Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Friday, March 26, 2010
Book widget recommendation?
Today, Jen of SewnNatural presented a nice writeup of some of my latest activity with the NaturalKids team. The book suggestions I will be posting on a regular basis in the sidebar will need a nice, neat widget. Are there any recommendations out there? I have a GoodReads account, but my initial attempt to make a widget just for specific book recommendations on a bookshelf has not been successful, as it ends up pulling books from other bookshelves.
Update: We're going with Shelfari.
Update: We're going with Shelfari.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Storytelling Fabric
Local illustrator Julie Paschkis has helped create some of my favorite picture books: The Great Smelly, Slobbery Small-Tooth Dog and Mrs. Chicken and the Hungry Crocodile are two particular stand-outs in terms of how well the pictures and text work together. Jules of Seven Impossible Things has featured Paschkis a number of times including last Sunday's post here and an interview here.
On Sunday, when I visited the local fabric store to pick up some embroidery thread, I was surprised to find that Paschkis now has a line of fabric designs for In The Beginning. The collection is called Folklorica and its target audience appears to be quilters. I do not quilt, but I do sew a little, so I bought some of this fabric to make a merry storytelling skirt:
I would enjoy looking at someone's vision of a quilt made out of Paschkis' fabrics. If you ever make one, please let me know.
On Sunday, when I visited the local fabric store to pick up some embroidery thread, I was surprised to find that Paschkis now has a line of fabric designs for In The Beginning. The collection is called Folklorica and its target audience appears to be quilters. I do not quilt, but I do sew a little, so I bought some of this fabric to make a merry storytelling skirt:
I would enjoy looking at someone's vision of a quilt made out of Paschkis' fabrics. If you ever make one, please let me know.
Thursday, March 18, 2010
The Magic Onions: a guest blog post
I wrote a guest blog post on storytelling as part of the "Discovering Waldorf" series in The Magic Onions. You may find it here: Discovering Waldorf- Storytelling.
Spring themed storytelling dolls on a nature display
Spring themed storytelling dolls on a nature display
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
A brief note
I'm still here! I'm working on a guest blog post about Waldorf inspired storytelling for The Magic Onions, which should be posted on Thursday. Yesterday was a full day of testing to see what services my daughter qualifies for next year through the public school system. We still don't know where she will attend school next year, and the whole process of "advocating" (I have begun to despise that word) takes a lot of energy. There are referrals, tests, meetings, and all the while we just want to enjoy our daughter. We want her to live and grow without her feeling as if we're trying to fix her.
I'm glad the auction is finally done. Any future auction projects will be gift-baskets if I have anything to say about the matter! I hope everyone involved gets some rest, now.
I'm glad the auction is finally done. Any future auction projects will be gift-baskets if I have anything to say about the matter! I hope everyone involved gets some rest, now.
Saturday, March 06, 2010
Storytelling in the Bathtub
This blog post was written for Share a Story, Shape a Future's Blog Literacy Tour 2010 and is part of day two of the tour by The Book Chook. Here is the roundup of posts: Literacy My Way.
Storytelling in the Bathtub; Practical Aspects of Family Storytelling
Once upon a time, when my daughter was three years old, she hated to have her hair washed. I understood her vulnerability. A certain amount of trust must be in place in order to allow an adult to tip the child’s head back, pour the water on the hair and keep the water off of the face. Despite the presence of the washcloth, water inevitably trickles into the eyes. As my daughter shrieked that she didn’t want her hair washed, I said, “Have I ever told you about Pepper’s eleven brothers and sisters?”
My daughter stopped yelling. Pepper was my daughter’s beloved little Playmobil princess who shared her interests and fears, but before that moment, she hadn’t known about Pepper’s family. The Twelve Dancing Princesses was my inspiration for the number of siblings, and as I began to wash my daughter’s hair, I gave them plant names: Carnation, Jonquil, Heliotrope, Johnny-Jump-Up, Violet, and so on. In subsequent baths, I told my daughter about the day they all decided to go on a picnic, what they brought with them, who they met along the way, and what they played when they got there. As I told the story, I didn’t try to create an intricate plot, but I took some inspiration from the book Picnic by Emily Arnold McCully. If any of this sounds familiar to you, it’s because I wrote about it three years ago and included a bed-time story as well in the post Three Wishes and One Too Many Shaggy Dogs.
