Beauty and the Beast Storytellers, Mitch Weiss and Martha Hamilton, shared stories from around the world as they performed their unique form of storytelling at K. C. Heffernan (KCH) Elementary School the week of March 22nd. The husband and wife team have been “winning audiences and critical acclaim throughout the United States, Canada, Europe and Asia since 1980.” As Weiss indicated at the beginning of the March 22nd assembly, “This is a very special year for us, it is our thirtieth year telling stories together.” Among their most popular books are “Ghost Catcher: A Bengali Folktale”; “Noodle Head Stories: World Tales Kids Can Read and Tell” and “How and Why”. This year’s third grade storytelling residency kicked off with a storytelling assembly for all 2nd grade students and a series of workshops for third grade students. The young KCH audience was captivated as the innovative Beauty and the Beast used a variety of expressions, voices and creative body movements to tell their stories which featured folktales and stories from around the world. The versatile performers highlighted a variety of storytelling themes which included “How and Why” stories, “Monsters/Creatures” stories, and just plain “fun” stories. Following the March 22nd assembly Mitch and Martha spent the week conducting in-classroom storytelling workshops to third grade classes. Each third grade student had the opportunity to learn a story or folktale and present the story to their peers, all under the guidance and direction of the world-renown Beauty and the Beast Storytellers. Information on Beauty and Beast Storytellers can be found at www.beautyandthebeaststorytellers.com. The storytelling experience was just one activity included in the two week long KCH Parents as Reading Partners (PARP) initiative. Among the PARP activities held were:
Library Night Out/School Book Fair, March 11, 2010 – Principal Gary Bissaillon stirred up his “secret recipe” vanilla milk shakes as KCH students/families attended the KCH Book Fair and Open Library Night. Michael Brown, KCH Library Media Specialist, welcomed families to the KCH library as Rose Battaglia/third grade teacher, Judy Hunt/Library Assistant, Patty Barry/Reading teacher, and Jody Wiley/Kindergarten Teacher all shared their favorite books in a read-a- loud evening of reading.
PARP themed days included “Wear a Readable T-Shirt/March 9th”; Wear a Readable Hat/March 12th”; and Wear a Readable Button/March 17th”Spring into Reading with PARP – The PARP goal was to have each student read fifteen minutes a day (outside of school) independently or with a partner. Each student then filled in and cut out a flower petal for each fifteen minutes of reading. The “reading flower petals” were then used to create a garden of reading throughout the halls of KCH. Student and staff were looking to log more than 64,000 minutes of reading by March 19th.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment