Story Telling - Performance & Worksphops
STORYTELLING- PERFORMANCE AND WORKSHOPS. “Don has the natural story-teller’s ability to capture the imagination of 30 Y5 and Y6s on a wet Monday morning.” Peter Kent, Head teacher at Instow Community Primary School.
Performance:
Typically I like to do two Storytelling Performances during the morning. The first to be with Key Stage 1 children and the other with Key Stage 2 where I can `shift up a gear` with tales that are longer and more intricately involved. I can work with as many children as you like in these performances, which are all Traditional Tales, and can be from any culture you wish or to fit any `theme` that you are working on. So you might wish Multicultural Stories, or tales from Ancient Greece, Egypt, Vikings, Sea Stories, Mermaids, Myths, Legends or Creation Tales. You name it and I’ll tell it. I have several hundred tales tucked away in my head.
The Performance stimulates imagination for workshops to follow, which I can do for an hour each with different classes (in their respective classrooms). So, in two days I could do my performance and six workshops, ie. two in the second half of the first day and four in the day to follow.
Story Creating Workshops
It is emphasised that telling a story is “painting pictures with words`. I explain how all storytellers use the six magic words to create their tales:- WHAT, WHERE, WHEN, HOW, WHY AND WHO. If the Princess finds a golden ring, WHERE did she find it, WHEN, HOW, WHOSE was it? Then the children, working in small groups of (ideally) four, use chance-picked objects from my MAGIC BAG to create their own tales. Once they have story, then one of each group tells us all their story.
The Traditional Tale is always the model, hence the necessity for the Performance where they see how a Professional Storyteller uses words and gestures to take you into the Tale.
IT IS ESSENTIAL THAT THE TEACHER IS INTIMATELY INVOLVED WITH THE CLASS IN THESE WORKSHOPS TO GET THE MOST FROM THE EXPERIENCE.
“Dear Don the Storyteller. Thank you so much for coming to our school and telling us all those stories. You are very adept at remembering so many and you made them so interesting and easy to listen to. I was struck by how long even the youngest children sat and listened. I very much enjoyed seeing you work with my class and using your bag of things to support their development of a storyline. We thought we would also use some of the photographs which we took of the artefacts as well, as ideas for settings and characters. Thank you again.”
Mrs A. Price (teacher). Pen Mill Infants School, Yeovil, Somerset.
