Storytelling and Other Magical Moments

Discussions in our unit, Sharing the Planet , took a turn into the deep, dark, sea.  Below are short stories created about deep sea animals and other interests the children found as we inquired into the Abyss.     Just learned how to use this today - Adobe Spark Video. Simple and sweet. Still working on quality control, but can produce something nice in a very short time with young children.

The light table has become the newest venue for storytelling. Asking children to explain their "light table stories" provides and opportunity for them to tell about their creation from a different lens. Not only do they use descriptive words, but words from story telling engagments move in and out of their descriptions. "One day there was a crab princess castle. It was beautiful. There was a beautiful sun inside and many happy crab princesses." "This is a story about a car with lots of wheels.  It is shooting blue fire and fireballs. There is a purple minecraft piece floating in the top and the villages are there with it. They are safe because they are not getting shot." "This is a shark, a beautiful shark. There are so may many bubbles around the shark. This shark is swimming inthe beaufitul beautiful ocean. Let's add shells. Because oceans have shells and blue waves at the top."

Just a touch of color in the sandbox made cooking just a bit more fun!   Loose parts creations are my favorite thing to observe process and product.  

An eager student kindly borrowed a storybox to take outside and retell the story in the sun with some friends. I wasn't in class when she returned it and this is what I found. " I brang the story box back." Authentic Writing! A sneaky pictures of some students borrowing a box for a storytelling session during their outdoor time.

Throughout the school year I find it so important to reflect on my practices and read more about teaching writing to young leaners. There is quite a bit of information available and finding the most inspring, fun and developmentally appropriate way of teaching writing is a goal of mine each year. I try new things, look at each group of students through a new (open minded and optimistic) lens and collaboratively with my team try to make our writing lessons the best they can be. This year my team and I decided to focus on oral storytelling first, as writer's workshop sessions and then focus on illustrations and finally "writing" within the first two months of school. (Although this would look different for each child). This is the beginning of the graphic organizer we used to begin our storytelling workshops. As you can see from my other blog posts, storytelling is a high priority in my lessons. Opportunities to develop language structures and vocabulary an...

I take it upon myself to find inexpensive ways to further develop story boxes, loose parts creations and writing prompts. I look at all recycleable materials, dollar stores, garage sales, brockis (Swiss second hand stores) and fleamarkets. After visiting a fleamarket (Baar Flohmarkt) on a beautiful Saturday, for less than 20 dollars I found Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, a Transformer, a Japanese Kokeshi doll, a bride and groom, metal car, 3 Hello Kitties, a glass scuba diver, a glass dolphin, 3 My Little Ponies, a new story box and old keys. Monday storytelling is looking good.