Dear Families,
Here is a protection story for families from Suzanne Down’s website. (The protection story is just right, as Suzanne says, for this particular moment.) She generously shares her stories on her website. I hope you enjoy this for your storytelling. As a teachers at Rose Rock, I utilize a process to learn a story by heart and enliven it. As you are at home with the children at this time I understand you haven’t quite the same capacity. Typically our prep for a story might look like this: reading the story to myself several times to find its rhythms and just to master the story content, letting it rest in my mind, reading it again; telling it to myself and then telling it to the children, with great calm, with story props or hand gestures and without drama. The more times I tell it over a 3-week cycle, the more I develop a sense of its rhythm and nuance.
Even if you print out the story on some lovely paper and read it, you can still practice and strive for making the story your own by finding its pulse, allowing its images to fill your mind. Before reading the story, pick a time before bed or snack in which the mood can be set with warmth and calmness, and read or tell it at that same time every day. When reading it, speak with a calm voice, without drama, and then allow for some quiet time (without any other books) so that your child may digest and live into the story as well. After a couple weeks, whether you had set out to memorize the story or not, you may find that the story is living in you anyway and there it will be for anytime your child needs a moment to connect. Have fun!
This is a true tale, inspired by my own mother who lost her straw hat in the wind one day. The seasons came and went, and one day, on a walk with my dad on their land, they came upon the hat. As in this story, it was covered with growing plants, and they found a mouse nest inside. It was magical. My mom still wears straw hats – I wonder if more adventures in nature await her.
Grandma’s Hat
Once there was a grandmother who loved to garden. It was a lovely summer morning, and she went outside to work in her garden. The garden beds were already overflowing with fresh, colorful vegetables and flowers. Butterflies and ladybugs nestled on the leaves and blossoms, and bees happily buzzed as they sipped the sweet nectar. Grandmother knelt down to weed the rows of carrots and beets, and then started to pick enough lettuce for a salad for lunch. Already the sun was hot, and she took off her straw hat to cool off.
Suddenly, a gust of wind whirled and twirled over the garden, and picked up her hat and blew it here and there, high and low! Grandmother started to chase after her hat, she reached high, she reached low, but the wind blew it higher and higher, and finally away from sight.
‘Oh my old straw hat,’ laughed Grandmother, ‘ it was a good hat for many years, now it deserves a little adventure!” She kept on laughing as she picked up her basket of lettuce, and went inside to make her lunch. ‘What a fun little tale to tell my grandchildren!’
Meanwhile, the wind blew the hat far away from the garden, over a forest of aspen trees, and finally settled it down in a lovely peaceful meadow full of summer wildflowers. It was a happy place to land, and the hat was content to sit there and enjoy the blue sky, and sweet smells of the flowers.
Summer turned to Autumn, and the golden leaves of the aspen trees fluttered in the breezes and settled down all over the meadow, and covered the hat with a blanket of gold.
Autumn turned chilly and soon after the first frost, beautiful white snowflakes fell over the land, and the hat was covered with a blanket of white snow.
The snow fell all through the winter months, and the hat rested still, under many blankets of snow.
The spring sun began to warm the snow, and slowly, slowly, the snow began to melt, and the straw hat was able to peek out at the meadow in springtime. The rains of spring came, and the grass greened, and spring flowers started to grow all over the meadow. Some of the grasses and flowers started to grow in and out of the straw hat. The hat was pleased to become so lovely.
And when summer came again, with the sun high in the sky, and long hot days filled the meadow, the straw hat had become a beautiful garden. How happy the little hat was. Then one day a little mouse appeared in the meadow. When mouse saw the straw hat garden, he thought, ‘ this might make a fine house for me’. Mouse went closer and climbed all over the straw hat, and even nibbled a little hole in the hat, like a window, and looked inside. Oh my, what a big room and high ceiling there was. Yes indeed, mouse had found a wonderful house.
He went all through the meadow gathering soft feathers, and flower petals, he went into the forest to find some moss, and brought them all back to his new house, and went through the little window and made a soft nest to sleep in on the floor of the big room.
When his nest was finished, mouse looked out the window of his house. The sun was beginning to set, and the last warm golden rays of sunshine settled on the meadow, and on the straw hat house. Mouse looked out for a long time, until the night sky began to grow deep blue, and the stars twinkled over the meadow and the straw hat house. All was well, and mouse was happy in his new home. He had one last look out at the beautiful world and said, ‘Good Night Meadowland’. Then he settled down in his wee soft cozy nest, in the big room with the high ceiling of his new straw hat house. How peaceful it was.
Suzanne Down publishes a blog, a website, holds courses for parents and early childhood teachers and regularly shares some a story she has created with young children in mind. You can see her other resources on Juniper Tree Puppets.