in this way.)
When the teacher gets the list, she (or he) decides how and when to proceed. Some teachers share a brief telling of the story before the class makes the artwork. Other classes find it fun to make the artwork and let the children find out what will happen with the characters at chapel. As the children in the classes are different ages and have a range of skills, the teachers offer guidance accordingly. Using artwork from the children of various classes provides an opportunity to have an active interface with the classroom, a regular time when we are all working toward the same event. You will notice in the art list that there are (optional) pieces named. The reason for this is to make the creation of the art a flexible situation for the teachers. Sometimes the children are very excited and everyone wants to do something. At other times, the teacher is involved with a number of other projects in the classroom and so fulfilling the minimum needs works better. By including the optional on the list, you are acknowledging the realities of the classroom, something the teachers appreciate.
As the year progresses, the teacher can discuss the artwork with the students and its use with the story. For instance, if children make a very tiny animal for a story, the teacher can ask how it will be seen from the back of the chapel space. The students themselves will become more active determining what kind of art will be most successful for supporting the stories.
Children look forward to the chapel that will feature their artwork. They are more attentive. They tell their parents and point out their contributions. As you get used to telling the tales you can use the specifics of the children’s artwork to accentuate an aspect of the story. In this way, the children become storytellers with you because of the art they made.
Different chapel circumstances provide a chance for creative thinking about the visual arts contribution to the story. I worked with St. Paul’s Episcopal Day School in Kansas City and as we planned a chapel, we knew that with the chapel for Pre-K through fifth grades, artwork on a board was not going to be seen. So for the Creation story, the Pre-K made separate works of art for each of the seven days of creation and mounted them on dowels. As I introduced each day in the story, a Pre-K child held the art up high as they walked down the aisle of the chapel and stood in front. By the time we got to the third day, everyone was turning to see what the art for the next day would look like. By the end of the story, we had seven Pre-K children standing in front of the whole school proudly holding up their art helping to tell the story of Creation. That was a meaningful and memorable event for everyone present.
You will want to have the artwork ahead of time. We use a felt board and the art has rounds of masking tape on the back ready to be placed. Once you have the artwork, go through the story to decide on when and where you want to place the art. Placing the artwork will also help you remember the sequence of the story. If there is a lot of art, you will want to see if it can all be on the board at the same time. If it cannot all fit, you need to figure out what is important to stay in place and which can be moved off the board. Some stories call for the art to be moved to different locations on the board during the story. Some stories will guide you to take the art off and then bring it back. For some stories you may want to have some of the artwork already in place. For instance, if the story has a large house in it, you might have that on the board when everyone enters chapel. That might lead you to begin the story mentioning the house and then adding the other characters.
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:
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