Using Stories to Express Ourselves

By Janna Sullivan During their inquiry into How We Express Ourselves, the Kindergarten classes are exploring how culture, traditions and beliefs can be expressed through stories. One aspect of their inquiry involves identifying many of the different ways that stories can be communicated including: oral, written, art, music and dance. The Kindergarteners visited the Pemberton Woods campus to work with a couple of our resident experts to learn more about two methods of sharing stories. Mr. Thompson, who teaches band in the Middle and Senior schools, helped the Kindergarten students explore how instrumental music can be used as a medium for storytelling. He demonstrated several different wind and percussion instruments and invited the children to identify how the instrument’s sound might contribute to a story whether as a character, to evoke a feeling, or to create a mood or setting. The students then had the opportunity to build a story as a group using the percussion instruments. They worked together to determine how the sound each instrument made could be used in their story and what order the sounds should follow. Where in the story should the thunder and lightening be heard? When should the queen appear on her horse? Mrs. Pagett, who teaches drama in the Middle School, helped the students investigate how drama can be used in storytelling. She warmed them up using fun drama exercises and then encouraged them to use their bodies to evoke different characters as they moved about the stage. The students were then all given a simple scarf and asked to imagine how it could be used to create a character and to enact their ideas. Ninjas turned into skiers and then fireworks and kites filled the air. As costumes are an important component of creating characters in drama, the students were each given a different hat and asked to pose as the character they imagined might wear such a hat. Thank you to Mr. Thompson and Mrs. Pagett for sharing your expertise with our young inquirers. We loved creating stories with you, and hope to visit PW again soon!