Public storytelling performance is different from family storytelling. When I tell stories for an audience in a bookstore or library, I make sure I know my stories thoroughly and provide proper attribution. Some storytellers are able to make up stories spontaneously for an audience. I am not one of them, but I do know that my colleagues’ spontaneity is possible because of the abundance of stories they already know.
When I do family storytelling, I draw inspiration from Western folktales like those collected by the Brothers Grimm (Germany) and Joseph Jacobs (Great Britain) because I know that I will not be infringing upon another culture’s sacred stories. Certain motifs in those stories by Grimm and Jacobs are probably already familiar to you: a journey, a series of events that happen in threes, a smattering of magic, a symbolic challenge to deal with. I often used my daughter's character of Pepper in stories to help my daughter work through her own struggles from swings and slides to dogs and sirens. Over the years, I've employed other characters meaningful to her.
Two in-print books I recommend are:
Bringing the Story Home: The Complete Guide to Storytelling for Parents, by Lisa Lipkin
A Parent's Guide to Storytelling: How to Make Up New Stories and Retell Old Favorites, by Margaret Read MacDonald
If you are inclined toward folktales, here is a link to help you with the inspiration for your stories: Sur La Lune.
Storytelling in the Bathtub; Practical Aspects of Family Storytelling
Once upon a time, when my daughter was three years old, she hated to have her hair washed. I understood her vulnerability. A certain amount of trust must be in place in order to allow an adult to tip the child’s head back, pour the water on the hair and keep the water off of the face. Despite the presence of the washcloth, water inevitably trickles into the eyes. As my daughter shrieked that she didn’t want her hair washed, I said, “Have I ever told you about Pepper’s eleven brothers and sisters?”
My daughter stopped yelling. Pepper was my daughter’s beloved little Playmobil princess who shared her interests and fears, but before that moment, she hadn’t known about Pepper’s family. The Twelve Dancing Princesses was my inspiration for the number of siblings, and as I began to wash my daughter’s hair, I gave them plant names: Carnation, Jonquil, Heliotrope, Johnny-Jump-Up, Violet, and so on. In subsequent baths, I told my daughter about the day they all decided to go on a picnic, what they brought with them, who they met along the way, and what they played when they got there. As I told the story, I didn’t try to create an intricate plot, but I took some inspiration from the book Picnic by Emily Arnold McCully. If any of this sounds familiar to you, it’s because I wrote about it three years ago and included a bed-time story as well in the post Three Wishes and One Too Many Shaggy Dogs.
Public storytelling performance is different from family storytelling. When I tell stories for an audience in a bookstore or library, I make sure I know my stories thoroughly and provide proper attribution. Some storytellers are able to make up stories spontaneously for an audience. I am not one of them, but I do know that my colleagues’ spontaneity is possible because of the abundance of stories they already know.
When I do family storytelling, I draw inspiration from Western folktales like those collected by the Brothers Grimm (Germany) and Joseph Jacobs (Great Britain) because I know that I will not be infringing upon another culture’s sacred stories. Certain motifs in those stories by Grimm and Jacobs are probably already familiar to you: a journey, a series of events that happen in threes, a smattering of magic, a symbolic challenge to deal with. I often used my daughter's character of Pepper in stories to help my daughter work through her own struggles from swings and slides to dogs and sirens. Over the years, I've employed other characters meaningful to her.
Two in-print books I recommend are:
Bringing the Story Home: The Complete Guide to Storytelling for Parents, by Lisa Lipkin
A Parent's Guide to Storytelling: How to Make Up New Stories and Retell Old Favorites, by Margaret Read MacDonald
If you are inclined toward folktales, here is a link to help you with the inspiration for your stories: Sur La Lune.
Tuesday, March 02, 2010
Four Seasonal Naturescapes
Quiet reflection in the living world is a rare, dearly sought-after state. Quiet on the blogfront comes across at best as benign neglect. I should at least let you enjoy some visuals of what I've been working on to put together for this year's gala auction class project:
Four Seasonal Naturescapes
I miss you. I will return. At the very least, I have a blog post to write about storytelling for The Book Chook's hosting day as part of the Blog Literacy Tour, Share a Story- Shape a Future 2010. That should be up by March 7. Hold me to it!
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