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edenfallingToday was the Thanksgiving lesson (well, duh). We did the Guest At Your Table option rather than the soup kitchen option, for which I am duly thankful. I don't even want to imagine herding 10 kids to Loaves & Fishes.
Anyway, we played a little game wherein we divided the class up by continent and population (weirdly excluding Australia and all the other Pacific islands) and then handed around food. Of course the populations and food supplies didn't match. "Does this seem fair?" we asked. Obviously not. It's a good way to visually and kinesthetically get a point across. (Yes, I know that's a split infinitive. Bite me.)
For snack we had gorp. Now, I'd never heard of gorp before today, but it appears to be something along the lines of trail mix: popcorn, various dry cereals, raisins, maybe goldfish crackers or pretzels if available, etc. I ended up in charge of mixing and distributing the gorp while Laura ran the discussion and read the story.
That story... It was, unfortunately, the kind of story that benefits from on-the-fly editing when read aloud, and I've noticed that most parents are very reluctant to do that. I suppose it makes sense if you're in the process of teaching your kids to read, but when you're dealing with a once-off reading and the kids aren't close enough to follow the words on the page anyway, you might as well spice it up. Written storytelling and oral storytelling are not the same thing, and what works on the page quite often falls flat when read aloud. The words sound unbearably stilted. They don't come alive and sing the way they should.
I taught myself to tell stories when I was fairly young, mostly because I listened to my parents tell stories and jokes and decided that I wanted to be like my dad, not my mom. I wanted to make stories flow, not stutter and jerk along. A lot of what I do when reading picture books, or when doing public speaking, I learned by imitating my dad. The rest is the residue of acting in various school plays during my foolish youth. :-)
(On the other hand, I learned to touch-type by imitating my mom. My dad is an indifferent typist at best.)
Anyway, we played a little game wherein we divided the class up by continent and population (weirdly excluding Australia and all the other Pacific islands) and then handed around food. Of course the populations and food supplies didn't match. "Does this seem fair?" we asked. Obviously not. It's a good way to visually and kinesthetically get a point across. (Yes, I know that's a split infinitive. Bite me.)
For snack we had gorp. Now, I'd never heard of gorp before today, but it appears to be something along the lines of trail mix: popcorn, various dry cereals, raisins, maybe goldfish crackers or pretzels if available, etc. I ended up in charge of mixing and distributing the gorp while Laura ran the discussion and read the story.
That story... It was, unfortunately, the kind of story that benefits from on-the-fly editing when read aloud, and I've noticed that most parents are very reluctant to do that. I suppose it makes sense if you're in the process of teaching your kids to read, but when you're dealing with a once-off reading and the kids aren't close enough to follow the words on the page anyway, you might as well spice it up. Written storytelling and oral storytelling are not the same thing, and what works on the page quite often falls flat when read aloud. The words sound unbearably stilted. They don't come alive and sing the way they should.
I taught myself to tell stories when I was fairly young, mostly because I listened to my parents tell stories and jokes and decided that I wanted to be like my dad, not my mom. I wanted to make stories flow, not stutter and jerk along. A lot of what I do when reading picture books, or when doing public speaking, I learned by imitating my dad. The rest is the residue of acting in various school plays during my foolish youth. :-)
(On the other hand, I learned to touch-type by imitating my mom. My dad is an indifferent typist at best.)
