The Story Spinner also offers interactive half-day and whole-day workshops, led by experienced professionals, to help you make the most of this exciting resource in your school. As well as exploring the links with key National Strategy materials, the session will also focus on using the stories to develop children’s writing and to provide evidence to support periodic assessment.
Story notes for Year 1 by Phil McDermott
This collection of stories on DVD provide rich content for use with Year 1 children. The units listed beside each story are simply guides on how they can be used with the Narrative Units of the renewed framework.
The Goat And The Lion. Units 1,2,3,4
When the oldest goat in the herd takes shelter from the rain he realises too late that the cave is well known to the lion. When the lion arrives the only thing the goat can use to get out of this pickle is his experience.
This is an ancient Indian story when lions were still seen in Northern India and the Middle East. The misdirection used by the old goat is a familiar story theme common to most cultures. The Story Spinner has laid emphasis on the wisdom of age over the vigour of youth to enable the goat to escape from a very tight spot.
Brian. Units 1,4
Brian has been at his new school for a week without making any friends. He decides to make himself popular by pretending his dad is famous. He gets caught in the lie but learns that he is special in his own way and can make friends because of who he is, not who he pretends to be.
Children are often well aware of what their circumstances are, particularly in comparison with others. They also often wish to change those circumstances in favour of being more extraordinary. This can lead to the beginnings of a healthy imaginative life, and being caught out is also a very useful lesson. In his seventh year The Storyspinner spent a whole summer pretending that he had lost his memory. This was quite a feat in a family of five brothers and sisters.
This story was made one infant lunchtime play duty.
Rumplestiltskin. Units 1,2,3,4
The young girl’s mother boasts about her too much and one day claims that she can spin straw into gold. The greedy king hears this and rules that if she can’t make gold then she will be executed. That night a strange little man comes to her rescue, but the price he asks to help her is very high.
This girl is in a terrible predicament and none of it is her own making. Like a young child, she has no thought of the future when she makes the deal with the little man. Indeed when it comes to payment there is a certain ambivalence about the justice of the outcome. After all he saved her life for the bargain. The Storyspinner has added an epilogue that seems a little fairer to the prospective child stealer. From the Bible to modern society, knowing someone’s name gives a person a certain power over another.
The Cat and The Parrot. Units 1,2
Of the two friends, the Parrot was tidy and the Cat was a slob. One day the Parrot made some cakes for the friends to share, but the Cat ate all the cakes himself and then ate everything else in sight. There seemed to be no limit to the Cat’s greed until he came across something even his appetite could not handle.
The anarchic nature of this magnificent story from south India reflects the madness of the Cat’s greed. From a familiar domestic setting the story then explodes into the absurd, warning us all that the greedy person is never satisfied. This ancient story foresees mass consumerism and the emptiness that accompanies it.
Monkey and a Turtle. Units 1,2,3,4
When a turtle finds a tree full of bananas, he needs help to pull them from the river. The monkey volunteers but eats all the fruit himself. The turtle has learned a valuable lesson about trust. When more bananas appear, the turtle invites the monkey to help him again, but this time he will not be fooled so easily.
This story from the Philippines has echoes worldwide. Indeed the ending is remarkably similar to a Brer Rabbit tale. A good example of how sometimes orality rather than literacy in storytelling can bring characters definition and depth with very few words.
The Selfish Giant. Units 1,2,3,4
When a giant leaves his beautiful garden to visit an ogre, he returns to find that it is over run with children. He chases them out only to find that the garden begins to die without the joy of children playing in it.
Oscar Wilde uses sensitivity and intelligence in making this children’s story. It was originally framed as a nineteenth century religious parable in a time when it was not uncommon to find dead children on London streets. In our time when we deny children more and more access to the outside world, this tale retains its relevance, especially in its study of loneliness and getting old.