Storytelling with Kids

I'm starting a new storytelling community - and I couldn't be more excited and also more terrified! Excited - because it's in my native Russian language, and because my youngest (he's 2.8yo) will be a part of it. Terrified - because it's the youngest group I've ever worked with, toddlers and young preschoolers: ages 3-5yo. Also it's probably the most diverse age category, since older siblings (5-7yo) will also join. I've written elsewhere how to start a storytelling community , and also what's in my portable classroom . Now, for this young and diverse audience, I'm adding more items to my portable classroom. Every activity needs a time and a place, and the items in our portable classroom will help to define these. Place: we're meeting at the local park. In order to "define" our little corner of the world, we'll bring: - Picnic blanket - to sit on and talk and read and play  - Garland - to make the space prettier a...

I love love love having story circle outside. True, there might be more distractions. But there's much more freedom. And freedom is great for any creative activity, including storytelling. Pippi Longstocking, arguably one of the freest and open-minded characters in children literature, is often portrayed upside down. “[Pippi] always slept with her feet on the pillow and her head far down under the covers. ‘That’s the way they sleep in Guatemala,’ she explained. ‘And it’s the only right way to do it. This way, I can wiggle my toes while I’m sleeping, too.‘” Astrid Lindgren, Pippi Longstocking (translated by Florence Lamborn).

When my oldest kiddo was a toddler, I've tried to have an art activitiy in our local mommy and me group. I've brought finger paints and a big roll of paper. Couple of kids in the group were so eager to participate, they had a blast. They painted with their hands and feet. They got undressed to their diapers and got all arty and messy. Not my kid! He remained fully dressed, spot clean as he refused to touch the paint, and mounted on his tricycle. He calmly observed all the fun and partook absolutely no part of it. I was bitterly disappointed. That day I learned that beautiful messy art activities aren't for everyone. However, if you are consistent and keep art activities in your kids life, eventually they'll find some form of art that is right for them (for example, my kid's favorite art activitiy is playdough. *Not* messy painting). Storytelling with toddlers is really similar in this aspect. Not every kid will be eager to participate in a storytelling c...

Our story circles are usually "a movable feast". As I've mentioned in another post , story circle can happen practically everywhere: indoors or outdoors, online or in person. The location and the method of delivery can also change as the circumstances change: the weather is nice? Let's move outside! Flu season and lots of kids sick at home? Let's have a virtual meeting! This is why I find it very helpful to have a handy "portable story circle classroom", to take with me to whatever location we're meeting at this week. Artist and art educator Nona Orbach, the author of "The Good Enough Studio: Art Therapy Through the Prism of Space, Matter, and Action", describes  here  how in the times of covid lockdowns and restrictions she helped her students to organize their own individual tiny studios with some paper and pencil cases. I found Orbach's story really inspirational: you don't need a big well stocked studio to create art. You also d...

When my big kiddo (now he's 9) was born, I spent a lot of time researching and looking for inspiration on kids rooms design. I was particularly moved by a photo of a nursery with reading corner: narrow shelves with beautiful board books on them, and above them big letters saying "READ TO ME". That was exactly was I intended to do: I was going to read to my child. And I did. I started reading to him from the day he was born (well, maybe I waited for when we brought him home), and I has been reading to him ever since. But my kid had a mind of his own, and soon enough he was participating in the reading activity in ways that I didn't anticipate. He chewed on some of the books (the most funny example was him chewing on "The very hungry cuterpillar", a book that tells about a caterpillar that... well, chews through a lot of things). He wanted to read books in certain order, not necessarily the one intended by the author. He wasn't interested in so...

One of the big challenges of telling stories with young kids is keeping the class concentrated on the story. Sitting still, listening attentivly might be challenging for young kids or kids with a certain temperament (or both). This is why I like to include active games as a part of a story time. Studies found that breaks of physical activity promote academic achievement, in this case, help kids to better concentrate on the stories they listen to, and to come with more stories of their own. One of the rules of our class is: "story first, play next". To make sure that we manage to follow the rule, I've even set up a timer: 5 minutes of story. Then we'll play a variation of dodgeball. In 5 minutes we've managed to quickly get through a short story by Terry Pratchett, and got to have the main course of today's session: dodgeball. Mom of one of the new students had joined us today, so we were two adults versus ten-something kids. It was an awesome activ...

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...