“After nourishment, shelter and companionship, stories are the thing we need most in the world.”- Phillip Pullman
Story telling is an art and I believe it comes naturally to all the mothers. We make up all sorts of stories about going to sleep early, not venturing out in the woods alone, the beautiful queen and the always abiding princess. They are even more important for children with Down syndrome because they have all the right ingredients and an imaginative streak to enjoy the make believe word we create for them. There are some stories that stay with us for a short time and some live with us forever. They never go out of fashion or become boring. Have you ever thought what a beautiful world these story characters live in? They never grow old or start thinking differently from their character in the story. They stick to their part and have been doing that for hundreds of years.
Well, I had always believed that I was an overtly dramatic person, making things a bigger deal than they are but never thought this latent flaw or skill would come handy one day J
Well, I had always believed that I was an overtly dramatic person, making things a bigger deal than they are but never thought this latent flaw or skill would come handy one day J
Stories play an extremely important role in the cognitive and imaginative ability of our children. They learn to play visuals in their minds while listening to story. They learn to start associating with the characters and
sympathize/empathize with them. They start developing their creativity and putting their imaginations to test. They learn to create surroundings beyond their immediate one and be in that as a creator, creative director, cinematographer or writer. Thinking of all this I thought of creating a story setting for my daughter. When I say creating, I mean taking a different route for the usual story telling exercise. I chose the story of “The thirsty crow” and tried putting all pieces together to make the session interesting. I made a hut out of paper to create a village scene where finding a pot would not seem weird. My son helped by painting some mountains and river to create a visual appeal and we also put some toy trees that we bought for a project in the school. After putting everything together we started the story session. The usual story telling is not this elaborate but I just wanted to put in some effort to keep Aarshia interested in this fantasy world.
You can check out our crafts here…
Do drop a line to tell me if you liked what we did and also share what do you do to make your story time interesting..?
Love
Aarshia and mama
This blog post is part of 31 for 21blog hop for Down syndrome awareness month.
