Homeschool Tips Tricks Ideas

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Dear StoryTelling friend,

Teachers, librarians, parents, caregivers all ask me, “How do I tell stories for children?” No matter your goal: stories for the classroom, bedtime stories, storytelling in libraries, a story for homeschool, stories for parents to tell their children, here are 6 tips for telling stories to children:

1. Be prepared for anything.

One of the best pieces of advice I can give you about storytelling for children is: expect the unexpected.

You have to be prepared with a variety of stories when working with children. Once, I was booked to tell stories to a group of children at a local library. I was told to expect kids of roughly ages 6-8. When the audience started to arrive at the library, they were not the older children I was expecting but rather just-beyond-toilet-trained toddlers, who had much of their focus spent on their “big boy pants” (the pull-up pants that are a version of very absorbent underpants) and the very exciting Velcro(tm) strips on their shoes. All of my prepared stories were geared for the listening and participative skills of a much older audience. So, I had to dig deep into my repertoire of stories and games to entertain this very young crowd. We had a good time but it was the long 25 minutes of improvising!

2. Pay close attention to your audience.

You will remember that in previous lessons I talked about storytelling being an audience-centered art form. The younger your audience, the more you as the storyteller must be carefully aware of how your audience is reacting. Children wear their emotions and feelings on their bodies. If a story is not keeping their attention, you will soon know it. Then quickly finish it up and move on to the next story on your list.

3. Focus on having a variety of stories and presentations for those stories.

For older audiences, you may often have a “set list” of stories you will tell. For your audience of children, it is better to have a “pile” of stories to tell with a variety of lengths and participation levels. Generally, for these young ears and eyes, a series of quick and fun stories is a good choice, with a few slow-down stories at the ready if they seem to have a need to listen more carefully.

4. Do not surprise your sponsors.

Every community has a different sense of what is and is not appropriate content in storytelling for children. Be sure that you and the sponsor are clear on what the sponsor expects for your presentation for children. For example, there is a huge difference from one group to another as to what does and does not make a good “scary” story for during the Halloween season.

5. Look children in the eye.

Don’t forget all the basics of storytelling that I have been teaching you. Especially, remember to look carefully at the children you are telling to at your performances. Those lingering looks into the eyes of children in the audience are powerful moments for them.

6. Be uninhibited in your telling.

I believe that children “see” stories differently than adults do. They can submerge themselves very deeply in the stories, often thinking that even the most fanciful story is real. Have fun! Act silly. Make faces. Sing. Wiggle. Be goofy and be larger than life. Your audience will stay with you and immerse themselves in your telling. By the way, expecting children to “sit quietly” as they politely listen to you tell profound stories is to invite your own disappointment.

Storytelling for children can be great fun and may be just a bit more challenging than you expect. No matter your ultimate goal in storytelling, try to include an audience of children on a regular basis.

********
Sean Buvala is the director of Storyteller.net and the author of the Ebook “DaddyTeller”™ Ebook that teaches Dads to tell bedtime stories (or anytime stories) to their children. You can find him on Twitter @daddyteller.http://www.daddyteller.com
This article first appeared on www.tellingstoriesforchildren.com.

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Today we launch our latest Ebook! DaddyTeller™ has arrived.

Focusing on helping any Dad tell stories to his kids, this affordable Ebook is available today with an instant download by visiting http://www.daddyteller.com .

(Moms can use this Ebook, too. Just know that it’s written in guy-speak.)

Written by award-winning K. Sean Buvala, a 23 year veteran of the storytelling movement, we help Dad put down the storybooks and look into the eyes of his children while he tells them stories that pass on values, build communication, improve reading and math skills and create memories that will live far beyond the moment.

Filled with training and coaching, the book includes 8 stories with step-by-step instructions on what to say and how to say it. Going beyond fathering tips, this is a very specific guidebook.

The “DaddyTeller™: Be a Hero to Your Kids and Teach Them What’s Important by Telling Them One Simple Story at a Time” Ebook is available now at the initial launch price of just $14.95.

This Ebook is just the beginning of the DaddyTeller™ project. Be part of the first to join this unique learning and telling community.

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Learning Math in a Home School Garden
by Michelle B.


