Third Day at Southport

Blog from Third Day at Southport Elementary

I was so sad to see the last day arrive for my work with the students and staff at Southport! The site is small and I got to know many of the children in the two days I was there.
On the last day, they delighted me by not only recalling (very well!) the tale of the Bear’s Breakfast, but also by wanting to tell it alone! So many wanted to do solo performances that I felt badly that we did not have the time to do that. But I encouraged them to tell their parents the stories when they were at home.
Only six parents were able to come—many work long hours. Some of the students expressed regret that their parents would not be able to come for that reason and I encouraged them to perform the stories at home and told them about my childhood—both of my parents worked so could never attend school events. They seemed somewhat comforted by the fact that I really understood how they felt.
Per prior arrangement with Kathy Smith, CIS After School Director, and the CIS Site Director, Miss Shelia, we began the “show” at 4:15.

I performed a North Carolina Version of Ming Lo Moves the Mountain for them. Then we did my version of Stone Soup, set in a school. Then I explained to parents what the week was about—stories with positive values to help with the problem of bullying by modeling right responses and encouraging creative thinking to deal with problems.
While I spoke, the students were given their Bear Breakfast puppets by the teachers. Then we acted out the story of the Bear’s Breakfast together for their parents. We gave them my grandmother’s chicken soup recipe to take home!

The staff served cookies to everyone afterwards and I stayed and talked with several students and parents.

The handouts for the stories should reinforce the learning in each story in future weeks. I forgot to hand out the evaluation sheets but will ask Kathy to email the sheet to Miss Shelia next week.

On Monday the program starts at Virginia Williamson where the format will be different, reflecting the much larger size of the program and lack of ability to have craft time at the site. For that program, I will perform three stories each day and give out the puppet forms as a take home craft rather than an on-site activity.

Day I and 2 at Southport

Photo of Me with Kathy Smith, CIS After-School Director in Brunswick County, NC


Arrived early on the first day (February 8) and met the students and staff. Kathy Smith was there to tape the story session. The students were great listeners and loved the stories. They were not so interested in doing a craft—any craft. Their objects came before they even heard what it was.
Some of them did enjoy making the puppets. They all told me that they liked the stories!
During the craft time I did ask them questions about bullying—a survey from one of the anti bullying resources. They were honest. But I do not think we learned anything new.
There are no follow up activities or questions for the teachers to use afterwards with the students for this set of stories.

Day two’s story time went very well-. / They loved the rattlesnake story and were excited participants in the Bear’s Breakfast. Most were happy to make the puppets for Bear’s Breakfast since we told them that they would perform it for the parents. .

After talking with Kathy we changed the format a bit for the parent day.
The students will do stone soup with me without any craft. Then I will tell them another story, putting off the time that they do the story of Hungry Bear for the parents until alter so that more of the parents can get there in time to see it!

I am selecting the story of the Emperor and the Nightingale or perhaps the story of the Li Po and the dragon to add to the stories for them.

Kathy mentioned to me that after talking with the staff at Virginia Williamson, she did not think it advisable to do crafts because they do not do craft projects together at that site. Adding to that factor is the cheer numbers—70 students at Virginia Williamson. We decided that for them the puppet shapes will be take homes. I will have them ready for the students to take away and they can use them to retell the stories at home!

I will add an additional story to each day’s repertoire for Virginia Williamson to fill the time slot. Because of the size of the group, most of the story participation will be call and response format.
Some of the stories I am considering for additions at Virginia Williamson:
Hambone (bullying of dog by cat)
The above two stories—Nightingale and Li Po and Dragon –one ---the Emperor does not value the little nightingale, in the second, the dragon is a bully and the boy makes friends with him.
Shark! The story that tells the origin of the first shark—a bullying mother in law becomes the first shark! This is my own version of a Japanese folk tale and always a lot of fun.

Stories at Chapin Museum, Happy New Year!

The year of the Rabbit was my theme for storytelling yesterday (Feb 5) at the Chapin Museum in Myrtle Beach. Great tie-in with anti-bullying since Rabbit is wise and kind and solves problems that way!
Sun News in Myrtle ran a feature online of photos of the day's events and included one of my story session!
You can view it at--and you will get to scroll through lots of other photos of the day as well. Event is annual and free to the public.
http://www.thesunnews.com/2011/02/05/1964897/chinese-new-year.html#http://media.thesunnews.com/smedia/2011/02/05/20/chineseNYr-1372.standalone.prod_affiliate.78.jpg

Almost time to start!

The actual performance dates are coming up soon! I have a performance at the Chapin Museum for Chinese New Year coming up this weekend and that will be a lot of fun. Actually, the stories that I will tell for this year, the year of the rabbit, have a lot of significance for my anti-bullying program. In this case, rabbit is not a trickster. In the Chinese zodiac, Rabbit exhibits the qualities that I emphasize in the program—kindness and compassion. He treats others as he would like to be treated—he puts others ahead of himself.


Flexibility makes story performance a perfect vehicle for use in a values teaching setting. My role as teller—to serve the audience with the to use the stories to help them understand the principles of behavior that fosters positive social interaction and builds that will build enable the student to build up one another in stead of tearing down character and feelings of others



If you have been reading the blog, you may have noticed that along the way, we (Kathy Smith, the CIS Director of After School Programs, and I) made several changes in how we are presenting the program, based on the size of the audience, ages presented and needs of the site schedule. The flexibility of story makes this possible. A teller needs to have a servant attitude. The teller is servant to the audience and the story itself, working to meet the physical, emotional age and other needs of the students and adapting to the physical limitations of each site when presenting.



So, far this is the plan: the first days of the program will be story performances.

On the last day each student will receive the crafts, the handouts for the Bear’s Breakfast. On another day, when the teller is not present, the students will receive the evaluation sheet that asks their reactions to the tales.