Telling the story allows you to be extremely responsive to the children and provides the opportunity to alter the way you’re telling it as you go. Except for the repeated refrains, there is no call to use the same words each time you tell the story. This keeps it fresh and in the moment. Memorizing a story word for word is very time consuming and tends to make you focus on trying to remember the story rather than enjoying telling it. You will find the “Story Skeletons” at the end of each story helpful for retelling rather than memorizing.
Children sense the “magic” of a story being told and give it attention that they don’t when they know they can pick up the book later and look at it.
It is hard to deviate from the text of a written story even if you sense that something should be altered. Telling a story is specific to the moment it is told.
Having read the section above, you may agree with the importance of telling the stories but may still feel uncomfortable trying it. Here are some ideas to guide you. When telling stories, use your everyday vocabulary and as you tell more tales you will develop your own personal style. This will let the children listeners feel at home and they will be more attentive because it is you personally telling them the stories. Start slowly!
Select a story according to the theme you wish to explore/present in your chapel. Read through the story. Read it over a few times. Do not try and memorize it, but rather begin to remember how the story moves, that is, the plot. If there are certain phrases in the story that you really love, read them a few times so they become yours.
Story Skeletons: Retell the story using the story skeleton offered at the end of the chapter. Are there too many cues? Mark through them. Are there phrases or ideas that you like in the original story not listed in the skeleton? Add them. Are there ideas you think might make your telling more exciting? Add them to your skeleton. By crafting the skeleton, you are making the story yours; by using your own words and expressions, the children will be more responsive. You will note that often the story skeletons are written as phrases rather than complete sentences. This is so that you can use them for quick reference as you are telling with your own words. If you do use the skeleton when you retell the story in chapel, don’t hide it. Place it in front of you where the listeners know that you are using it. If later a child asks you, you can simply say that it helps you remember the story. This in turn shows them that one develops strategies to accomplish something s/he wishes to do.
Picture Skeletons: The story skeletons in this book are word based. Some tellers find drawings to be more effective. Simple line drawings in a bulleted sequence work very well for some. The artwork described for each story and placed in sequence on a surface near your felt board can also act as a story skeleton. Some storytellers just remember the story as a series of pictures and use their own words each time to recount the story. There is really no right way, just the way you find is helpful to you. The creation and writing down (or drawing) of the skeleton will also help you fix in your mind the sequence of events in the story and what is important in the tale. Save the skeletons. Even if you don’t use them while telling, they will come in handy for quick reference or as a refresher that keeps you from having to re-read the whole story.
For Elementary: Use the skeleton to devise a “staged” version of a story. The skeleton becomes the base for which the children create dialog. Again as with telling the story, the dialog does not need to be memorized; instead, children should know the idea of what is being said. This keeps the young actors alert and present to the story that they are helping to tell. Their attention then is on the story itself rather than on memorizing lines.
Music and Chapel
Music is central to the chapel program. We begin each chapel singing songs together that we all know or are learning. The music continues its support by providing an underscore for the stories and in the many refrains that are included within the tales. Each gathering closes with a final song in support of the theme of the particular chapel.
When the child and parent walk into chapel, a teacher offers them a songbook. Then they find a place on the carpet to sit. The “band” is sitting up front ready to sing. Sometimes we will sing a song as the families enter. Other times we wait for the first request. The children look through the songbook to find a song they want to sing. They hold up their books to show us what they have chosen. We select one of the songs, give everyone time to find it (fun for the children and helpful for the parents), and we all sing together. When one song has been sung, we look around again at the upraised books and select another song. We choose a number of children each session and try for a range of songs as well. By the end of the school year, everyone who wants to will have suggested a song. Thus our sing-along is led by the children’s choices of songs. In order for the children to become familiar with all the songs in the book, we also select and announce the less familiar songs during the sing-along time.
Secondly, music is used as an integral part of the storytelling. There are simple refrains that occur within many of the stories that help support its theme and make it a more memorable event for the listeners. The refrains also act as structural support for the tale that help the children stay with the story. At our chapels we are fortunate to have a group of musicians accompanying the stories. This adds excitement to the event. Many different instruments can be used to enhance a story, from wood blocks to cello. You can build your chapel’s story-sound with the instruments that you and your colleagues can play. Often there are parent musicians who will happily be part of your program. We have had parents sing and play cello, saxophone, flute, viola, guitar, snare drum, accordion, piano, electric guitar, and harmonica. These were great additions to the chapel and provided extra fun for the children.
How We Organized Our Songbook
Our songbook is divided into five sections that reflect the themes of our chapels: “Bible Story Songs,” “Sharing and Caring,” “Working and Working,” “You and Me,” and “Holiday Songs.” Each section is printed on a different color paper to help the children (non-readers) notice the different sections and to entice them to look through the whole book when searching for a song to suggest. Since these children are pre-readers, there are simple illustrations accompanying each song so they recognize the song and their parents have the lyrics to join in on the singing. There is only one song on each page so it is clear which song has been chosen. Each page is numbered three ways: The numeral (1, 2, 3), the word (one, two, three), and simple repeated symbols (x, xx, xxx) corresponding with the number. All these elements make the book more meaningful to the children and support the development of early literacy. We sometimes say, “Choose a color and then look in that section. Find the picture you like and we’ll sing the song.”
Choosing Songs for Your Songbook
Part Seven offers original songs (lyrics and musical notation) that support the themes of the chapel stories and suggestions for other songs that are generally well known and simple to track down. The contents of your songbook should evolve to reflect the families that make up your school (or church) as well as the larger community. If there are songs that are already popular at your school, include them. These already-favorite songs become an immediate invitation to the children to be part of the singing at chapel. For instance, the song “She’ll Be Coming Round the Mountain” is not a likely choice for a chapel songbook. However, if it’s a song the children all love singing, then it’s worth considering. For that matter, the song celebrates a family getting together and when it’s sung at chapel it will bring out this meaning. The songs presented in this book will not be familiar; you will want to mix them in with a group of songs the children and families already know. These new songs were inspired by ideas and themes important to our communities and once you know them you will see how well they go with your chapel. Over time, you can incorporate more of them. The chapel songbook is an ongoing process.
The Sing-Along: Singing together is central to the school-as-community experience. Singing songs that