School Day and Story Night

A great school day looks like this:

                                                                               
    For a storyteller a great school day is getting to share stories with eager listeners. Recently I was  fortunate to share my day with the students and staff at my neighborhood school, Annie Vinton Elementary School in Mansfield, CT.   http://www.mansfieldct.gov/content/11140/default.aspx    
    Pre-K through 4th grade came in shifts by grade to settle on the carpet of the library and listen to programs of story keyed to the curriculum of study at present for their grade.  We covered neighborhoods, and environments, weather and Native Americans, Martin Luther King Jr. , folk music, and the history of our town.
    I know I had a wonderful day reconnecting with old friends and developing new ones among the staff and students. I hope that each of them found a story moment to share with their families and a chance to try out their storyteller skills. We introduced new vocabulary, reinforced classroom  curriculum, used rich full language that enables literacy to develop, and dabbled in history. This was a day  I could tell all kinds of stories from the simplest folk tale of the Gingerbread man for the tiny listeners to the more complex tales of history for the 3rd and 4th grade. Storyteller joy is right here in a day like this.

A Great Story Night looks like this:
The flip side of that audience is one of all adults, many of whom are storytellers. Story Space in Cambridge, Ma.  is just that kind of venue.
  http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Story-Space/177178758969270

                               
      Choosing which story to tell your peers is a challenge! I want to show my best work, not share a story most have heard before. I also want to show my range of  story genre. This was a magical night for me in  the Cambridge Story Space. http://www.storyspace.org/Home.asp    I shared a funny personal story, a newer piece I created of historical fiction regarding the singer Patsy Cline and her song "Crazy" in my set as the featured teller of the week.  I highly recommend a night at the Story Space held in, Out of the Blue Gallery in Cambridge - check it out!

What else am I up to?
http://carolynstearnsstoryteller.blogspot.com/2012/01/voicemail-open-mic-in-mansfield-general.html

http://carolynstearnsstoryteller.blogspot.com/2012/01/my-web-presence-is-dead.html

At Atwoodville part 2 in Family Tree

The vault released so many vital data bits our heads were swimming with names and dates. For me at least there was the understanding of the sections of town the boundaries and the places mentioned. Laura was baffled by the geography of the search and relied on my clarifications for what was nearby etc. From a deed in 1820's I was able to tell where the farm was simply by the description. Not that many to choose from so we were able to add it to the list of places to go see. In the end of the day with minutes ticking to closing and with a ream of copies of materials she still did not have hard evidence that Daniel was the son of Ebenezer.

The Town Hall closes at 12 on Friday's and we packed up and left. Only hours left of Laura's stay in Ct. and so much to see. We met up with the family and I climbed in their car for an auto tour of their family heritage. We went around our farm and the University. We drove down to the village of Atwoodville and I pointed out the trail that leads to the ruins of early Silk Mills and industry whose birth was in the town of Mansfield. On this day with the 3 children in the car it wasn't the mills that were the intrigue it was the swimming hole in the Mount Hope River. Here for 200 years family members have escaped the dog days of summer with a cooling dip. Great Grammy used to tell of her brothers hoeing corn and shedding layers as they ran toward the river and the giant rocks, the leap and the refreshing water. Scampering over the rocks the children were soon in and taking turns sitting where the small water fall poured over their heads making a umbrella shaped splash about them. The giggles echo off the rocks and the time goes to fast.

Back on the road we have one last stop, the Atwoodville Cemetery. The children cool from a swim are happy to stay in the car with a movie the eldest , Laura's son comes to join the search for the missing link. We walk up and down the rows of markers. Laura's voice calls out with a catch, I found him. We all gather in front of a stone, it is the father Ebenezer Baldwin next to his a stone for his wife and the dates coincide. Daniel is buried in Wisconsin but it was said he and his wife lost 4 children in one week before they moved west. The children should be here. But there was no place with four small markers.I had sent a picture of one stone but it was not clear enough to read in the on line image. If we found the children and they said they were Daniel's it would indeed be proof. The stones next to Ebenezer and his wife are small and crusted thick with lichen and moss. From 1824 the plant life has had a fair chance to take hold. In the car I have a bucket, water and scrub brush for just this moment. Soon we are washing away the years of growth and there is the missing link. Four little children who perished in a plague buried in three graves with markers with their names and saying they were indeed the children of Daniel and his wife Serviah. Here they are buried right beside the grandparents and there is proof Ebenezer, Daniel and the children raised here and in Wisconsin are one family, ours! 186 years later. they are remembered and for us show the way, a link to the Mayflower and a history lesson these children will never forget.