Tales by Terry

Storytelling Is Good for Kids

Storytelling:

• Strenthens listening and comprehension skills
• Provides an opportunity for students to develop an appreciation of the range and rhythm of language
• Nurtures the imagination
• Develops higher thinking skills
• Improves language skills (retelling, sequencing, story elements)
• Develops reading skills by enriching vocabulary, increasing the awareness of story structure, promoting understanding of cause and effect, increasing critical thinking
• Enhances writing skills
• Exposes chldren to different cultures
• Demonstrates problem solving techniques
• Arouses curiosity
• Teaches values
• Can be used in all areas of the curriculum
• Builds audience skills
• Helps students connect the past with the present and future.
• Creates community
• Is a means for passing on the values and morals of cultures

How to Learn a Story

1. Find a story you really like.
2. Read the stroy out loud once a day for one to two weeks.  This sounds like a long time, but the story will probably only take five to ten minutes to read.  If you already know the story well (you've been reading it to your class for years,) you can probably skip this part.
3. Draw out the story using simple stick figures.  Concentrate on the story elements, not your art work.  Or make a very simple outline.
4. Do not memorize the story.  Let it flow from you and put your own personality into it.  You may want to memorize the very beginning or end of the story or any specific wording that is repeated or important but otherwise just picture the events.
5. Practice the story in the car while driving to work or shopping.  Practice it as you wash dishes or vacuum.
6. Practice telling the story to a friend, your significant other, your child.  Ask for feedback.  If the feedback feels right, use it; if it doesn't work for you, ignore it.
7. Tell the story.  Don't be afraid of mistakes.  Most things that you forget can be added at another time (Did I thell you that...?).  You can even tell the audience that you forgot something.  You'd be surprised how empathetic and helpful they will be.
8. Be yourself.  Have fun.  Enjoy your audience.

Some Curriculum Uses for Storytelling:

Science:

Math

• Explore fractions with your own story of a person dividing a pizza and eating parts of it.  Children draw the pizza and divide it as you tell.  They then color the eaten parts and label with a fraction.  The person can also order many glasses of pop or water and drink a specific fraction of each. Story makes fractions REAL LIFE.
• Tell the Three Bears and explore large, medium, and small.
• Tell the Grains of Rice story as the students use calculators to figure out how many grains of rice the man is given.
• Tell the story of how measuring came to be...A king  wanted a bed and used his body parts to tell the size he wanted.  His carpenters were either much bigger or much smaller than the King so the bed was never quite right until they came up with the idea of specific measurements.
• TELL story problems.  Make the math equations come alive with story.  Then ask your students to do the same. Math is a story; no one ever comes up to you and asks, "So tell me.  What is 5+6?'
• Tell the story of the girl who finished early so the teacher asked her to add up all the numbers from 1-100.  Within a few minutes, she was finished.  How? (She found the 100's:  1+99, 2+98, 3+97, etc.)
• Use stories to think of problems or have the kids do it.  Ex. What is the area of one of the houses in the Three Pigs if the house is 9' x 13'.  How many bricks would they need?  What chimney circumference would allow the wolf to fall through?  Do the same with Jack and the Beanstalk and other common tales.

Social Studies

• TELL history instead of reading about it.  Kipling said that if we all learned history through story, none of us would ever forget it.  Stories imporve our retention of ideas and facts because they put the information into a meaningful content to which other informantion can be attached.
• Tell a folktale and then have the students research it.....the culture at the time, the geography, housing, clothing, holidays, politics, etc.
• Tell one or two different versions of Cinderella from different cultures.  Have the students search for more.  There are more that 564 documented versions of Cinderella.
• Have the students research a person from history and then 'tell' his/her story.
• Have the students search for folktales of strong or powerful women.

Health

• After studying the digestive system, have the students TELL the story of what happens to a piece of food as it goes through the system.  They can tell it as they would see it or as though they were the piece of food.

Visual Arts

• Have the children make a story mural after you have told a story.  Then it is only from their imaginations.
• Make a picture book based on a tale you have told.
• Draw a poignant moment from a story they heard.
• Make a poster advertising a story.

Music

• Tell a story.  Then have the students choose rhythm instruments to complement the characters or actions.  Then retell the story with the instruments.
• Research famous musicians and tell their stories.
• Research an old song and find out the story behind it.
• Add African drums to an African tale.

Language Arts:

• Use Venn diagrams to compare folktales
• Make organizational charts to find patterns in folktales, tall tales, fairy tales
• Sequence a story they heard
• Writing, writing, writing.  We must visualize before we can write.  Telling stories helps students visualize the events of the story.  Remember: The brain is a cheetah. The mouth is a rabbit.  The hand is a snail.  Let them be a cheetah and then a rabbit before you have them use their snail.  Let writing time be noisy.  The students should tell their story to several different people, getting feedback each time, before they begin writing it.  They will enjoy writing more, have more ideas, and content editing will be less.
• Use a wide variety of stories to increase imagination.  The children often see a book and think they cannot write something like that.  But we all tell stories.  Telling frees their imagination and lets them see themselves as successful writers.

A Story to Tell

In a far away land there lived a chief.  he was a good chief and his people were very happy.  They had everything they needed; good food, homes, clothing.  But one day the people noticed that the chief was grumpy.  For days he went around scowling, frowning, and muttering to himself. If anyone spoke to him, he would practically bite their head off.

Finally the people decided to see what was wrong.  They went to the chief and asked if there was a problem.

"It's these frogs!  I've heard them all my life but now I can't sleep with their constant croaking.  I haven't had a good night's sleep in weeks."

Well the people wanted their chief to be happy again so they said, "We'll take care of the frogs.  We'll kill them for you."

But as they turned to begin looking for the frogs, an old woman stopped them.  "Do not kill the frogs.  All of nature is connected.  We need the frogs."

"Go away with your foolishness!" the people hollered and pushed her out of their way.

That night the people killed all the frogs and the chief had a wonderful night's sleep.  The next night he slept like a baby.  But on the third night, the mosquitoes came and no one in the village ever had a good night's sleep again.

Some books I've found helpful

Britsch, Barbara M and Amy Dennison-Tansey, One Voice: Music and Stories in the Classroom

DeSpain, Pleasant, Thirty-Three Multi-Cultural Tales to Tell

Forrest, Heather, Wonder Tales from Around the World

Hamilton, Martha and Weiss, Mitch, Children Tell Stories--Teaching and Using Storytelling in the Classroom   also Stories in My Pocket: Tales Kids Can Tell   And they have a great web site

Haven, Kendall, Marvels of Science: 50 Fascinating 5-Minute Reads  and Write Right: Creative Writing Using Storytelling Techniques

Holt, David and Mooney, Bill, The Exploding Toilet--Modern Urban Legends  and Ready to Tell Tales

Lipman, Doug, Storytelling Games

MacDonald, Margaret Read, The Storytellers' Start-Up Book plus many others...she's great

National Stroytelling Association, Tales as Tools

Pittman, Helena, A Grain of Rice

Rubright, Lynn, Beyond the Beanstalk: Interdisciplinary Learning Through Storytelling

Yolen, Jane, Magic Touch