For our use of story vines from Sometimes Reading is hard by Robin Bright pages 91-92 discussed the concept of using a story vine for teaching.
SOURCES OF MORE INFORMATION
For some other sources of information on story vines I found https://stephaniegokarn.weebly.com/story-vine.html which has a break down on teaching story vines along with a great image of what story vines may look like when they don’t have 20+ adults available to help with construction. This site is also great for how it breaks down the steps of the whole process of the story vines. I also found a link to a book called Story vines and Readers Theater: getting started by Marlene McKay which I am now interested in tracing down a copy of to read, it is interesting that when looking up story vines on google most of the results are previous years blog posts on the subject.
THE EXPERIENCE WITH THE KIDS
In the grade 2/3 class we got to build story vines with the class about the book The paper bag princess by Robert Munch. During the experience I did spend my time helping at the supply table rather than helping a small group of kids. I was cutting the yarn for their vines and I was helping with the tidying up of things on the ground. I was walking around to see if any groups needed any extra help as well. The kids all had a lot of fun throughout the activity. The next day we got to go into the school with the class for them to share their story vines with the kindergarten classes of the school. My group did struggle with the sharing part and resulted with one of the other teacher candidate students having to start telling the story and pointing at the students to share their story vine from that point. I loved seeing how different each students story vine looked even though it was all based on the same book for the 2/3 class. I also found it interesting how goofy one of the kids got when she remembered she knew me from when I coached her years ago, she ended up putting her story vine on my head which made some of the other kids giggle a bit.
MY OWN STORY VINE
My story vine that I made was made from a different book which is City of Secrets by Victoria Ying which I discussed in my first post. I wish I had allowed myself to use more flat elements that I drew rather than trying to make it all work with supplies on the table during class.
CURRICULUM
For the grade 2 and 3 ELA curriculum points:
| Curricular competency | Big Ideas | Content | |
| Grade 2 | Use sources of information and prior knowledge to make meaning Engage actively as listeners, viewers, and readers, as appropriate, to develop understanding of self, identity, and community Plan and create a variety of communication forms for different purposes and audiences | Language and story can be a source of creativity and joy | vocabulary associated with texts oral language strategies |
| Grade 3 | Use developmentally appropriate reading, listening, and viewing strategies to make meaning Use personal experience and knowledge to connect to text and make meaning | Language and story can be a source of creativity and joy. Using language in creative and playful ways helps us understand how language works. | oral language strategies |