Tending a garden bed presents homeschoolers the easy opportunity to work on many foundational math and science skills with your preschooler or kindergartener, without needing to do any lesson-planning. Number conservation, patterns and ordinal numbers are three of the early skills easily incorporated in your garden time. In a previous article I wrote about classification, shape-recognition and one-to-one correspondence.

Ask your little one to be your helper and include him in the planting process. Take advantage of his interest, and let him go play when his attention shifts. Much learning occurs through discussion. Talk about everything you are doing in the garden, and listen to your child’s input.

Number conservation

Let’s say you wish to plant ten squash plants. Hand your child the ten seeds, and have her line them up on the table as she counts them. Then spread out the line and ask her how many seeds there are. Push them into a pile and ask the same question. Poke ten holes in the soil for those seeds and ask your child to lay one seed in each hole. How many seeds now? If she doesn’t know, how can she find out?

Patterns

Perhaps you will lay out the flowers in a pattern. “We have three colors of snapdragons. First we plant a red snapdragon, yellow is second, and third is a pink one. What comes next?” Or the garden care schedule: “Every morning we water ( B000A0IBY2 ) the seedlings, then pull the weeds, and last sweep the pathways. So tomorrow morning, what do we start with?” Notice the patterns of fence post and pickets in the garden fence, or the arrangement of pavers in the path. You can find patterns in flowers and in the leaves on the stems.

Ordinal numbers

Use the words first, second and third, and more if needed, to describe everything that happens in your garden. . “First we plan the garden, second we buy the seeds, and third we plant them.” “First we plant the sunflowers, the zinnias are second and the marigolds are third.” You can use ordinal numbers to describe plant growth, the passing of seasons, or the transformation of caterpillar to butterfly. (See also Patterns.)

You will notice how each of these garden activities uses foundational skills that overlap and mix with each other. As you are talking with your child while you work in your garden, you will find many occasions to reinforce these much-needed pre-math and science skills. Check this article for more math skills that overlap with these. Happy Planting!

***
Michelle B. is a full-time homeschooling mom of four who has been teaching from home for 18 years. She holds a degree in elementary education.

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Learning in a Garden: Classification, Sorting, Shapes, One to One Correspondence
by Michelle B.

Tending a garden bed presents homeschoolers the easy opportunity to work on many foundational math and science skills with your preschooler or kindergartener, without needing to do any lesson-planning.

Ask your little one to be your helper and include him in the planting process. Take advantage of his interest, and let him go play when his attention shifts. Much learning occurs through discussion. Talk about everything you are doing in the garden, and listen to your child’s input. Pay attention to your own activity in the garden and you may be surprised at the amount of math you will find!


This article presents three of these important concepts. Classification and sorting, shape-recognition, and one-to-one correspondence are some of the foundational skills that are easily incorporated into your garden time.

Classification and sorting
Together, separate the seed packets according to which bed it goes in. Talk about the uses of the various garden tools and how some are for moving the dirt and others for use on plants. Touch a tool and ask junior which category it falls into.

Demonstrate to your little gardener which plants are the weeds and how to remove them. Then ask her to show you a plant and determine whether it is a weed or a plant to keep, before she begins the pulling. Let your helper collect the vegetable harvest and divide into appropriate containers.

Shape-recognition
Perhaps your vegetable bed is a rectangle, or the flower bed a half-circle. You may use square-foot gardening or have the herbs in the traditional wheel shape. Let your child create his own garden bed. Ask him what shape he would like it in, or trace shapes in the soil and lay the seeds within the shapes. Perhaps alyssum in a circle and johnny jump-ups in a square?

One-to-one correspondence
Line up all the flowers from one multipack. Then line up the next pack, plant to plant. See how each flower from the first set is evenly matched with a flower from the second set. Poke holes in the soil for the seeds. Have your helper lay one seed in each hole, and one plant-name markerper row of seeds.

You will notice how each of these garden activities uses foundational skills that overlap and mix with each other. As you are talking with your child while you work in your garden, you will find many occasions to reinforce these much-needed pre-math and science skills. Happy planting!

***
Michelle B. is a full-time homeschooling mom of four who has been teaching from home for 18 years. She holds a degree in elementary education.

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Homeschool Education – Is it a Radical Or Right Choice?
By Cyra Miles (Guest Editorial Post)

Is it really a radical choice for parents to decide homeschool? Or should we applaud these parents for making the right choice about their children’s education?

