Savvy Auntie’s Day is Sunday, July 26th. Celebrate your auntie, or celebrate being one!
My youngest nephew, in his toddler days, thought it was a huge waste of time to say the “N” at the beginning of my name, so “Aunt Nancy” became Aunt-Antsy. I’m still Aunt-Antsy, years later, sometimes and it is fun to say!
The Auntie in the [Turtle] story tells Sam tales of pirates. As for me, while I never could come close to matching my father’s storytelling art, I have encouraged the children in my life to begin to build their own skills.
My two grand-nephews now live in Japan, the youngest has been there since he was 2 years old (he’s now 9). I hadn’t thought of that when I started the “story game” last year — I started a story with a sentence, began the next, then left it hanging for him to finish. We went back and forth for a good 15 minutes, creating a rather strange but very interesting story while his mother looked on with some amazement. He did very well! It was only afterward that his mother mentioned, and I realized, just how great a challenge that must have been to someone who speaks mostly Japanese. I hope that game traveled with them back to Japan, where they teach English to toddlers on up.
Ryan and Winnie the Frog Look for the Fairies
The Storybook Quilt stories are bit like the story game. This is greatly aided by the fact that the events in the story are based on the fabrics in the quilt. After a few readings, the child will remember the story line — and embellish it as she looks at the squares in the quilt. I like to imagine aunties, uncles, parent, grandparents and all the rest encouraging their children to make up new stories based on the quilt fabrics. If they have, we sure would love to hear about the stories and the experience!
Hone your own skills, and those of the children in your life, and ENTER THE CONTEST TO NAME THE TURTLE.
Tags: aunts, frog_theme, Storytelling
