WAIT!! Don't step on that spider or scream when its eight legs scamper unknowingly across your arm - not yet! The trickster arachnid is my unlikely hero for our letter A of the A-Z Blog Challenge.  He can certainly be a pest - a bit of a rogue to gather unearthly results in deceiving, yet clever ways, whose goal is to acheive it all for himself, but, in so doing, often triumphs for all over much stronger beings than himself. Why, if it wasn't for Anansi of the Ashanti people/Ghana, West Africa, we wouldn't have stories to storytell or stories to check out of our libraries. The Anansi tale I speak of is "Anansi Brings Stories to the World." Anansi hears that the sky God, Nyame, has a box filled with stories and yet all who attempted to gather these stories failed. It was Anansi who shunned fear, used his abilities and inventive nature to climb up to Nyame by creating a unique web, accepting the 3 challenges of capturing leopard, snake, and hornet in exchange for the stories. Nyame is impressed and feels Anansi is certainly worthy of these stories and hands them over. Unfortunately for Anansi, the bag of stories opens up on a bramble bush on the way down to earth, and the stories blow in every direction across the earth for all to share. I'm guessing Anansi was quite disappointed but perseveres to his next adventure. He is a symbol of brains over brawn and his stories  withstand the test of time reminding us that a balanced society filled with dignity, courage and honor is worth all challenges set before us, at any cost.

Anansi on Pinterest - Art activities and Lessons
Anansi the Spider by Gerald McDermott- Lessons and links
Jamaica Anansi Stories - Anansi tales travelled quickly and so we can find him on many continents!

As a storyteller and educator, I'm excited to participate again in the April A-Z Blog Challenge! Last year my theme was "Artifacts in Storytelling." This April I'd like to bridge the summer library reading programs throughout the U.S. with storytelling opportunities, ideas, and activities that connect to their theme "Every Hero Has A Story." The storytelling genres are limitless so hopefully there will be interest for everyone: tall tales, folktales, fairytales, realistic fiction, biographies, historical fiction, myths and legends. Within these tales of likely and unlikely heroes, we discover ourselves as heroes:
*Heroes persevere
*Heroes have personal courage
*Heroes care for others
*Heroes are resourceful
*Heroes believe in themselves
*Heroes are Optimistic 


I'm certainly looking forward to reading as many other blogs in this challenge as possible beginning now! Happy blogging everyone!

It was a PERFECT day to celebrate writing in 4th grade by "camping out." The teachers had set up camp chairs, fishing poles, camp fires and tents. The kids were reeled in for some fun crafts of writing!  Helen White, their fantastic Literacy Coach, planned out, with the help of the teachers and myself, 5 different stations for the students to choose from. We had 3 rotations so it was asked that the students choose wisely, based on what they each felt was needed the most in their own writing.

I taught the craft of applying transitional words and phrases to connect from one idea to the next in an orderly fashion. Meanwhile, the other teachers taught snapshots w/leads and conclusions, Ba-da-Bings, strong verbs, and From kernal to draft. The kids use "then, next, finally" quite frequently. In fact, "and then," pops up about every other sentence. So, I thought it would be fun to pass out a transitional words tool sheet that reminds the kids of better alternatives to the overused transitions. We talked about some of the words they came up with, such as - Nevertheless, Meanwhile, back at the …, Consequently, etc. The kids realized that there's so much more out there in the world that's available in their own writing.

Here comes the best part - storytelling time. I told each group the old folktale "The Dark, Dark, Woods," but I modified it and slipped in as many transitional words and phrases as I could, based on the words and phrases chosen earlier by the kids. I asked the kids to stay focused during the tale so they could flip their thumbs up when they heard me use the transitional words/phrased to bridge from idea to idea. What a blast! The story only took about 5 minutes but it certainly helped the kids understand the beauty of the placement of these words. I've included a simple text below. Just know, that I changed it around with each telling. Consequently, the kids kept me on my toes!

In conclusion, I highly recommend you trying this activity yourself or another, using storytelling as your hook to the concept being taught. It works!