Autumn Colors Assignment

Autumn  Colors Time to Practice Storytelling Technique with Prompts

2011 will be a year to remember the lack of color by. The winds of Irene ( Hurricane downgraded to Tropical Storm) wrecked havoc with new England's quintessential  fall tourism drive.  There are some stunning tress out there but the hills a less aglow and the  colors more muted than other years. None the less photography in the fall is always fun. Go take some pictures before the scene is all WHITE!

                                                             
Here is a storytelling skills activity. Look at the picture and see if you can spend 1 minute telling about the colors, petals and more. This is fun with kids and helps them learn an  internal clock for timing.
                          

2 minutes what can be said about this choral like line up of pumpkins.  Like a writing prompt these storytelling prompts are kind of fun.

                                                                 
   I love this one gives ma all kinds of ideas. Can you make up a short story about this wheel barrow. Why is it parked so, what job is it waiting for or just completed?

                                                                              

I think images of train tracks are lonely.  What feelings do you get from these photos can they be used in a story? In a writing assignment we can use sounds if described, but in storytelling the addition of  sound can be  a  dramatic lift. Imagine a train/travel story  at the begining you blow one of those train whistles long and hard. Toward the middle with a little less vigor and at the end of the story a faint, distant lonely  whistle.
    " If yo miss the train Im on you will know that I am gone you can hear the whistle blow 500 miles" this quote from a folk song may be why I always imagine  lonely settings with train tracks.

other blogs I have posted with similar contenet:
www.carolynstearnsstoryteller.blogspot.com/2011/09/education-in-cubes-not-just-childs-play.html

www.carolynstearnsstoryteller.blogspot.com/2011/06/simple-summer-fun.html

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There Shall Be Mud

Why on earth after creating heaven and earth did mud ever get created. Is mud the after thought or uncalculated by product? I beleive that it was made to humor someone with good boots! They were certainly there watching the day the mud sucked the boot from my foot and left me windmilling my arms at the gate. Prayer was never so dedicated as that moment when I truly did not want to fall face first in the mud manure combination. Oh I know kids on the school bus and commuters got the laugh of the day when passing by.
There is a certain percentage of the population that revel in mud. We have several horses that fall into that category and love the earth to body transfer of mud and then the grooming that follows to send the mud to earth again. All this to only dash to the next mud puddle in the morning and recoat themselves in glorious oozing dripping MUD!
New England traditionaly celebrates and glories in its four seasons marketing each one to tourists from a different view point. I have never seen marketing of mud season! It is not written up in Yankee Magazine there are no glossy inserts in a Sunday paper luring you to New England in Mud Season. It is like the family secret, the never spoken of. I am here to tell you Mud season does exhist and we are in the middle of it. I used to have a pair of white sneakers they succumbed to mud season 09 today. I have lost more than one shoe to a mud season and the black bottom on some socks comes from an invasion of shoes to a degree where the Clorox companies research hasnt dared to follow. I like new socks in May!
Where do earth worms evacuate to in Mud Season. It is the equivalent to a hurricane Katrina and the devastation to the worm community is intense. Where once tunnels and mounds occupied the ground now a brown foul swill has oozed into place. I pity them their exhistance in a mud filled world. There is enough soap and dry socks for me to escape for a few hours each day to a dry clean place. Mud free living, it could be a good cover story for Country Living Magazine. That magazine has never quite understood the heartbeat of real country. Well a fair wind blows and the mud would dry, but the forcast is for rain and mud season has just begun its hijinks for 2009. I have yet to lose a shoe or boot, I havent fallen although I pulled a few muscles I forgot I had in avoiding that event today. There has not been a large mud track in the kitchen when someone fresh from mudville made an emergency trip into the house. So far the dog the mud and the couch have not been reunited, a success story in a baby gate.
Pack your bags it is not to late to miss New England in Mud Season, you too can enjoy the age old tradition of slip sliding across the barnyard on a greased track of glorious brown mud. Welcome!