Friendship Tales

We started Friendship Tales with Cartoon Day and some very fun results!

The kids learned about word bubbles and drawing simple cartoons with basic shapes.

Some even had previous experience and were working in panel form!

Students participated in get-to-know-you games, helped build our learning community, and listened to Mo Willems’ My Friend is Sad. We worked together to figure out if the story was sad, silly, or a little of both.

Corduroy by Don Freeman and Frog and Toad Are Friends by Arnold Lobel helped us persevere to learn sewing skills.

 

Finally, our button artwork came together in fine form. Meanwhile, we thought about different ways friends can help each other and work together to solve problems.

After reading Mr. Putter and Tabby Write the Book by Cynthia Rylant, illustrated by Arthur Howard, we made a list of good things, just like Mr. Putter. Then we had lots of fun crafting books! It turned out the students were already experts at this.

Ling and Ting - Not Exactly the Same! By Grace Lin led us to a painting activity. I had plans for the kids to paint the covers of their books, but the students declared mutiny and decided to create these beautiful paintings instead. We struck a happy truce!

While reading The Sneetches by Dr. Seuss, we began creating stick puppets to help us tell stories of friendship. Best Friends for Frances, by Russell Hoban, illustrated by Lillian Hoban, helped us continue our crafting fun, by this time settling into a great routine for our final few class sessions.

I am so proud of the thoughtful discussions we had on some difficult friendship problems. The Sneetches helped us talk about how it’s okay for friends to look different from each other.

Hearing Frances’ troubles helped us think about ways to get past hurt feelings and be friends again.

We decided you can have time by yourself and still be friends. But, we all especially agreed that it's not okay to exclude people because of who they are.

Our final class, we were inspired by Little Bear’s Friend by Else Homelund Minarik, illustrated by Maurice Sendak. This story helped us find ways to stay friends, even when we had to say goodbye!

Stories & Art Around the World, Part 2

Students of Stories and Art Around the World have continued to amaze me with their creativity at mask-making, watercolor painting, and a musical lesson inspired by a musical folk tale.

I'm pleased to share this short collaborative Stories and Art film with our community of learners, family and friends around the world, and a widening circle of supportive folks who appreciate the ancient arts of puppetry and storytelling. We can now record and access these beautiful human resources in fresh ways using new media. I hope that hearing the voices weave together will inspire you to tell a story of your own!

Storytelling and Puppetry by Youth Artists of Stories & Art Around the World. Recording, Filming, Editing, and Ukulele by Teaching Artist Sarah Browning.

Stories and Art Around the World

Stories and Art Around the World is a new class at Family Learning Program for 5-8 year old artists. Shown here are our own hand-made books, a large Story Map that we are fabricating together, and a handful of our many stick puppets.

Some of the Big Ideas that drive our lessons are:
1. Stories and Art connect us to people and places all around the world.
2. Words and pictures can tell a story together.
3. A story needs all different kinds of characters.
4. Something always changes in a story.

Our class has launched an exciting collaborative project, combining the ancient art of storytelling with high-tech multi-media. We started by capturing the spontaneous essence of spoken word using a sound recording device.