Today's Classroom Activities :

Storytelling

Colorful Stories
Writing/Art Purchase a coloring book and remove its pages. Give one page to each child to color and write a couple of sentences to explain. Then come together and sequence those picture stories into a longer story. Vote on a title and mount it on a bulletin board. Will the story fit a genre? Did anyone use dialogue? Add little text bubbles as necessary between frames.

Story Starters
In using every day objects as props, students become more relaxed to let their story unfold naturally and creatively while others (the audience) enjoy the visual representations as well as the oral delivery.

Telling a Story About Me: Young Children Write Autobiographies
The lesson begins with the students working at home with their families to select and record relevant information about photos. Students then work in small groups and independently to create their autobiographies.

Create a family history totem pole
In this lesson, students will research their own family history and create a totem pole to reflect and communicate that history. In the process they will learn about symbols and how they are used.

Draw a Story: Stepping from Pictures to Writing
As a class, students read the wordless picture book Pancakes for Breakfast by Tomie dePaola, telling the story themselves as they read the pictures. Next, they draw a picture of a person doing something, and tell the story of their picture. After sharing and discussing each other's pictures, students draw a second picture to show what might happen next. Working at their own pace, they continue the story by drawing pictures showing the problem and solution. When all the pictures are complete, students put them in order and write or dictate the story that goes with them. Finally, students create an accordion book from their drawings and text.

Telling a Story through Dance
This lesson introduces students to the concept of emotionally and physically telling a story through dance and pantomime. Students will learn that in ballet the dancer is trained to act out the story/character with movement instead of words. The Nutcracker will serve as the foundation for the lesson and activities.