Our last Unit of Inquiry for the year is How We Express Ourselves with a focus on the different ways we can tell stories. For the summative assessment the children each chose one medium of storytelling they wanted to inquire further into. For some reason majority of the kids in my class were curious about how to tell stories through dance, a few wanted to explore puppets, and another group explored acting. They planned their stories through the hamburger graphic organizer and had to collaborate as a group to think of characters and the plot. Then they started thinking about how to best tell their stories through their chosen medium. All the groups rehearsed over a span of two weeks and gave several performances along the way. Each time we discussed the performance as a class and talked about whether or not we could understand what was happening, what we liked about each performance and how we could make improvements for the audience. Some of the things that the children learned through this process:
  • Don't turn your back to the audience or cover your face (The audience won't know what is happening!)
  • Use a loud clear voice
  • Change your voice to show different feelings and different characters
  • Try to use facial expressions (especially in dance because there are no words!)
  • Use big and clear movements
  • Make sure puppets stay on the stage so the audience can see them! 
At the end the children who presented with puppets used Puppet Pals on the iPad to document their stories. All the other groups were recorded on video. Here are their stories, enjoy!


The Pirates and the Mouse by Jan, Jacob and Joseph (Storytelling through acting)

The Bad Dinosaur by Sam, Aina P., Kisaki, Allegra and Chloe (Storytelling through dance)

The Kingdom by Miria, Alex, Sakurako and Aina M. (Storytelling through dance)

The Four Friends by Snehansh (Storytelling through puppets)

Saving Bear by Clara (Storytelling through puppets)

Three Little Men by Chise (Storytelling through puppets)

5/21/2013 01:58:21 pm

I love all the different ways you thought of telling your stories. I watched them with my Kindergarten class in Japan. We got lots of ides from your stories. Thank you for sharing. : )

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