Storytelling with Kids

I've started several storytelling communities in the last couple of years. Since storytelling is so innate to us humans, and kids especially are so eager to get together to share good stories, starting the community was actually the easiest part (maintaining it was a different story, and will get another post). Here's some lessons I've learned along the way: - Find a common ground. Storytelling is very wide and all inclusive field. Find something you'd like to focus on, and stick to it with your audience. In my case, once it was a storytelling club for bilingual kids with focus on the minority language. Another time it was an online club for kids in isolation who can't attend school in person. Just find a good cause that you believe in and invite the people to join! - Define the age range of the participants. I'm a firm believer in working together with kids of different ages, but they shouldn't be *too* different. Usually 2-3 years is a good ran...

Simply listening to a story or telling your own story isn't for everyone. One of the best non-destruptive  activities to do during the story time is drawing. Kids can illustrate the story they're listening to. Kids can draw anything else they're interested in at this moment, visually telling their own stories. Kids can write their own stories or simply scribble some words or sentences. Kids can doodle during the story time to help them to focus and concentrate on the stories they're listening to. TED talks about doodling and visualisation: Doodlers, unite! by Sunni Brown https://youtu.be/7fx0QcHyrFk How to draw to remember more by Graham Shaw https://youtu.be/gj3ZnKlHqxI

It's no secret that physical activity and playground games keep kids engaged and stimulated. It's great to have a game as a "reward" for finishing a more difficult activity that requires focus and concentration: e.g., we'll play "statues" after we finish discussing this short story. To take a game to the next level during story time, we can 'twist' the game to involve characters or objects from our story. 

Next month is the month of the art in the school, we'll have a class about Van Gogh. Here's the lesson plan: First, a story about Vincent. Imagine a small village in Holland in 19th century. A big family of the local pastor. Strange, "difficult" oldest boy - Vincent. He loves nature and enjoys long walks around the village. He grows up and goes to a boarding school, then another. He's really miserable there. His uncle owns a famous art gallery shop with stores in the Hague, London, Paris. Both Vincent and his younger brother Theo work in the gallery stores. Vincent learns a lot about art, he also visits museums and art galleries. Vincent tries his hand in several different professions, but finally at the age of 27, decides to be a painter. Next, stories about Vincent's art. Vincent moves to the south of France. He loves the warm climate and enjoys painting outside, especially in spring and summertime. The paintings that we'll discuss in class are created t...

Hello lovely people, and thank you for visiting! My name is Olga, and I’m a storyteller. I wasn’t even aware that I’m a storyteller. My kiddo started the first grade in September 2020, the COVID year. After a week of in-person school, his class, like the rest of the classes throughout Israel and all over the world, was sent home to online learning. Online learning of preliterate first graders is a challenging experience on many levels, but what concerned me the most was the fact that kids that just started school together have no chance to meet and to connect with each other.  To try and remedy that, I organized a daily story hour. Actually, half an hour. Or really, 45 minutes of allotted free zoom meeting time. The premise was: no lockdown without a story. We chose a book. I've divided it into 6 parts/chapters. Each workday we've read a chapter. Reading a chapter was mostly an excuse for virtually hanging out together, day after day. But before we started reading, the kids cha...