I had the opportunity to tell a couple of stories at a school Literacy night. My audience ranged from below elementary, elementary kids to their parents.

I had great audience participation.

Things that worked well during my performance:
1. Make eye contact with specific people throughout the audience through the story telling.
2. Have some repeat phrases and actions in the story for the kids to expect and repeat
3. Have some aspects of the story that will appeal to the adult sense of humor and to the kids sense of humor
4. Modulate my voice help add emotion of the characters.
5. Body language and hand motion to help with the telling of the story.
6. Obtain strong audience participation by having them echo back various aspects of the story.
7. Be flexible to change 2 10 min stories to 1 13 min and 4 min story.
8. Ask questions of the audience to help them be a part of the story
9. Since I’m a writer one of the stories was never heard of before by child or parent
10. Telling a rarely known story of Ben Franklin seemed well received as well.
11. Turn off cell phone to prevent any interruption.
12. Audio record performances to listen and learn what I could do better.
13. Weeks of prior practice gave me strong preparation prior to the performances.
14. Asked teacher for a review.

Things to work on:
1. Careful of ear rings that hook on scarf.
2. Should have brought some business cards to leave for possible pickup.
3. Should have brought my book stand to show parents I’ve written books and flyers
4. Have my bio as a handout for teacher that doesn’t bring the one I emailed to her earlier.
5. Be ready to be interrupted by loud speaker announcements
6. Be ready with my own water in case I need it.
7. Still susceptible to once losing track of a story due to a bell rings.
8. I smiled some, but smile more throughout my performances.
9. Have list of some of my books in my story teller bio.

I was glad for the experience. The children and parents participated in doing the fiddle to Beethoven 5th. There were smiles from the parents and great activity from the children.

Have a suggestion of what story tells should watch for during a performance? Please share you recommendations in the comment section of this blog. Thanks