In preparation for telling at the Washington Folk Festival, I needed to practice on my unsuspecting school-age story time. Hence our theme: Folk and Fairytales! (again). Fortunately, they didn't seem to mind too much.
I started off with The Hare who Married a Princess from Margaret Read MacDonald's Shake it Up Tales (originally from Benin.) I love this story. My storytelling teacher had us learn and tell it on the spot in class and I've been perfecting it ever since. Lots of room for ad-lib, audience participation, and hamming it up. The kids had fun with it, but when I asked for volunteers to help me out I got hands raised long past when I needed them. Silly me. Also, while I put in plentiful hints as to the answer to this riddle story, they seemed a little mystified at the end (though someone did come up with the answer before too long.)
I continued with The Goat from the Hills and Mountains (which I plan to tell at the festival) from Flora? Campoy and Alma Flor Ada's Tales our Abuelita's Told (and from Spain and Latin America.) I took the chance of being considered lame and out of touch with the sophistication of my audience by using a flannel board (which I will not be using at the festival.) The kids were spellbound. I can only figure that they mistake it for tv somehow. The young kids are just the same. I was hoping they'd catch onto the refrain and threaten to eat the cute little characters on the board along with me. However, as I had invited them to help out, one little girl decided to try to tell everything along with me (after all, she could identify what I was putting up on the flannel board) and the lady in charge of them was a little growly. I don't think anyone wanted to speak up after that.
I did this story previously with my 2-5 year olds and it worked just as well.
If anybody reads this and wants a copy of my drawings for the flannelboard figures, just ask in a comment...
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