Some parents nowadays are thinking-out-of-the-box to make sure that their children don’t have only the best education but possess also the right values, principles and attitude towards life. There is an apparent increase in the number of homeschool students. According to U.S. Department of Education, there is approximately 1,096,000 students who are educated at home in spring of 2003. It is a big leap (approximately 29% increase) compared to spring of 1999 which has only an estimated 850,000 homeschoolers.

Let us delve as why more parents are now taking the radical choice of opting for homeschool education for their children.

Away from school bullying . This is one of the primary reasons cited by parents who homeschooled their children. School bullying is very prevalent nowadays. The National Youth Violence Prevention stated that there are over 5.7 million youth who are bullied at school. It is about 30% of total youth population in the United States.

It is a disturbing situation with a negative impact to children being bullied at school. Bullied students live a stressful life as they become fearful with possible bullying incidents again. They are scared to be alone like being in the bathroom or in the hallway. Victims will have less interest in attending school also and even the task of riding a bus becomes a terrifying activity.

This results in depression, low self-esteem, physical illness, loneliness and in worst cases, suicidal thoughts.

Most bullied children also find it difficult to learn at school as they struggle coping up with their fear and anxiety. They can hardly focus in the classroom.

Other Safety Concerns. Homeschooler parents are worried about the safety of their children in the traditional school. Safety concerns include drugs, negative peer pressure and accidents. Some isolated cases include children being gunned down or murdered at school. Children’s safety at school is unpredictably at stake.

Some homeschooler parents perceived that homeschool children are safer compared to children attending a regular school.

Quality Learning. Parents are the primary teacher and models of the children. A ratio of one teacher to two or three students makes a huge difference in the quality of education delivered to a teacher handling 30 to 40 children in a regular classroom.

Also, the fact that it is their children makes education is more personalized and the result is far better. Schedules for homeschool are flexible also so children are not forced to wake up early to catch the school bus and options for what the children want to learn for the day are possible.

Better Person. Parents always want to instill good values to their children. It is one of their intention and hope that their children become a better person but when children attend a regular school, parents can no longer control the other factors such friends, schoolmates and school environment. These are external factors that can influence the children either positively or negatively.

Oftentimes children acquire attitudes from their friends at school. Children are vulnerable to adapting certain manners or attitudes which are relative to the kind of friends or clique they mingle and hang out with. On some occasions, they are negatively influence because of peer pressure. For the child to be part of the group or to be labeled ‘cool’ at school, sometimes they do things out of their way.

Parents of homeschoolers prefer to train and raise their children the way they would have wanted them to be. They believe that they are more effective in instilling moral and religious values.

24/7. This is the best advantage of homeschool. Parents are with their children 24 hours a day 7 days a week.

Experience parents always encourage new parents to spend as much time as they can with their children especially in their growing years. This is the stage where children are still dependent to their parents. Once they reach puberty, they now prefer to spend time with their peers and once they reach adulthood, they will spend more time with colleagues, friends and at work.

Strong bond. As parents and children spend more time together than the average parents whose children are attending a regular school, the opportunity to develop profound bond and strengthened relationship is inevitable.

Homeschool reinforces the value of family.

Flexibility. There are parents who are always mobile because of work-related issues. Some parents find homeschool very convenient because it allows them to travel without much constraint. Travelling can be planned anytime as there are no worries of missing the classes or interrupting school activities. It indeed gives more flexibility to parents and children to travel.

Without doubt, homeschool education offers many benefits to your children and to you as parents though critics always question the socialization life of the homeschool children. Are they really being deprived of their socialization skills?

Homeschool curriculum nowadays have supplement activities like pottery classes, museum visits, karate classes and so on. There are many institutions also that offer and organize different activities for homeschool children. If you can just do a little research and get connected with the right network or community of homeschoolers, you will be amazed with the available socialization opportunities for homeschool children.

Socialization is not limited at school only. There are so many venues that children can develop their socialization skills.

So, is it really a radical or right choice to homeschool? Parents know their children better than anyone else and so, too, the answer to this question.

Statistics Resources: www.safeyouth.org, www.ed.gov

***

Cyra Miles is a freelance writer who is passionate in her writing craft. Visit http://www.cyramiles.com or follow her at http://www.thepassionateslave.com to discover more about her passion.

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How to Tell a Story?

