STORYTELLING is the art in which a teller conveys a message, truths, information, knowledge, or wisdom to an audience - often subliminally - in an entertaining way, using whatever skills, (musical, artistic, creative) or props he chooses, to enhance the audience's enjoyment, retention and understanding of the message conveyed. Stories are sometimes told purely for joy and delight

LINK:

http://www.australianstorytelling.org.au/txt/d-what2.php

2.WHY STORYTELLING

*Story telling basic human instinct, a hard-wired way to inform and entertain. storytelling is a way to celebrate people and places and things that the writer love,and hope the readers might feel more optimistic and inspired .

* stories can satisfy a primal, human need for connection –. Good storytelling has a unique ability to celebrate, at once, the diversity and the commonality of human experience: It shows us that the world is vast and diverse –full of paths w have never walked– yet it has the power to bring us together across cultural, social, and geographical divides.

LINK

http://www.thepowerofstorytelling.ro/news/why-is-storytelling/

and movement in classroom?

children simply react differently to activities that include elements of movement, music, and storytelling. Even when compared to other research-based, effective practices, the 3 Game Changers offer unparalleled novelty, interest, stimulation, excitement, and joy. As a result, students become emotionally involved in these activities, pay more attention, remember better, and, in short, learn better. Strategies that incorporate movement, music, and storytelling also improve class morale, build self-esteem and enthusiasm for learning, and increase feelings of student “connectedness” to the class and to one another. 

The first features a specific type of movement that call “concept-embedded” movement, in which the activity itself features a type of movement that represents, matches, or embodies the meaning of the content students are expected to learn. Thus, when students move around and participate in the activity, they are actually bringing the content to life. 

The second capitalizes on the finding shared by Jerry Evanski in his book, CLASSROOM ACTIVATORS, that “music can...be used to ‘entrain’ information into the brain.” By entrain, Evanski means that teachers can set academic content to music to help students learn and memorize information. The best way to do this is through the use of familiar tunes that Amy Schwed and Janice Melichar-Utter, authors of BRAIN-FRIENDLY STUDY STRATEGIES,

LINK :

http://www.reading.org/reading-today/classroom/post/engage/2013/04/30/use-music-and-movement-to-improve-reading-instruction

development

a. Social development:

- Singing or chanting can help make routine activities and transitions, such as gathering children into a circle or group activity, smoother and more enjoyable. And music helps to set a mood. Quiet, soothing music calms and relaxes children, while a lively marching tune rouses them for energetic clean‐up time. Music and movement are also social activities that help children feel part of the group.

Link: http://www.niu.edu/ccc/resources/importanceofmusicandmovement.pdf

- Music links children to their cultural heritage, assisting them to acquire cultural beliefs and values. Listening to music also exposes children to other times and cultures and provides the opportunity to gain appreciation for them. In addition, as children create music together, they engage in a metaphorical experience, where different instruments combine to make a unique sound that no individual instrument could produce. Through this process, they learn that to make beautiful music, you must have unity and work together.

Link: http://www.education.com/reference/article/music-center-enhance-children-development/?page=2

b. Physical development:

  - Exploring with classroom instruments provides just the inspiration children need to swing and sway their way to motor-skill development.

Link: http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/article/physical-development-move-music

c. Cognitive development:

  - According to the Early Childhood Music and Movement Association, 85 percent of brain development occurs by the time a child reaches 3 years. As children grow, they need to learn specific activities that are important for development. For example, very young children begin to scoot and crawl for movement and while these activities are part of eventually learning to walk, they are also essential for brain development. Additionally, patterned activities at home or in the preschool classroom, such as clapping to music or jumping in time to a beat stimulate brain function and help the brain to organize thoughts and behaviors.

Link: http://www.livestrong.com/article/527778-importance-of-music-movement-in-the-education-of-young-children/

Preparing the Story

1. Read the main story out loud. If it is a Bible story, read it in several Bible translations and also read the passages before and after the story for context. Look up an unfamiliar words, places, or people. A good background for the story will make it easier to tell and remember.
2. Visualize the story. Rather than memorize, visualize. The better you are able to picture the story in your mind, the better you can relate that picture to the others. Create story boards in your mind of the sequence of the events. Divide the stories into episodes and learn them episode by episode. Episodes change when the action, scene or speaker changes. Use key, repeated words as your guide in “re-experiencing” the story. If you have to look back at the printed copy, you have not spent enough time preparing to tell the story. The story must become your story. Keep it vivid. Use words that paint mental pictures.
3. Adapt the story. The story length should be about one minute for every year of a child’s age. This holds true for youth, but you can stretch it a little more with an interesting story. For adults, the art of story telling applies to your illustrations and testimonies of real life applications. Also consider the background, vocabulary level, and characteristics and interests of your intended listener.
4. Practice. Practice stories in the dead spaces of time–while trying to fall asleep, driving the car, waiting for an appointment, taking a bath or shower. Practice telling the story in front of a mirror. Record the story so you can listen to it. By listening, you are able to learn and refine the story, making it your own. The more you practice, the easier the story will flow.

