Evening of Storytelling!

Last night 2 classmates and I got together to perform stories for our friends and families. It was lots of fun, and I think it went really well.
We each preformed 3 tales, all of mine have been posted on this blog before, but I think it's really nice to hear it again with a different audience, in a different atmosphere than a library storytime. Let me know what you think about them, too!

If you're only going to listen to one I would suggest The Very Hungry Caterpillar, because for the first time it is performed in front of a live audience (who was very familiar with the story, and I thought would tell the whole thing for me. It was really neat).



Here also are Rabbit's Snow Dance and Popcorn, which are neat to hear again because the audience is different, and it's in a different location (and I've practiced a lot more).
Rabbit's Snow dance:


Popcorn:


Enjoy!

Popcorn Storytime: Story 3

Today I did another family storytime at BCL. It had a lot more people then the last two times (about 20 people total!), and there were some really good participants. My sister also stopped by to take photos and watch me at work.

Because I’m trying to have a storytelling at each of these storytimes, I need to find some that fit the theme given to me. It was a bit difficult to come up with a story about popcorn. While doing a desperate Google Search I found this website. it is a neat little story so I decided to adapt that. In the style of Brian “Fox” Ellis (one of the storytellers I viewed for my storyteller’s critique, if you didn’t slog through the last post) I decided to add a little education and some audience participation, too. Here's the story:


The children have name tags so I picked a couple of the names to use for the children in the story. The brother, Alex and Cody were sitting in the back so were very pleased that they could be part of the story (Mom and Dad were really happy about that, too). I am really proud of that touch.
For this storytime I ran short on time so only read 2 books, sang 2 popcorn songs, and told my story, before we made our craft of popcorn clouds. The craft was a big hit (even through I told them not to eat the popcorn). Because they got to use liquid glue instead of our usual glue sticks. Exciting times.

Next week stay tuned for my evening of storytelling with members of our class, and "Days of the Week" at the library's family storytime.


Today’s Reading Rainbow Books Are:

Low, Alice. (c1993.). The popcorn shop. New York : Scholastic.

Oppenheim, Joanne. (1997, c1989.). "Not now!" said the cow. Milwaukee : Gareth Stevens Pub.

The story “Popcorn snow” is adapted from the story by A. R Scheinerman, http://scheinerman.net/judaism/popcorn/index.html
with help from:
De Paola, Tomie. (c1978.). The popcorn book. New York : Holiday House.
And
Kudlinski, Kathleen V. (1998.). Popcorn plants. Minneapolis, Minn. : Lerner Publications Company

StoryTime 2: Strawberries

I lead my second family storytime this last Saturday. I don't feel it went quite as well as the last. I was less practiced with the books, story, and songs, and the audience was much less actively involved, but I think they still had a good time. The theme was strawberries and I told the creation story of strawberries from the book “The First Strawberries: A Cherokee Story” retold by Joseph Bruchac (the same person who retold the Rabbit’s Snow dance from last week). But I found the same story in Pat Nelson’s “Magic Minutes: Quick Read-Alouds for Every Day.” Based on the attention span and interest levels of my audience I cut the story quite a bit (like the entire middle), but I think it was successful. Now I know to feel a bit more comfortable with my stories before telling them.
Here’s the audio of the story:




Today’s Reading Rainbow books are:

Bruchac, Joseph, 1942-. (c1993.). The first strawberries : a Cherokee story. New York : Dial Books for Young Readers.

Degen, Bruce. (c1983.). Jamberry. New York, N.Y. : Harper & Row.

Martin, Bill, 1916-2004. (c1983, 1967.). Brown bear, brown bear, what do you see?. New York : Henry Holt and Co.

Molk, Laurel. (1998.). Good job, Oliver!. New York : Crown Publishers.

Nelson, Pat, 1925-. (1993.). Magic minutes : quick read-alouds for every day. Englewood, Colo. : Libraries Unlimited.

Wood, Don, 1945-. (1998.). The little mouse, the red ripe strawberry, and the big hungry bear. Swindon, England : Child's Play (International).

Rabbit’s Snow Dance: My First Planned Storytelling

My story time went really well today-- I was nervous that perhaps I had prepared to much to do and the story time would go on forever, but I had just enough. I felt very confident in the story of Rabbit's snow dance, having told it 3-4 times in front of people before, and twice as many to myself. I felt better about the words I used, (sometimes in practice I would repeat a word over and over as if I was stuck on it, like “snow”, and “dance") I'll have to listen to my recording to see how it really went, but I got a lot of complements on it, so Huzzah! We started with our opening song, then I read a story about dancing and we did the Hokey Pokey. Then it was time for my story. I had my rabbit with me, but I put it to the side after introducing it, and brought it back at the end. The kids seemed to get into the song, (as you can hear in the recording one kid wanted to repeat it every time, but we didn't). The rest of the story time went well, too, I read more books, and we sang more songs. I forgot to sing the closing song, but I did remember the crafts, so Success

Now I'm really excited for next week! It's going to be awesome!

Here are a couple of sound clips from story time. Because of privacy and technology issues I cannot video record them, but this should work well.

Here is the story of Rabbit's Snow Dance:


This is one of the best Storytime songs there is (in my opinion). When I did toddler storytime they all got a huge kick out of snapping the monkeys.



Today's Reading Rainbow Books are:

Bruchac, Joseph, 1942-. (c1995.). The boy who lived with the bears : and other Iroquois stories. New York : HarperCollinsPublishers.

Durango, Julia. (c2006.). Cha-cha chimps. New York : Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers.

Ford, Bernette G. (2008.). Ballet class. New York : Boxer Books.

Jones, Bill T. (c1998.). Dance. New York : Hyperion Books for Children.

London, Jonathan, 1947-. (c1999.). Wiggle, waggle. San Diego : Harcourt Brace.

Time for Story 1

While the regular librarian is out I'm in charge of Saturday's "family storytime" at the BCL on April 18th, and 25th. (I'm also taking a couple more in May)

The themes she is giving me are "Strawberries" and "Dancing" so I'm looking stories that pertain to those themes. (any suggestions?)

I've found the zen one about the man being chased by tigers and hanging from a vine off the edge of a cliff on the brink of death and tasting a sweet strawberry-- It's good, action-packed, and thought provoking, I'm not sure it's conclusive enough for 2-7-year-olds. (I mean, "a strawberry never tasted so sweet"? If I were five I'd be upset the strawberry didn't give him the energy he needed to climb the vine and make the tigers his friends (or make them into tiger pancakes)).

I think "Dancing" will be fairly easy to find stories about.

I'm a bit nervous to be up in front of everyone without a book to protect me, so I'm inclining towards using a puppet or two for props. When I've used puppets in songs I've had good experiences, so this may be a good way to ease into storytelling for a new audience.

I know that some would say that using props is cheating, but, oh well...

I'm also working on figuring out this digital voice recorder I got for Christmas, that way I can record my storytimes, and post them here!