Hello, I'm Neil Griffiths, and educationalist and passionate storyteller.
We now know that if a child is going to love reading, we need to expose them to stories
being read aloud again and again.
And best of all to do that is mum and dad, grandma and grandpa. Sadly many adults feel
they don't have quite the skills that are needed to tell a story.
Well I am going to change that in the next 5 minutes, you will hear the story of itchy
bear and you'll see that there's a story in all of us.
I thought when Itchy Bear itches, he must make an itchy noise. And it sounds a bit like
this, *scratchy noise*
So, this is an important job, she snatched, did you see her?
This is a big job, don't get it wrong! Every time I saw 'ITCH' you're going to do 3 rubs of the sandpaper.
I need stereo sound - so could you two be the other scratchers?
Let's practice! Ready ... 'ITCH'
*scratchy noises*
'ITCH'
*scratchy noises*
'INK'
*scratchy noises*
Ah!
*Laughs*
Look!
*Awwww*
And look at the itchy bear story - woah!
Bear was having a nice long sleep, in fact he would have slept all day long, if he hadn't
begun to 'ITCH'
*scratchy noises*
This was not any old 'ITCH'
*scratchy noises*
It started between his toes!
Do your toes everyone!
Now it was under his chin!
No! It was between his big toe and small toe -- No!
It was his elbow!
No! It was all over. In fact he just couldn't stop 'ITCHING'
*scratchy noises*
And he 'ITCHED' and he 'ITCHED'
And he 'ITCHED'
And he thought 'I've got to find somewhere for a lovely scratch'
And look!
He found a gorgeous rock to do his bottom on, and can we do that first noise, because
as he did it, he went *Oh!*
*Oh Oh Oh*
And he 'itched' and he 'itched' and he 'itched'.
See, we have variety over here. She's doing low lying and up and downing!
Oh but look! A little mole popped up and the mole said, this is MY rock, I'm digging down
here, go and scratch somewhere else!
Just as it was getting good, can I have an 'AW'?
*Awwww!*
Then he found somewhere lovely to do behind his ears, can we have eyebrows? And he itched!
And he itched!
And it was gorgeous!
But then -- Oh I don't believe it! An owl was in the tree, and he was fast asleep.
He said, 'You've woken me up! Go and scratch somewhere else!'
*Awwww*
Then he found a lovely log to do his tummy, and he itched, and he itched, and he itched,
and it was gorgeous!
Oh no!
There was a squirrel in there! And the squirrel was counting - can you count to ten everyone?
1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10
Well you try and count when someone is shaking your log. You can't concentrate can you?
Oh dear.
Then Itchy Bear found twigs to do his toes! And he was just about to start doing his toes,
when a little voice went
"Oi!"
Madam - who do you think was hiding in the twigs?
A mouse? Not a mouse. Even smaller!
Even smaller than a mouse madam,
What has more legs than an ant?
More than a spider!
More than a centipede!
Yes it was!
It was a millipede, I know, and I want to give you a prize madam, now focus because
it's a big prize. Early Learning Centre have said no money matters, so don't mess about
with this.
Now I am not going to be horrible, because I could say how many legs has a millipede
got! There are too many!
But centipedes, how many legs?
Stop!
Don't move! Say it again!
Guess what? You haven't won. It was two weeks in Hawaii!!
Everybody thinks its a hundred but its 42 on average. What a shame! You haven't won
anything.
But then Itchy Bear found a lovely tree, could you come up and be my tree as well. Hold onto
your apple - show us your tree, why am I bothering?
Show us your branches!
That's a ballerina! One forward, sort of -- hold!
Itchy bear thought 'This does look like a good tree!'
But I'm scared, because I want to scratch my back but what if there's a millipede?
There wasn't.
What if there's is a mole?
There wasn't.
What if there's -- there was no owl.
There was no squirrel!
And he thought, well it looks good, so he got closer.
And he got closer, and closer and closer.
Could we all go *Oh!*
It was gorgeous!!
But no! He should of looked upwards because as he did look up, he would have known that
it was an apple tree!
Could you now be a shaky tree?
No that's a wavy tree!
What are you doing? Sort of vibrate!
And he thought, 'Oh No!'
Can we tap on our knees? Because all of the apples came down!
Look they tumbled on his head!
*Awwwww*
How could you?
And itchy bear thought 'everything has gone wrong today'
But just a minute, he stopped itching.
And he thought 'And I have all these apples!'
So he took a bite.
That was a full bite! Nice!
It was lovely - so he took tiny another one, and then a medium and then a whopper!
*Laughs*
And then with his mouth completely full, can you say delicious?
*Laughs*
And so it hadn't been such a bad day after all!
Give him a clap - because you were good!
Now I guarantee that no one will be able to answer this question, if you're 99 you won't
be able to, if you're 9 months.
You'll never get the answer to this question!
Why was itchy bear itching? And grown ups, you're allowed to shout out!
Why was Itchy Bear itchy in the first place?
Not fleas Madam! But a lovely guess!
No it wasn't heat rash - what made him itchy? Wasn't eczema, it wasn't dermatitis , stop
trying to be clever!
I'm going to have to show you! What is on itchy bear's toes?
Look! What
is it?
It's a naughty butterfly!
Doing the tickling!
So be thankful I just scratched and didn't tickle.
Well I hope you enjoyed that bear with his itches and scratches.
But what made that story successful? How did I get the children to enjoy every minute of
it?
Well, I worked hard! But we can all do it. Of course it was a story that was full of
humour, as many young children's stories are, lots of chances for sound effects.
And of course there was lows of movement.
But you'll have noticed, I didn't start the story straight away.
I set the scene, I started to talk about bears, very important, don't rush into a story. Take
your time.
Also, I hope you noticed that throughout that story, my face was on fire.
Because facial expression is so important, when I ohh-ed and aww-ed, my face was alive.
Very very important.
Also Itchy Bear was a great story for lots of role play and action and I know that you
would have noticed that I made some bits up. Ad lib is very important, don't be frightened
to throw bits into the story.
The children love it!
They'll notice but they love it.
And of course, the sound effects were endless, but make the most of the sound effects don't
just go *Oh!*
Go *OHHHHHHHHH!*
Don't just go *Ah* Go *AHHHHHHH!*
Really ham up your expressions and sound effects because the children will really respond to
it.
Throughout the story, notice, as here, that my hands were constantly on the move. Gesture
is very important. How could you scratch, without actually scratching?
So use every bit of your body.
Also, throughout a story, where you can build up suspense, build it up because I got the
children to just peep to see what creatures were on the next page. They had to try and
guess what was there.
And that is building up the anticipation, which is an important part of a story.
Also, make use of the lovely words in the book, in this book there were lovely words,
don't just go *delicious*
Go *DELICIOUS!*
Make the most of every single one.
And you'll have also noticed, that to add to the story, I threw in a few little props.
It doesn't take much to find a bit of sandpaper or an apple to munch.
So look at the story, and plan it before hand, and think 'How can I make it extra special?'
So happy scratching!