INTERACTIVE STORIES
(excerpts from posts)
(If you want to retell any of the stories listed below, be sure to obtain permission from the copyright holder if the material is not in the public domain)

1) The Giant Turnip. Get the children to help you pull up the turnip. The story uses people and animals in the tug of war.

2) A quick story that the children love is The Barking Mouse by Antonio Sacre. There is also a cat in the story. You could make it interactive with two children being the brother and sister mouse and another being the cat. It is in More Ready to Tell Tales by Holt and Mooney. It is a bilingual tale, Spanish and English with a fun ending.

3) Why Bear Sleeps All Winter Long is short. It can be found in Easy-To-Tell Stories for Young Children by Annette Harrison. In fact, the book has many good stories that are short and sweet for a young age group.

4) There is also a cute book called Happy Birthday Moon by Frank Asch in which a small bear decides to buy the moon a birthday present.

5) If the children are antsy you can always use the Teddy Bear stretch to get the wiggles out.
TEDDY BEAR TEDDY BEAR
Teddy bear teddy bear turn around (turn around)
|touch the ground (bend and touch toes)
|show your shoe (point to shoe)
|that will do (bow)
|march upstairs (marching motions with feet)
|say your prayers (hands together in prayer)
|turn around (at the point before I say the last line I usually say, "And very carefully..." I have had children fall over each other or step on fingers so I have learned from my mistakes. If I say "very carefully" they always comply.)
|sit back down

6) The Little Red House from Annette Harrison's Easy-to-Tell Tales . . . with an "adaptive" art class. Then the teacher had them do prints with tempura paint and apples cut to show the "star" in the middle.

7) Puppets can be good, a visual 'clue' to bring the three years olds back into the story when they lose track. In The Old Woman and the Pig, (and lots of stories that have an excuse for it,) the children can hold some toys or masks, and the storyteller takes the old woman puppet round to ask each of them if they can help. With the very young, do both voices yourself. Little children can go on and on and on if left to make up their own words!

Produce objects—like the three bears big, little and tiny bowls and spoons, ask which one is Daddy's, Mummy's, Baby's.This leads into the story.

Have a bag full of puppets. Between each story, for our stretch a child tackes one 'to hold during storytime', and we sing the appropriate rhyme. spider- incy wincy spider etc.

With lots of those nice big four and five year olds you'll do fine!

A feely bag or box is nice- one of the puppets from the story stretches bag is Bob the Builder. I say- what has he got in his bag today? The chidlre feel the bag (I keep hold of it and walk around the group) then the last child pulls out the object so everyone can see. Plastic glasses, child's hammer, toothbrush, paintbrush, ball.




(This web page updated 8/9/03)