One of the most searched-for communication skills on the Internet is “how to tell a story.” I would like to give you a quick step-by-step guide to this process of story telling, drawn from my 23 years of being a professional storyteller. This is the fast and quick method to learn a new story.

1. Decide on a story. Sounds elementary, but at some point, you need to find a story that you love. If you are having problems, search the Internet for some simple Aesop fables or find some good stories at a site like Storyteller.net .

2. Break the story down into an outline of events so that you can remember the episodes of each story.

You have two choices for step three. Do one or both if you would like.

3A. Write out or draw out the parts of the story. Using longhand, that means pencil and paper, write out the episodes of the story in your own words. Do not copy the story. Rewrite it in your own words. Doing this process by hand allows your brain to overcome any resistance you might have to the story. Knowing you can do this process with your story is also a way for your brain to overcome some fear of public speaking that might hinder you from telling this story.

3B. The other way to break down a story is via “storyboarding,” a technique that many storytellers use. Take a letter-sized piece of paper. Fold it in half along the length. You now have an eleven inch piece of pager that looks like a taco. Then, fold the right side up against the left and then fold the same way again. When you unfold the paper you will have a piece of paper divided into 8 segments.

Starting at the top segment, draw out each step of the story. This is only for you to learn so stick figures and bad drawings are just fine. This visual method may help you grasp the story better than writing alone.

4. Begin to tell yourself the story, aloud, using your own words while looking at one of the #3 tools above. Repeat this process several times.

5. Think about the story you are telling. Are there parts of the story that do not really need to be there? Do they drag down the story? Cross them off the list or the storyboard and tell yourself the story one more time with those parts of the story removed. Again, at each of these times, you are speaking your story aloud. Let your face get a feel for the story.

6. Put your notes down and tell yourself the story a few more times. This is a great exercise to do while you are driving your car or cleaning your house. Just keep talking to yourself.

7. Call up a friend or find an associate and tell them your story. Use no notes or storyboard. When you finish telling the story to your associate, ask them if it makes sense to them. Did they think you left out any parts? This is not the time to see if they “get it” or understand the deep meanings. You just want to know if the essential delivery of the story makes sense.

8. As your confidence in the story grows, you will want to start thinking about the emotions represented by different words in the story. You may find that you wish to emphasize one part or character over another. These things come with time. If you feel better about saying “once upon a time” at the beginning or “the end” as one of your story endings, then do so. As you grow to understand storytelling even more, you will learn so many other ways to start or end a story.

9. When it is time for your story’s debut, be confident. Look at your audience. Speak clearly. Slow down and enjoy the story experience. As a professional storyteller, I can tell you that it takes a dozen or more tellings of a story to find the your true rhythm and delivery for each story.

There you have it, how to tell a great story! This is a quick, get-it-now guide to storytelling. There is so much more you can learn about how to tell a story. Remember- get started today telling stories. Like a painter who must paint often to get better at painting, you, too, must speak stories often and to many groups in order to improve.

Some resources:
To get my free ECourse on storytelling, see the front page of my website at www.seantells.net. For hundreds of articles and stories, please visit www.storyteller.net. To order the EWorkbook on storytelling that includes live coaching and audio files, please visit www.storytelling101.com

****
Based in Arizona, Sean Buvala is a full-time professional storyteller and storytelling consultant who works throughout North America teaching storytelling for business. Along with storytelling techniques for corporate communication, Sean is also sought after for teaching storytelling for schools and homeschool groups. For more information about Sean’s work as a storytelling coach, please see his site at http://www.seantells.net

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Early Match Concepts
by Michelle B.

How to teach homeschool math?

Nearly everything we do in an average day involves math in one form or another, and it is easy to include our homeschool children in many of the activities. When thinking about homeschool math planning, it is helpful to know (and good for our budget!) that learning many early math concepts in the preschool homeschool requires no textbooks, workbooks or special equipment. Included here are a few of the basic concepts for our children to understand and simple learning activities for each one.

*Same and different. By offering choices to your child you can help him learn to recognize different traits in objects. “Would you like a green grape or a red one? Do you want to play with the big blocks or the little ones? Do you want to slide down the long bumpy slide or the short curvy one?”

Lay out four items in a row, three the same and one that is very different. For example, three spoons and one drinking cup, or three stuffed kittens and a teddy bear. Ask which one is different from the others. When your child can easily pick out the odd item, lay out four more objects but with only one different trait, such as three blue buttons and one yellow button, or three teaspoons and a tablespoon. “Same and different” is the precursor to sorting.


