How-To Corner

Once Upon A Time...

Telling stories has long been called "yarn spinning." Tall tales are said to be "cut from whole cloth." The connection between fireside chores and fireside chats is pretty clear, even this far removed in time. Family members of all ages could sit around on a cold winter evening, do needed tasks, and tell or listen to stories at the same time.

Today, we tend to watch or listen to other people's stories for our family entertainment. The big disadvantage to that--especially for children--is that we aren't IN them! Children need stories that they can enter into, be a part of, practice skills with, play with.

You can learn a lot of things from stories by using your imagination. Whether it's a corncob dolly that you have to decide whether she is smiling or crying and why, or a long, drawn-out, made-up tale about a boy who can do magic and how. . .a story told by a real person, looking you in the eye, doesn't just wash over children...it engages them.

While thus engaged with another human being, they learn so many things about cause and effect, about ordering thoughts, to play with words and ideas, that choices have consequences, that some things are scary but less so if you know what to do. They learn that they can get positive attention by listening, thinking, talking, imagining, stringing ideas together.

Try telling a story of your own to get things started.
"Once upon a time, long ago when Mommy was a little girl, she was walking along by the river and the most wonderful thing happened." At this point, you can tell what the wonderful thing was and go on with your story, or you can say, "What do you think it was?" What are some wonderful things you can thing of that might happen by a river?"

Start a story and let them finish it for you.
"Once upon a time there was a very lonesome little squirrel who lived all by himself in a big oak tree. He had some bird neighbors, and a rabbit hopped by every evening, but never another squirrel to play with. Every morning, he would climb to the very tiptop of his tree and look this way and that, hoping to see a fluffy tail switching among the leaves of another tree, but he always came back to his nest by himself. Then one day, what do you think happened?"

The next teller takes the tale from there. "He saw another squirrel" won't get it, either. "How did he feel?" "What happened then?" "Show me what he did."

Tell a story together about something you've seen together.
For example, the log cabin here at the museum can spark wonderful stories. "Pretend you live in this cabin. Tell me about fixing your supper." "Tell me about bedtime in your pioneer home." "Tell me a story about winter here."

Make a story quilt together.
Pioneer quilts were scrapbooks of stories. Memories pieced together from leftover materials: Baby's first dress, Mama's first Sunday-go-to-meeting dress made from store-bought goods, Daddy's shirt from his Daddy. If you don't have fabric scraps, children can use colored paper or crayons to make a quilt block that can tell a story about their lives.

Lots of ways to tell stories...lots of good reasons to do it...and Winter is the season for "Once Upon a Time..."