Old-Fashioned Storytelling is Alive and Well
A big thank you to storyteller Selina Eisenberg for joining us on Wednesday, all the way from her kitchen in Montreal. She was with us to mark Canadian Children’s Book Week. It was wonderful to listen and watch as she brought her stories to life with her voice and amazing, animated expressions. She used puppets in a few of her stories but she mostly relied on pure, old-fashioned storytelling techniques. So refreshing to see how captivated the kids were. Selina did two sessions – one for JK/SK and one for Grades 1-3. She packed in several stories from different countries, all with different lessons to learn.
Pictured above is ‘Ptarmigan’, the beautiful white bird that lives in Siberia with her friends ‘Mouse’ and ‘Raven’. One day the three friends decided to have a pancake party – how exciting right? Unfortunately, Ptarmigan and Raven were much too ‘busy’ when Mouse needed help getting flour from the mill and firewood from the forest to make the pancakes. (Oh dear, it turns out they were really just too lazy and wanted Mouse to do all the work.) Well, can you guess what happened? The birds didn’t get a pancake party after all. Mouse decided to eat up all the pancakes, all by herself. I think the birds will be more helpful next time, don’t you? With Mother’s Day just around the corner, I hope the children remember this important lesson and help to make lots of pancakes for their moms on Sunday.