Storytelling is something I never thought I would like doing, especially on video. I am a shy person so I took this class to get me out of my shell and I have ended up loving it. Each week I look forward to sharing the stories I read with everyone and checking out videos of others. Out of all of the storytelling videos that I have had to do, I think I enjoyed the storytelling without a book the best. When I first took this class I went through the syllabus and I was nervous because I thought there was no way I could tell a story without a book. At first, I thought this experience would be the hardest because I had to memorize the story word for word, but that was not the case. I just needed to know the story in detail in order to retell it correctly. I liked that I did not have to retell the story word for word and I could focus on the actual story, not just remembering or recalling the words.
I picked this book because I am a mom and once was a child, so I could relate to both characters in the book, the mom and the baby llama. Plus, who does not love a good Llama Llama book. This book series is familiar to a lot of students. They love to see what Llama Llama is going to get into today. My sister is having her first baby at the age of 38 in the next month so I wanted to gift her this book along with the video for my niece. Since I am a librarian I thought this would be the perfect gift. I am sure my sister will experience several baby llama nights. Also, I felt this book would be relatable to my students. As Piipponen & Karlsson (2021) stated, an aesthetic storytelling experience captures emotions as well as words. We have all been a baby Llama at some point in our lives. I wanted to show the students that it is okay to miss your mom and be scared when you are alone. I wanted the students to know that it is normal to feel scared and miss your mom at night. But always remember that mom loves you and will see you in the morning.
Students can design their own red pajamas as an activity to go along with the book.
Since the name of the book is Llama Llama Red Pajama I decided I wanted to make it my own so I searched for red pajamas to wear while reading it. You would think it would be easy to find red pajamas since it is during the holiday season but that was not the case. I had to visit several stores to find a pair of red pajamas to wear while reading the book. I love shopping so I didn’t mind having to go to several places before finding them. It would be great to share this book on pajama day so the students could wear their pajamas too. I think by having the students wear pajamas it can bring in connections to the story. It also makes reading fun and shows students it can be an enjoyable experience. Some students will always remember the special day they wore pajamas and enjoyed reading this book.
While reading the story you could have a stuffed Llama wearing red pajamas.
I read the story, Llama, Llama Red Pajama many times. I read the story to myself and out loud to my daughter and my husband. I decided to create an outline for the story. This way I could hit all of the important parts of the story. I recorded the video the first time and then rewatched it to see where I was making mistakes. The first video was way too long so I decided I needed to trim the story some. I knew if the story was too long I could lose interest in the story. Finding that happy medium between not being too long and getting all of the important points across was tough.
I do not like watching myself on video but I know I have to do it to make myself a better storyteller. After viewing and reviewing my videos, something I need to work on is that I talk too fast. I am normally a fast talker and people in my life have learned to accommodate me but now I need to work on slowing down when storytelling, especially with young children. Talking too fast can ruin the story. I need to pace myself to emphasize what details are important in the story. I want to tell all of the parts of the story but sometimes I get too involved in specific details and the story gets too long, therefore I speed up my pace and I talk too fast. I also found myself swaying during the story. This was the first time I videoed myself telling a story standing up so I had never caught on to this behavior before.
Storytelling can be powerful when combined with nonfiction. I have read several nonfiction stories this week. I tend to like the nonfiction genre because it allows me to learn new information. As a teacher, I have found that some students either really like nonfiction or try to shy away from it all together. When I took students to the library I saw the same students migrate to only the fiction side of the library. I have also found that boys seem to be more interested in nonfiction than girls. This is why I would always make sure I had appealing nonfiction books available to my students during silent reading time. I tried to make the nonfiction books quick and easy reads in hopes that my students would independently read about something we were currently learning.
5 Nonfiction Stories I read this week are:
References
Piipponen, O. & Karlsson, L. (2021). Our stories were pretty weird too’- Children as creators of a shared narrative culture in an intercultural story and drawing experience. Retrieved from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0883035520318267?via%3Dihub
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