*Sorting: When your child understands the concept of “same and different” he will be able to easily begin sorting. Sorting requires a child to identify certain attributes in an object, such as color, size, item usage, etc., and then form a group of objects according to those traits. As adults, we do sorting every day: putting away freshly-washed laundry, the groceries on shopping day, and the dishes from the dishwasher. Separating the sales ads, junk mail, and personal mail. Organizing our collections. Determining which books to turn in on library day and which to keep at home. Involve your young child in some of the sorting that regularly happens in your house: give him the pile of socks to pair up while you are folding clothes. Have her determine which foods go in the pantry, the freezer or the cupboard. Let him put away the silverware. As you determine the usage of the day’s mail, hand the mail one at a time to your young sorter and let her place each piece in the appropriate pile or basket. At play time, sit with your child and ask him to corral the plastic animals into their families, drive the cars into the correct garage, separate the dinosaurs into meat-eaters and plant-eaters, or collect the play food into main dish or dessert piles.

*Patterns: Patterns are all around us: in music, art, building designs, nature. This concept is also related to “same and different” and “sorting.” You can use toy race cars, building blocks, pencils, coins, buttons, beads, candies, etc. to create patterns. Line up a pattern using two attributes: red car, green car, red car, green car. What car comes next? When your child can easily copy your simple pattern and extend it correctly, then add a third attribute. Red car, geen car, yellow car. Keep building the base pattern when your child has mastered the previous one. Have your child make a pattern for you to follow. As you extend your child’s pattern, speak out loud for your child to hear how you solve the problem. For example, “Okay, I see first a dime, next a nickel, then a penny. Since the first coin is a dime, I will place a dime next in the pattern.”

You can draw base patterns on paper with markers or crayons and have your child extend it. This would provide a boredom-buster in waiting rooms or at the restaurant table.

What patterns do you find around you? Cars in a parking lot, flowers in a garden, silverware on the table, products on a store shelf; on giftwrap, fabric, scrapbook paper, wallpaper. “I see a red rose and then a yellow rose. If we continue this pattern, what rose would be next?” “Do you see the pattern your feet make on the sidewalk when you walk through a puddle?”

Same and different, sorting and patterns are a few of the many easy-to-apply early math concepts for our young homeschool children.

***
The Author, Michelle B., is a full-time homeschooling mother of four who, as of this writing, has been homeschooling for 18 years. She is a former elementary school teacher in the private-school system

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Tips for Telling Funny-Scary Campfire Stories
by Priscilla Howe

Night has fallen. The campfire flickers and pops, coals glow, listeners creep closer to the fire and the storyteller. It’s time for scary stories. But wait…some of the listeners are too small for the stories of La Llorona or Hookman. It’s time for a funny-scary campfire story, just enough for shivers, not enough for nightmares. Here are a few tips for effective campfire storytelling for the youngest listeners.

1. Notice the body language of the listeners as you introduce the story. Suggest that the smallest children sit with an older sibling or adult. Some small children like very scary stories, but it’s kinder to the adults who have to be with the child later on to tell gentler stories to young children.

2. Let the listeners know right away that this will be a funny-scary story, not a scary-scary story.

3. Choose a story with a joke ending. You can find a few of these in Alvin Schwartz’ “Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark” series, in Simon Bronner’s “American Children’s Folklore”, or ask a ten-year-old who has been to camp.

4. Err on the side of goofy characters, not scary, for young listeners. Build in a hand movement or repetitive phrase so the audience can join in.

5. Sometimes even a funny story can scare a small child. Reassure the individual child that it will all be fine in the end.

6. For a little shiver, pause just before the punchline. This builds suspense and creates an even bigger laugh at the funny ending.

7. Don’t be surprised if children say “That wasn’t scary!” at the end. This is most likely not a true critique, just an observation.

Once the little ones have gone off to bed, and you’re sure that those who are still around the fire can handle it, if you have time and inclination, tell the truly scary stories.

******
As a full-time professional storyteller, Priscilla Howe tells all kinds of stories: funny, scary, funny-scary, and more. With some 200+ peformances per year all over the world, she’s an expert in storytelling for children. Check out her stories, including The Ghost with the One Black Eye at http://priscillahowe.com .

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