The Discovery of Plastic Chicken Wire

Couple of weeks ago, I shared with you my overarching plan for a Dia De Los Muertas storytelling event in the library. To review:

I asked for materials to build a backdrop, which was a six-by-nine-food wall of tissue paper flowers. Parents bought materials because parents are awesome.

Kids told a story in less than two minutes about someone who brought them joy.

I recorded said stories. I created a video at the end. All is beautiful.

Things I would do differently from the academic perspective.

More of them less of me. 1-4 I gave note cards with "beginning", "middle", and "end" written on them. I also did a whole library session talking about storytelling, modeling telling a story, and chatting about details and technique with eight-year-olds.

If I were to do this one again, I would spend time talking with the kids about deciding who brought them joy, asking them to explain to me why they bring them joy, and then get the kids to organize stuff. Maybe we'd spend time creating a visual, as opposed to them bringing a visual. That's all I'd do because I discovered pretty quickly, the more I did, the more they relied on my brain instead of theirs.

Prioritize scaffolding. See "more of them, less of me". Honestly, I think as prep work, I'd just tell them to think of someone who brought them joy, have them explain why using the note cards, treating it like a writing assignment where the teacher takes the child where he or she is as a writer and go with it.

Things I would do differently regarding the backdrop.

Y'all, I discovered a product: it's called plastic chicken wire. For twenty bucks, I could have built two of those back drops. It's pretty sturdy as well, so I'm going to figure out a way to store it and use it again, probably sooner than I realize.

Now that it's done, I have to say it wasn't hard, but it did require forethought. Here's the social media video: