Engage The Children To Participate In Storytelling Part A

Engage the Children to Participate in Storytelling Part A

I had a chance to attend a storytelling zoom training posted by Carolina Quiroga-Stultz. Any misinformation of my notes is the fault of the note taker.

To be playful:

Ask the children what is in the middle of their face. Tel them to say hello to their nose. Fun to say hi to their own body parts.
Ask them, what inside your mouth? Tongue. Kids love stick out your tongues.
Show your teeth.
You are having them do something different. Don’t sue too many animals or puppets.
If you use too many and it can lose the audience.
If have a monster story prepare your audience for making the face of the monster. Prompt the kids to show their thinking face, happy face, sad face and then monster face that will be used later in the story.
The more you repeat a physical movement, the kids want to follow.
Maybe insert a sign language to broaden your boundaries.
If you need a song or change in the story introduce it early into the story to train the kids to use it throughout the story.
Presenter makes up her own chants

Plan your warm up according to your set of stories.

Maybe you tell 2- 3-4 stories for 30 to 40 you want your warms up to be linked to what is coming.
She relies heavily on imagination when working with kids.
Her first warm up is the imagination chant.
My name is xxx. I am a storyteller. She ask them, what do I do? They answer Storyteller.
She asks the kids, what is a special about a story? They answer: Every story needs a title.
She asks, what else we need? They answer a character.
We need stories with imagination- yes imaginations.
She asks, Does imagination lives in our bellies? No
Where does imagination live? In our head. She has kids wave fingers around their heads. That is her warm up.
Her warm up prepares her audience to enter the world of imagination.

Physical activity:

She gets kids to move their hands.
Kids need to be moving all the time to get their attention.
Goal: all children /audience is involved and in their owns ways.

School visits:

When telling stories at school, remember that kids have personalities.
Some personalities come out more than others do. See how the personality changes.
Teachers can learn personalities in the long term. Teller who only visits occasionally, need a 9th senses of reading the audience.
You read your audience to see who is sitting in front of you. What you see may need to alter your stories. Trait she observed through the years.\
Lion: kids know everything already. I already know that. They are desperate to participate. They want to be seen. They may or may not believe what you are saying. They may be leaders or be very extraverted. Like being the center of attention. They want to share your opinion with you. They have all the answers.
Snakes; kids who re shy or are introverts. Maybe they are a little fearful. Maybe they are new students or are foreign students who are still learning English. They may feel they are too cool to participate. or they observers. A snake will not let you know what you are thinking. You almost have to be a clown to get a reaction. You need to determine the kind of characters. Each individual kid is.
Monkey: they are all over the place. They are jokers. They love attention. They can be like a lion. Their little bodies need to move all the time. They are hyperactive active. They might have ADAD. If they move, you need to get them to center. If you get them to move, they will settle down and follow you. They will go a different pace than the rest of group with the story. They may be faster or slower than the other kids.
Why identify personality types? We want the kids to have an experience we want kids to feel empowered. Kids want to feel they helped tell the story. You (kids) helped the hero save the day.

The types of intelligence:

People felt there were two types of intelligence linguistic (politicians). Or the logical mythical (help the world) the rest are the dumb. If kids don’t read well or don’t do well in math, they feel dumb. The education systems favor reading or math, so those students get attention.
Howard garden Frames of Mind It talks bout Eight types of intelligences. They are: Intra-personal, spatial, naturalist, musical, logical-mathematical, linguistic, bodily kinesthetic, interpersonal, existential.
Tellers needs to change how she tells stories to address all the eight intelligences.