Who, what, when, where and why should we tell stories? Storytelling is one of our oldest art forms and is an incredible way to help children and adults gain an appreciation for words. We believe that reading, writing, listening to and telling stories are all important aspects of any person’s education. Anyone of any age can tell a story.
Stories are used today for all sorts of things. Babysitters and nannies can tell stories to keep kids entertained, family gatherings, summer camping, picnics, and slumber parties are just some of the times where storytelling is popular today. We believe that you can take any part of you day and turn it into a story. If you are in your backyard and you and your children see a spider and watch where it goes and what it does you can (with your children) create a story about the spider. You can get the kids to decide on a lesson the spider will learn or just a story on what he is doing. You can create a story using only pictures or actually writing it down. if the children are young you can have them tell you the story and you can write it down putting each sentence or complete thought on the top of a piece of paper and have the children illustrate the story. We actually have many stories in our house done this way from when the children were younger. We find ourselves, from time to time, reading older stories the kids wrote over the years. The kids particularly, enjoy their own stories and illustrations and usually end up laughing hysterically at their own work.
Today with the kids we will focus on Folk Tales and Folk Storytellers. How stories have passed down from generation to generation even without books and conveniences we use today. How stories have withstood the tests of time and influence cultures. We will focus on how storytellers use body language and voice pitching to create the mood of the story being told and how these affect the persons listening and watching the storyteller. The 3 folk tales we think are fun for today are:
Black Snake and the Eggs
Click HERE for Power Play (children can act the story out)
The Chief Who Was No Fool
Click HERE for Power Play (children can act the story out)
Spider and the Honey Tree
Click HERE for Power Play (children can act the story out)
We will each choose one of the stories and decide how we want to present the story. Whether we want to just read the story from the pages or whether we want to create props and tell the story in our own words to the listeners.
This will be fun family evening as the kids present the stories to each other after dinner
Remember to ask your children "WHAT stories can you tell?" today and have fun with it!
Telling Stories:
| Encourages the development of a better understanding of self, others, and people of the world |
| Internalizes the sense of story form |
| Improves comprehension |
| Improves self-esteem, builds confidence and poise |
| Improves expressive language skills and stimulates inventive thinking |
Visit this site
HERE for some inspiration on Story Telling.