Telling the Story

1. Use a natural and relaxed manner and an expressive tone of voice. Hold the attention of the listeners with your voice. Speed up, slow down. Lower your voice or raise it. Express delight and surprise. Create suspense.
2. Make eye contact with each person or scan the audience. With children, remember to sit on their level.
3. Open the Bible to the correct reference and hold the Bible in your lap.
4. Grab the listener’s attention with the first sentence. Get the action going.
5. Alter the timing or pace of the story. Think about how boring music or life would be if everything existed at the same speed.
6. Portray characters and events with your voice and your gestures, keeping in mind that gestures should be genuine, but not exaggerated.
7. Beware of tangents. tangents tend to confuse. Avoid too many details. Excessive detail also tends to confuse.
8. Don’t forget to link the story to your lesson. In a simple sentence or two, tell them why you are going to tell them this story or why you told them the story. Keep it brief. Let the story simmer in your listeners’ minds. Let the story speak for itself. Don’t make it a sermon. Stories enhance sermons; sermons do not enhance stories.

Tools for Storytelling

1. Voice. Your voice is your most important tool in telling Bible stories. The tone and mood of your voice should interpret the Bible story. The feelings of fear, sadness, anger, frustration, or even sleepiness should be evident in your voice to the same degree that they are evident in the story. The speed and direction of your voice will communicate. Example: “Jeremiah was put into a hole in the ground. He went down, down, deep, deep down in the hole.” Your voice can drop with the words “down” and “deep.” Also, using action words and sound words (“Slap,” “Crash,” “Smack”) can add interest, movement, and meaning to the Bible story. The pitch and inflection of the voice should be used from time to time to indicate different characters in a story. Be careful. Too much character can distract from the story. Don’t panic in the pauses. Pauses actualy can be used to great dramatic effect. In pauses, listeners feel the presence, not the absence of God.
2. Facial Expression. Your face is the movie screen of the story. It can be blank with sound only or filled with the action of the story. A smile or a frown can help project the image of the place and people. As you portray different people in the story, think about what their faces would look like.
3. Gestures and Movements. It’s been said that if you tie the hands of a storyteller, he or she will forget the story. Use your hands and body to tell and live the story. The best rule for using gestures is to use only meaningful gestures and to use them on a limited basis. Storytellers who use gestures and movements for every event or person in the story risk losing the preschoolers or making gestures and movement less significant by overuse.

1. You need to tell stories that you like.

Choose a story you like when telling for kids at the library, for a sacred setting or to leaders of business or nonprofit groups. There will be many stories for any situation you are in. Choose a story that you can understand and enjoy.

2. Take the time to prepare.

Take the time to learn how to tell a story. Don’t just dive into telling a story you have heard only once. Break the story into parts. Practice with a recording device and a gentle-yet-truthful friend who can hear your first attempts.

3. Do not hesitate to remove the slow parts of your story.

It’s not unusual for first-time storytellers to try to tell every piece of a story. Storytelling occurs in the moment so not every detail has to be included each time. Ask yourself, "Do I need to tell this piece of the story this time? Is it critical?"

4. Use a strong and confident voice.

Being prepared will make you confident. Speak with clarity and confidence. Enunciate and project your voice towards the listeners.

5. Use good pacing.

When you are confident, you will not be in a hurry. You want to speak slow enough so that the story is easily absorbed by the audience but do not speak so slowly that their minds check out of the room.

6. Do not pass on the microphone.

In almost all cases, you will need to use a microphone. This is respectful to your audience. The most seasoned speaker might get away without a microphone for groups under 25 folks. Beginners, use the mic unless you are speaking to a few folks at a luncheon round-table event.

7. Use eye-contact with your listeners.

Your eye contact is a gift to the listener. It always amazes me how a fleeting moment of eye contact can make an audience member come to me and say, "I felt like you were talking to me personally."

