Melva Gifford

I had a chance to attend a storytelling zoom training posted by Carolina Quiroga-Stultz. Any misinformation of my notes is the fault of the note taker. These are the final set of notes.

The Story Time Experience:

• Your audience seeks for an experience.
• You use gestors, an instrument, and puppet. You are already providing an experience.
• You want the location to be the perfect place to tell our stories. If you have bad location, you need to change it. You need test the space you need to see where you can cast your spell .and for kids to pay attention for you. If you see doors, wndows, or make noises, you need to change your location.

Cautions about telling stories on Friday:

• On Friday, everyone wants to go home. Unless you tell 10 am or earlier.
• If telling stories after lunch. Your digestion system is processing your food and attention wavers. This is especially an issue with children.

Enhance your telling:

• You want to create a ritcheral that makes that story time special.
• You might have a special a corner in a special room.
• Decorate it. Maybe play music before.
• Avoid visual noise. You don’t want something very colorful behind you like a mural that will take people’s attention. You don’t want it to compete. Try to have a plain background.
• Introduce the subject and the props you are using.
• Maybe you dress up. If you do, use bright colors, because kids love colors. The older audience may not need color stimulations but young audience does.
• If you have cool earrings of animals can draw their attention.
• If you have the chance ask, what they liked and what they will change.

Engaging:

• Teller brings things with her to support imagination.
• Use different voices for different characters.
• Use different sound affects to compensate for lack of words (The presenter had to do this as a foreigner who was learning english)
• Uses movements help connect to the kids.
• Book: The belly button monster: When she tells of a blanket to fall on the floor, she acts it out. Make movement and voice alteration. Then ask the kids what happened to the blanket. Kids will try to physically imitate the actions.
• Use facial expressions.
• Rely upon body movements. She even does hand motions with adults. And show swimming thus giving a visual.
• Want to adopt a story: the stories don’t have to have the same ending. Rhyming stories really draw attention. Rhyming the audience has to pay special attention.
• You can use puppets use objects.
• Maybe use a magical blanked.
• You want kids to be active participants. Answer questions. Let them help the narrator.
• Plan your engagement strategy based on how old they are. What is your goal? Sometime you have storyteller have fun other to teach.
• You can tell a story of 20 min. Teachers ask how to you do it? Every 3 – 4 min does something to make the story very dynamic. Kids have to respond by movements and by voice.

Book: Juan bobo and the flies:

• Use different voices for different characters.
• She has sequence of activities.
• Have the kids act out of being bugs. Teller tells them, you are now flies. I can change you back if you participate. Every time teller uses the word ‘flies’ the audience does something. At the end of the story, we need to do the sequence backwards.
• She says flies very 2-3 min.
• In this story, there is a point where we have to think about the advice by given by others. Even may question the advice by an adult.
• The kids get to think and the adults do as well.
• Prepare the kids through movements. My hands are constantly describing it.
• You want the kids to feel empowered.

Book: ann and the dog that could not bark.

• She uses puppets. Card stalk with handle pictures
• When kids given a question, the storyteller shakes her head to prompt the kids for the answer of “no.”
• Story can teach not to give up.
• Story teaches that everyone communicates.

I had a chance to attend a storytelling zoom training posted by Carolina Quiroga-Stultz. Any misinformation of my notes is the fault of the note taker.

To be playful:

• Ask the children what is in the middle of their face. Tel them to say hello to their nose. Fun to say hi to their own body parts.
• Ask them, what inside your mouth? Tongue. Kids love stick out your tongues.
• Show your teeth.
• You are having them do something different. Don’t sue too many animals or puppets.
• If you use too many and it can lose the audience.
• If have a monster story prepare your audience for making the face of the monster. Prompt the kids to show their thinking face, happy face, sad face and then monster face that will be used later in the story.
• The more you repeat a physical movement, the kids want to follow.
• Maybe insert a sign language to broaden your boundaries.
• If you need a song or change in the story introduce it early into the story to train the kids to use it throughout the story.
•  Presenter makes up her own chants

Plan your warm up according to your set of stories.

• Maybe you tell 2- 3-4 stories for 30 to 40 you want your warms up to be linked to what is coming.
• She relies heavily on imagination when working with kids.
• Her first warm up is the imagination chant.
• My name is xxx. I am a storyteller. She ask them, what do I do? They answer Storyteller.
• She asks the kids, what is a special about a story? They answer: Every story needs a title.
• She asks, what else we need? They answer a character.
• We need stories with imagination- yes imaginations.
• She asks, Does imagination lives in our bellies? No
• Where does imagination live? In our head. She has kids wave fingers around their heads. That is her warm up.
• Her warm up prepares her audience to enter the world of imagination.

Physical activity:

• She gets kids to move their hands.
• Kids need to be moving all the time to get their attention.
• Goal: all children /audience is involved and in their owns ways.

School visits:

• When telling stories at school, remember that kids have personalities.
• Some personalities come out more than others do. See how the personality changes.
• Teachers can learn personalities in the long term. Teller who only visits occasionally, need a 9th senses of reading the audience.
• You read your audience to see who is sitting in front of you. What you see may need to alter your stories. Trait she observed through the years.\
• Lion: kids know everything already. I already know that. They are desperate to participate. They want to be seen. They may or may not believe what you are saying. They may be leaders or be very extraverted. Like being the center of attention. They want to share your opinion with you. They have all the answers.
• Snakes; kids who re shy or are introverts. Maybe they are a little fearful. Maybe they are new students or are foreign students who are still learning English. They may feel they are too cool to participate. or they observers. A snake will not let you know what you are thinking. You almost have to be a clown to get a reaction. You need to determine the kind of characters. Each individual kid is.
• Monkey: they are all over the place. They are jokers. They love attention. They can be like a lion. Their little bodies need to move all the time. They are hyperactive active. They might have ADAD. If they move, you need to get them to center. If you get them to move, they will settle down and follow you. They will go a different pace than the rest of group with the story. They may be faster or slower than the other kids.
• Why identify personality types? We want the kids to have an experience we want kids to feel empowered. Kids want to feel they helped tell the story. You (kids) helped the hero save the day.

The types of intelligence:

• People felt there were two types of intelligence linguistic (politicians). Or the logical mythical (help the world) the rest are the dumb. If kids don’t read well or don’t do well in math, they feel dumb. The education systems favor reading or math, so those students get attention.
• Howard garden Frames of Mind It talks bout Eight types of intelligences. They are: Intra-personal, spatial, naturalist, musical, logical-mathematical, linguistic, bodily kinesthetic, interpersonal, existential.
• Tellers needs to change how she tells stories to address all the eight intelligences.