idea but she wanted to stay in her own bed, in her own house… so she came up with an idea.

She TIED herself to her bed. And then I drew a snake’s head on the end of the orange rope and showed how she turned her head round and looped back OVER her own body, and then dived down UNDER her body and came back up THROUGH the hole/loop she had made… then she pulled on her head and pulled on her tail and bingo!!. I showed them three times and then three children came up and did it successfully.. over the body, under the body, up through the hole and pull tail and head.

 

At lunchtime I bought twenty metres of cheap thinnish rope and made a dozen lengths and the children practised and tied things all afternoon and it was brilliant. It is so so helpful to have a pictorial image… it is a very Steiner way and it helps so much. Many of them were experts by home time! a delight… tying up bikes, tyres, bottles, themselves, a student teacher and making a rope barrier to hang a STOP sign on. Such a delight to watch their animated approach to the challenge. Even doing a double snake to make two short ropes into one long rope! ah the joy of storytelling and its infinite adaptability! The bit I liked best was the idea that sometimes her Dad woke up when she started slithering off and he could just catch her tail before she finished sliding through the front door and just haul her , hand over fist, all the way back in again! Because she was SO long!
And, if I was really onto it, I would make up a little song to the tune of Frere Jacques, like that…Loop over me, loop over me…….. dive deep down, dive deep down, back up through that hole, back up through that hole, pull head and tail, pull head and tail!! There, that wasn’t so hard! You just have to sing out loud and find the right words for the rhythm, till it sounds ok!.

Here is a learning story for one of the children who relished knot tying.

Never, ever draw for a child?

Evelyn

What was once a wise recommendation to support children’s drawing without drawing images for them seems to have gradually evolved into a powerful absolute with regrettable consequences for teaching practice. When I heard of a centre where this guideline has been extended to an instruction to ‘never, ever draw with, for, or near a child’, I was galvanised to explore why it is that I sometimes do draw with and even ‘for’ children, and why I instinctively feel that it is of value.

What are the perceived hazards of drawing with a child? Primarily, children will think that yours is ‘the right way’ and will slavishly imitate you, thus cramping their creative self-expression and motivation to discover for themselves.

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Rata arrives at the totara tree and promptly collapses.

Evelyn

Whenever I am in a centre and want to tell a story with table top puppets,  there is invariably a problem that all the two legged characters behave as though they are permanently inebriated, There are the cute family dolls with bendy bodies and large wooden feet and, with a chair or a wall, they can cope relatively well. But there they must stay.

Then there are the Lego characters who  have large heads and smallish feet and cannot maintain their balance without a vehicle to prop themselves up in. Steiner dolls are great at standing for the most part but they don’t survive very well with children reared on indestructible plastic toys. Also they usually tend to be girls because their flared bodies lend themselves well to a skirt shape. And of course they have no feet. But this is surmountable with some imagination. Which children usually have ten fold or more. Read More