8. Make your gestures easy and calm.

"You looked so confident up there. I never know what to do with my hands." When people say this to me, I am thankful that I took the time to prepare which gestures I would use and when I would use them. Your gestures should be natural and relaxed. Take the time to decide these ahead of time.

9. Avoid the "moral of the story" finishes.

Stories teach. Storytelling is a most effective way to teach with story. Let the story speak to the audience in its own way and skip the need to tell them what to think. If you must do the "moral" of a story, ask your audience first to tell you what they think. Their answers might teach you.

ADVANTAGES

.

Communication and Social Skills 

• Hand Puppets are an ideal springboard for developing speaking and listening skills.
• Children often communicate more easily with puppets, giving them confidence to express their ideas and feelings
• Shy children can become acquainted with others through the roles they take on
• Children are free to try on new personalities and take them off again, with a puppet on their hand, broadening their own in the process.
• Scary animal hand puppets like lions and sharks or shy ones such as a  tortoise can help children master uncomfortable feelings
• Puppet play provides an opportunity to gain some control over their world by working out fears and frustrations.

Creative Skills

• Hand Puppet play helps young children develop creative skills by forcing them to use their imaginations. They make up the roles, the rules, the situations and the solutions.
• It is through imaginative play that children come to understand the differences between fantasy and reality. 

• The real world becomes more real to children who have opportunities to pretend.

Language Skills

• Whether children write their own stories or adapt one of their favourite books into a play, story telling with hand puppets is one of the best ways for kids to build their reading, comprehension, and vocabulary skills, building on their ideas by introducing new words, their meanings and other information.
• Pick books that are appropriate for the children's' age and reading level. Younger children will likely enjoy folk or fairy tales featuring animal characters, magic, or fantasy, while older children may be drawn to stories involving mystery, science, drama or even non-fictional accounts of important people or events.

 Don't forget the Puppet Theatre

Half the fun of putting on a puppet play comes in planning the performance. But the final result needs puppet theatre. A great way to let kids showcase their creation.

Creating a hand puppet show as a family is a wonderful way to help kids learn to work as part of a group and strengthen family ties at the same time.

LINK;

http://www.learningtoys.ca/english/benefits-puppet-play

DISADVANTAGES

1) the cost and storage of the puppets. Jeffrey Peyton, founder of Puppetools and a noted researcher in the field of puppets having studied the topic for over thirty-five years, concludes that, “There is no question that puppets and play will help students. People standing primarily in the way are adults.” There is a perception that puppets are used only by very young children or trained puppeteers.

 2)Teaching by way of negative example is superbly handled by hand-puppets because itcan overstress. The hand-puppets can say things that might seem offensive if spoken by aperson. A hostile or hateful hand-puppet can more easily be made wrong, or be made tochange his or her mind.

3)Seeing the hand- puppet may distract the young children or causethem to not pay attention to what the hand- puppet is saying because they are too busyfocusing on the hand-puppets movements and the way the hand-puppet looks.

LINK;

http://www.slideshare.net/kokilavaaninarayanan/the-importance-of-puppets

Step 1

Play music and encourage children to dance freestyle. Use a variety of different types of music and show children some different ways to move to the music. Demonstrate ballet moves for slow music and air guitar for faster songs.

Step 2

Give children musical instruments and show them how to play them. Teach children how to march around the room in a parade or marching band formation as they play their instrument. Illustrate how to walk or march to a beat.

Step 3

Teach children songs and actions. Actions can add depth to a song and will motivate many children to participate in singing, write William M. Anderson and Joy E. Lawrence, authors of "Integrating Music into the Elementary Classroom." Make up actions to popular children's songs and invite children to make up their own as well.

Step 4

Show children how to chant in order to teach them the beat. Make up some chants and teach children to clap to the beat. Encourage children to stomp their feet, sway, wave their arms or march in place once they have mastered clapping to the beat.

Step 5

Play musical games that include movement. Try playing a game such as "Freeze Dance," which encourages children to dance until the music stops, when they are supposed to freeze, recommends Storms. Gather many different instruments and have each child try to imitate a sound an animal makes while acting out the animal. Invite the other children to guess what animal is being imitated

link:http://www.livestrong.com/article/207666-how-to-teach-music-movement-to-young-children/

- Games

- Learning by singing

- Musical toys or instruments

Links:

http://www.creativityinstitute.com/earlychildhooddevelopment-childrenandmusic.aspx