Storytelling of Robert The Rose Horse to Grade One Students
My son’s school has an annual activity for their school clubs.
They would invite someone over, to talk to the grade school clubs. The event is entitled, “Invite An Expert Day.”
Consequently, I was invited to speak and do a bit of storytelling to grade one students of the book club. For all that, I do not necessarily call myself an expert on books but I, together with my husband and son are book lovers.
We are that garden variety book lovers who have at least, seven bookshelves filled with books (leaving out the books which were donated and given away, especially the ones which now make up, three fourth of our barangay’s daycare center‘s mini library).
In addition to, that I also feature and review books as The Soapbox Filipina. Somehow, I felt comfortable talking about books. For this reason, I was invited to be part of the activity for their book club.
How I Prepared For It
Given the age of my audience, (boys age six to seven years old) it was expected that other than talking about myself and my love for books, I should be introducing an interesting activity.
All things considered, I decided on a storytelling activity for the kids.
A. I carefully chose the book I was going to read to them.
By and large, I decided on reading one of my son’s favorite book—which was one of my favorite too (one which I had years of practice in story telling).
When my son Rafa was around two, I read this book to him. (till he started reading it on his own, when he was five)
It was also through this book that my son started recognizing words that began with letter “R” like Robert, robbers, and roses. And of course Rafa and Richard ( my husband’s name)
The title of the book is, “Robert The Rose Horse.”
Above all, the book was one of my favorite books when I was in grade school. It was in our school library back in Montessori de Oro and it had a fuchsia pink cover back then.
In additon to that, I chose the book because I knew kids today could relate to it.
The story is about a horse who had a bad case of allergy. He would sneeze every time he got near roses.
B. “Story boards”.
Moreover, I thought that my son’s book was too small for a large group.
Therefore, I recopied the pages of the book, enlarged the sizes a bit and placed them on illustration boards using a washy tape. ( so it would be easy to take the pages off and reuse the boards)
C. “Roses”.
First, I bought pencils at P 3.00 each ( a pack of three for P9.00).
Next, I placed polka-dotted washy tapes on the pencils –to cover the “National Bookstore Best Buy” print on the pencils. Then, I reduplicated an image of a rose, printed them and cut-out the copies. Last, I used a glue gun to stick them on the top of the pencils.
D. Book marks
E. Book Review Sheet
I saw this on pinterest and I printed copies and asked the boys to fill them out.
Together with their teacher, I asked them to write and draw on this piece of paper—their thoughts about the book. We had to pick four winners. It was very difficult to pick winners since all of them listened and gave out very interesting answers and drawings.
F. To top it off ( pardon the pun) my top had, yes, you got it, a rose on it!
G. I envisioned my son when he was around six to seven years old.
When my son was around that age he was a handful.
Rafa, was that six-year old whose attention was very fleeting. He always wanted to be entertained. At that time, you could say he was equal to five boys. That gave me a boost of confidence.
You see, in my mind, it cuts the population of supposedly thirty-five boys, to just seven boys. ( given that my son had the energy of five boys when he was six –notwithstanding the thought that the boys might exactly be like my child at that age)
My Fears
In similar fashion, I was once asked to speak in an auditorium filled with grown-ups and children for the closing ceremony of my son’s pre-school. That was years ago.
But THIS however, was entirely a new experience for me because my audience was a group of boys.
I was afraid because of four main reasons:
First, I only had ’round about two days to prepare.
( plus I had my molars extracted that week)
Second, I had to live up to expectations.
You see, between my son Rafa and I , he was the more experienced speaker, so to speak.
He is used to speaking and performing, whether it be in school contests, family weddings and/or even on his You Tube Channel, Rafa’s Toy Tube –with or without a spiel.
Third, I feared that some of the boys would already be familiar with the story.
Two possibilities came to mind:
A.
I would be dealing with a very bored group of boys—who knew all the details of the story.
Or B.
A hostile “storytelling” takeover might take place and the boys would be the ones telling the story instead of me.
At the back of my mind, I knew that there will be that one child who knew the story. And he will take the story telling from me.
Therefore, I prepared myself of that scenario because when my son was that age, he surely did just that.
Last, I do not know how I would be able, to get the attention of thirty-five kids, all boys, who were around the ages of six to seven years old.
You just cannot hold their attention that long, no cannot.
Most kids today are opinionated.They will almost always have an opinion on almost always anything.
Speaking to them would be something akin to a talent show and their contestants. The judges will just have to press the buzzer then and there, if they did not like what they hear.
But instead of the buzzer, the kids would show their disapproval by doing something else, like talking with the seat mates or scribbling or worse, maybe whining the rest of the time.
Storytelling by The Soapbox Filipina
Be that as it may, I was pretty nervous at first. I totally forgot my did plus present form of the verb rule. You bet I did.
Consequently, I kept on saying how did I got instead of get.
However, as we continued, the boys made me feel at ease.
Fortunately for me, none of the boys, was familiar with the story.
So my fear of a hostile “storytelling” take over was not as real, as I imagined it to be.
In other words, I got to tell the story! YEHEY!
Once or twice, I was interrupted by inquisitive boys who could not wait to get to the end of the story. I most definitely got all their attention.
They followed through my story and started reciting with me, lines in the book,
“His eyes began to itch, his nose began to itch and Robert, sneeezed,
KERCHOOOOOO!”
And all thirty-five boys faked a sneeze with me.
“KERCHOOOOOO!”, my audience answered back.
I felt a genuine feeling of affirmation when three boys shouted out loudly, “we like the story”, after I finished telling them the story.
Happiness is what I could describe my experience.
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