Page:The art of story-telling, with nearly half a hundred stories, y Julia Darrow Cowles .. (IA artofstorytellin00cowl).pdf/64

 selection of material. "Not what may be dramatized, but what should be."

If a teacher has clearly before her the thought of why we dramatize, then the question of what to dramatize will be more readily determined.

Stories of nature, in which the children represent birds, bees, flowers, the wind, the seasons, are all useful for the purpose. Such stories quicken the imagination and bring the child into closer relationship with outdoor life.

An especially good example of a story to dramatize is the "Lesson of Faith," in the first chapter of this book. Teachers will find this story especially appropriate to their Easter exercises.

After the story has been told often enough for the children to become familiar with its thought and outline, let some little girl represent the Caterpillar, and another the Butterfly. Have a boy represent the Lark, and eight or ten other children the butterfly eggs.

Begin the dramatizing by having this last group of children curl themselves down quietly together, while the little girl who represents the Caterpillar moves slowly about