Follow the trail

STORYTELLING SESSION

FOLLOW THE TRAIL

Sources

Introducing the characters

WARM UP

STORYTELLING

Ape's Great Escape by Russel Punter and David Semple

FOLLOW UPLaboratory

Ape's bookmark

Before storytelling

The narrator can prepare ape’s footprints on some pieces of paper and lay them on the floor of the room displaying a trail. He/she can start the storytelling session encountering children a bit far from the storytelling corner. Then he/she can invite children to guess whose footprints are those on the floor. The group of children can follow the trail to reach the storytelling corner and the storyteller can start the narration.

Children can be easily involved during this narration. Indeed, it allows children to take a linking to characters identifying themselves, for instance, with the protagonist and dramatizing Ape’s adventure through the jungle. They can pretend to jump obstacles, to climb trees, to run up and down hills. Moreover, the presence of a great number of secondary characters allows each child to be involved in the play interpreting the crocodiles or the snakes. A group of children can interpret the police-animals, their role is also to find Ape’s footprints in the pages of the book along the story.