Story telling

All along the semester we have seen many different ways to tell stories, and I must say that some of them were amazing. I'll try to compile here the ideas I liked and some things I didn't like.

USING THE LAPTOP'S SCREEN AS BACKGROUND FOR FINGER PUPPETS

One of our classmates told us a story using fairly simple finger-puppets while using a slideshow presentation to provide the characters with a scenario. I think that the idea is really good as it allows you to create different backgrounds for stories really quick and at no cost (something which is really important too within today's schools). Probably using storybird to create the backgrounds might be a good idea. Just be careful and don't make the same mistake my mate did: having the characters both on the screen and over it at the same time!!

USING PLASTIC GLASSES WITH PICTURES TO PROVIDE CONTEXT AND SCAFFOLDING

There's one group in my class that has proved to be outstandingly creative. The first time that they surprised me was a day in which they showed us how to tell stories using plastic glasses.

The resulting sequence of images looks pretty amazing because it is very dynamic and spectacular. In addition, I must say taht it seems to me an excellent choice for a story like Jack and the Beans.

USING A MAP AND CHIPS/CARDS FOR THE CHARACTERS

This was my own choice for storytelling. I came up with the idea after watching my teacher telling us a story about a caterpillar using stones painted with images of the story that will form a caterpillar at the end, when all of them are on the table.

The fact is that I am quite useless when it comes to hand-crafts, and therefore I have to find a different way of successfully providing a background for my story.

Its advantages are that it is really effective for getting people into the story, it allows the children to use it to tell the story to themselves and reinforces the perception of space (while they are having fun, which is the main thing in a storytelling session). Its main disadvantage is that you can't have that many children around. Using a webcam that takes a good shot of the papers and a proyector to show it.

If you want to make your own, I recommend you to use Gimp, a free software alternative to photoshop that allows you to manipulate images, change sizes etc. It basically has the same features as photoshop, but you won't have to pay anything for it.

USING A ROPE AND CLOTHES PEGS FOR HANGING SCAFFOLDING PICTURES

Another easy way to provide scaffolding for a story is to hang pictures that illustrate the sequence of the story from a rope.

Its main advantages are that it has a really quick set-up (something very important for time managing) and that it is not an expensive resource (although money for colour photocopies is not always available).

A really good storytelling technique to go with this one is the failed storyteller.

THE FAILED STORYTELLER

This is a technique that consists of telling a story making a lot of mistakes that the children are aware of.

It can be either because we are using either the previous technique (or any other that provides us with pictures of the story that make obvious the narrator mistakes), or because it is a story that the children themselves know really well.

Among its main advantages I would like to highlight the fact that it promotes children expression (No, it's not like that!!! it's like this!!) while it is yet amusing for them.

As an example:

One day, YELLOW riding hood... NO!! IT'S NOT YELLOW!!! IT'S RED!!! Oh, yes, you are right so red riding hood was bringing a basket full of things for her AUNT...NO!! IT'S NOT HER AUNT!! IT´S HER GRANNY!!...

SHORT MOVIES USING STOP-MOTION TECHNIQUE

One of our groups created an amazing animated version of one of the funniest children books we've seen this year: Dirty Bertie

The book is really funny and you can tell that the author, the editor, and the illustrator have paid attention to details such as topics, formulas, quality and colours of the illustration, fonts, etc.
Above all, I must say that its scatological plot is very attractive for children.

The short film is being licensed under CC, and will be uploaded as soon as it is approved.


Besides the short film, my classmates did an amazing look-underneath poster.

And they even brought the characters of the film!!

In addition, they did a quite funny post-activity related to the main character and the story in which the actions of the story were repeated using cardboard reproductions of the boy's arse, a tongue full of hair after licking the dog, after classifying them into what you should do and what you should not do.

Finally we did a sort of dramatization using speech bubbles we had to write ourselves.

So, why did I like it so much? Well, I believe that besides being astonishingly original, the activities are well connected, everything is relevant and there is a certain effort to reproduce formulas without making it obvious and mixing lots of different formats. In addition, I must say that in this case we are talking about an activity in which a lot of effort has been invested but its worth it. Unlike many others all brass no knickers activities, everything is calculated here, from the way the students are welcomed and organized to the way the activities are linked. Probably the best I've seen.

Here you have a link to the book's webpage in which you can find further activities.

SHADOW THEATRE

Another way of providing a nice background for a story is using a shadow theatre. In this case our classmates used a sheet and the class projector, although a lamp would have been sufficient. 

I think that this is a good technique because it successfully provides with the story with a non verbal background while it takes little resources to be prepared (that can be reused), and not much money.

TELLING A STORY WITH PAINTED BALLOONS

This is another original way of telling a story. First of all you have to inflate the balloons without tying them. Then paint them and release the air. Later on you will inflate them as you need them. The farting like noises it makes are very amusing for the children.

You can use it as a post-activity too, either by only asking the children to paint the characters or scenes related to the story, or by asking them to re-tell a story with them.