Week 8--Storytelling

This week I decided wanted to implement some of the feedback I got from Doug Allen when he came and observed me last week. So I started by moving the desks towards the center of the room so we would have more space on each side of the classroom to work in. I also thought this would help the kids by changing up our regular routine with something a bit different.

Once we had the desks moved, I separated the class into their two different groups. On opposite sides of the classroom I had 2 posters waiting where I instructed the children (before we separated) that we were going to write/draw the story from the following week on the poster.

I had the kids raise their hand and say what came next, and if it was right, they got to come write it on the poster (but they only had 10 seconds to do it). The rest of the group and I would count down from 10 so the kids had something to do while waiting.

Here's Ms. Kawakami's group's poster up close:

After we got the whole story on the poster, we started acting out the story and I wrote down the people who were in charge of narrating the different parts of the story.

Earlier on (before I separated them into 2 groups) I told them about a little activity we were going to do after we got done using the posters. I told them about the story behind Native American "Talking Sticks" and the traditions behind them. Basically, when someone was holding the stick, they could talk and they are the only person who could talk.

And here were our talking sticks:

PVC pipe wrapped with colorful tape

The Talking Sticks worked great, except they would've been even better if I would've used them during the poster activity. The kids needed a little more practice to solidify exactly how the talking sticks worked, and introducing it a little earlier on would've been better in making it run smoother.

Becky said that I was already improving in my authoritativeness already just since her comment from the last class so I was glad that she saw some improvement.

Today I figured out that they need some sort of a script to read from. The story is just too complicated and they need some sort of reference point for what comes when and next. So I'm going to be working on that.


Next week is costumes so we'll be putting together the costumes over Christmas break for when the students come back. I've got some good ideas and it will make the kids very excited. Stay tuned!