Storytelling in a Kindergarten classroom

  by  Rosenfeld Media 

I have spent lots of time over the last few days thinking about different ways that I could incorporate some of the Storytelling tools into a Kindergarten classroom. I have played around with a couple of the links that Alan Levine has on his list, however I seem to always come back to the 5 Card Flickr. I really enjoyed this and I have told anyone who will listen to me about it. I have a number of friends who teach middle years and and they have all said how they think that this would be good for a writing assignment, in French or in English. I found that I could easily see how this would be beneficial in an older classroom because the students do more independent work and can work through a project like this. It did however take me a long time to figure out how to use it in my own classroom.

Finally it dawned on me that I could do it as a whole class project and introduce the students to storytelling. The children are all great at telling stories, but they are stories that have happened to them so they are more re-telling stories instead of creating stories. With a project like 5 Card Flickr we could learn about how to create stories based on the images that we were provided with. One benefit of using a tool like this is that the children have a starting point because they would have a visual to work with. It might be a little difficult because they pictures are not directly related but with a little practice I am sure they could get the hang of it.

Unfortunately due to my current maternity leave I can’t actually try this in the classroom. On the other hand, I do have a couple of kids at home that are close in age to Kindergarten students so they might be able to help me out. I am going to try to get my sons to help me later today (once the oldest gets home from school). I will be sure to post their attempt so that we can all see if it is in fact a possible project with younger students.