stories made of plasticine

In two small groups, the children dictated a story together, then split up the tasks of making characters and props in the story out of plasticine.

Although we do work with clay, I like giving the children plasticine - its very malleable, and it the colors help the children make distinctions between different parts of what they are making.  Even the youngest children feel successful.

Our next step is to photograph each scene in the story. 

A Girl With a Lot of Pink

On Being Friends

The children wrote this story about being friends as a whole class.  The children are "getting sad" with each other - based on who is playing with who, who their friends are, and how they feel when people shout and hit.  They have a lot to say, and I think we will be exploring this thread in tandem with our storytelling and bookmaking project.  The two main characters in this story have already reappeared in one child's book.

 Our Story About Being Friends

Leo and Ducky were playing outside.  Leo and Ducky are best friends.  Ducky pushed Leo.  Leo says, "You're It!"because he doesn't want Ducky to hit him anymore.  And then Ducky says to her Mommy Ducky, "I pushed Leo." Leo says to his Daddy that he pushed Ducky.  And then the Mommy of Ducky put her in the corner. 

Then Leo and Ducky go on a picnic and Ducky says, "I'm sorry." She says, "Do you want to play with me?" and Leo says "Yes!"  Ducky says, "Let's play princesses because we're girls!" No, Leo is a boy.  "Let's play prince and princess." Then Ducky says, "Leo, do you want to play with me?" And Leo says, "No!"  Then Leo is say "I can play with you?"  And then Leo says "Yes."  Leo and Ducky play the piano.  And then they all be nice...all of the Moms and Dads and the sisters be nice and then they all hug their pets.  Then she said, "I love you, Leo!"

P End.

Love and Flowers

We are in our storytelling phase of the year.  I always love when it starts!  Here's a little taste of what it looks and sounds like for us.

"The boy loves the girl.  And the door opens the flowers for to wake up the water to put the water in the flowers.  And the girl likes the boy, too.  But she wants to open the gate and open and open and open.  The end."

VoiceThread

VoiceThread is a tool that I am a big fan of. We have used it to retell two stories so far this year, but I have a little list of ideas for how we will use it in the second half of the year. Children's stories, documentation, video...

Here is the first VoiceThread that I created with the children - a retelling of "The Enormous Turnip" by Alexei Tolstoy. My classroom is a combination of native English speakers and English beginners, so it is interesting for me to listen to my reading of the story, and then the imitation of my tone and pitch when all of the children are retelling it. I used the children's self-portraits as their images rather than their pictures (it is a public site).



Is this a tool you could use in your classroom? How do you feel about using technology like this in the classroom?

Rest Time = Story Time

We have a rest time everyday in PreK. After lunch the children get their mats and blankets and settle onto the floor for a 45 minute rest. Some sleep, but many do not. And (in my experience) there is nothing greater than audio stories to keep the ones who are wide awake entertained.

I use recordings by Jay O'Callahan often. My husband listened to his stories when he was young, and he really is a magical storyteller with wonderful original stories.

Our school library has a collection of Winnie the Pooh stories read by Jim Broadbent that we use also -- he does all of the characters just right.

The kids love Peter and the Wolf, too... I've been meaning to pick up the David Bowie version.

You have to change things up sometimes, though -- the same stories can get a little repetitive, right? So I was happy to have stumbled across StoryNory while searching for an audio reading of The Owl and The Pussycat by Edward Lear. I ended up downloading quite a few stories that we'll be trying out next week at rest time.

Do you have rest time? How do you feel about "making" kids rest?