I often acknowledge the art within the storytelling. “This is a story about a boy named Arjun. Here’s Arjun (the figure of Arjun is put up on the board) and he lived with his mother. Here’s his mother (Arjun’s mother is put up on board).” The stories you find in this book are not written in that style but sometimes it is an excellent way to begin and introduce the art. This is another example of an opportunity for you to discover what works well for you and your gathering. You can use the way you tell the story to highlight the children’s contribution.
You may find putting up the artwork yourself enhances your telling of the story. I play banjo while telling stories, so our director puts up the artwork. Another possibility is to ask a teacher who guided the creation of the art to be your assistant. There are many effective ways to incorporate the children’s work into the story presentation. The children’s wonderful art will make almost any choice turn out all right.
In addition to presetting and adding and taking away artwork, an approach that works well for many tales is to introduce a character and keep it up on the board for the whole story. Each new character is introduced and kept on the board as well, so by the end of the story the board ends up illustrating all that occurred. There’s not a correct way of doing this. In fact you may find that for different stories you approach presenting the art differently, but most likely you will find one or two techniques that support the way you tell stories. You will find what works to accompany the tone of your chapel and your particular style of storytelling. As the presentation of the art becomes the norm for the whole group, the teachers and artwork will also support the evolution of the chapel program.
We have bulletin boards throughout the school and have begun displaying the chapel art on them following the chapels. We place the artwork on boards near the children’s classrooms so they can stop by, show their families, enjoy their work, and remember the story they helped tell.
* A note about pronouns: as we are teaching and storytelling with young children, some families may be especially sensitive to gender verbiage so we need to keep this in mind as we share with our particular audience.
part 2
STORIES OF SELF
chapter 2
MR. WANNA BE BIG
An African American tale, this story points out how when we spend too much time focusing on what we are not or things we can’t do, we miss out seeing and celebrating all that we are and what we can do.
This is a delightful story that carries an important message. Everyone will be singing “I want to be me” by the end of the story and on into the days that follow.
happiness with self
acceptance of one’s shortcomings
determination
Today’s story is based on an African American folktale about a very small man. The artwork is by ________________.
There was once a little, little man. He was so small he had to look up to see the bottom of a chair. He was little—little, little. Even so he could still do lots and lots of things. He could run really fast. He could climb and jump. He was a great joke teller and he loved to sing. The only trouble with the singing was that he only sang one song and it went like this:
| I want to be big, I want to be big | |
| I just wanna wanna wanna be bigI want to be big, I want to be bigI just wanna wanna wanna be big. |
And he sang it in the morning; he sang it in the afternoon and he sang it in the evening. You might be taking a shower, you listen out your window, what do you hear?
The little man walking down the street singing his song:
| I want to be big, I want to be big | |
| I just wanna wanna wanna be bigI want to be big, I want to be bigI just wanna wanna wanna be big. |
In the afternoon, kids are playing baseball and what do they hear?
| I want to be big, I want to be big | |
| I just wanna wanna wanna be bigI want to be big, I want to be bigI just wanna wanna wanna be big. |
He sang that song so much that people forgot his name, Bill, and started calling him Mr. Wannabe Big.
Well one day Mr. Wannabe Big woke up and said to himself, “I’m always singing about wanting to be big; it’s about time I did something about it. I know! I’ll take a walk and I’ll find some big animals. Then I can ask them what they do to get big and I can do it too.”
Mr. Wannabe Big smiled. He liked this idea and he was ready to try it out. So he set out walking and as he walked he sang:
| I want to be big, I want to be big | |
| I just wanna wanna wanna be bigI want to be big, I want to be bigI just wanna wanna wanna be big. |
And he walked and he walked and he walked until he came to a field. And in that field he saw a horse, a great big horse. He said to the horse, “Hey horse, how did you get so big?” The horse thought about it for a minute and then it said, “I eat two buckets of oats every day and then I run around this field twenty-five times; that’s what I do.”
Mr. Wannabe Big thought about that and sang out,
| If you can do it I can do it too | |
| If you can do it I can do it too |
And he did! He ate two buckets of oats, oooo they were dry. Then he drank a lot of water. Then he started running. He ran and ran and ran around that field twenty-five times. When