At the start of this new year (2016), Schoolkutti.com was the venue for a Story Circle – ‘The Gods of the Vikings’, based on tales from Norse Mythology. Designed and facilitated by Prasanth Gangadharan, Story Circle is a program that helps children learn through stories. With a story at its centre and a circle of activities weaved around the story, the program is designed to enhance creativity, speech, reading and conceptual learning in children. The Story Circle at Schoolkutti was held on four consecutive weekends in January 2016.
On the last day of the Story Circle the children put up a small program for their parents. It wasn’t meant to be an ‘event’, the children themselves were given about an hour’s notice and there were no rehearsals. The idea was to gain from the experience of standing in front of an audience and use the opportunity to share what they had been doing over the four sessions.
Here’s what happened:
The children began with the Vikings verse, a war cry which they performed with gusto, drawing imaginary swords from their scabbards and banging them on their shields.

Next they recited two poems, one about going in search of treasure and the other about slaying a monster, in rounds.

Two concepts that were weaved in to the stories in this Story Circle– Tenses and Fractions – were recalled through an activity based on movement.

The highlight of the evening was the children’s retelling of two stories from the Norse Mythology. They kept the audience hooked and had them in splits often.

The program ended with a performance with their Viking staffs, based on the Voluspa, an ancient Norse poem.

During the course of the program the children had made pastel illustrations based on Norse stories. A poem was also taken up for guided reading through the sessions.

Overall, the program was a great experience for the children. Children had so much fun that they could hardly wait for the next session every week. Parents also appreciated the sheer genius of combining play, movement, coordination, repetition, all leading to clear concepts and comprehension.