Oscar: One time, I went to Legoland.

Noelle: Because our class does storytelling, story acting, our students know and respect each other more. It’s a language and literacy practice, really, but it does so much more. It helps the kids with their social emotional development. It’s really community building within the classroom.

Student: I went to Legoland.

Sarah: Amigos is a two way immersion school for students in Cambridge, Massachusetts. At Amigos, we look to support biliteracy in the early years by really developing and strengthening oral language skills, and the students’ ability to tell stories, understand the shape of a story, and be able to share that with oral language in both Spanish and English.

Student: With my mom, my dad.

Oscar: So storytelling, story acting, we first ask a child to tell us a story, and it could be a personal story of theirs, or something that they have made up. Then when it’s time to do the story acting, we are actually seeing a visual representation of their story.

And there was petals.

We’re actually working with language, but at the same time, we’re working with elements of a story.

You can use Legos to make a car.

It has setting, characters.

Student: Our brother.

Noelle: Brother.

Noelle: Each day, a different student has a turn to tell a story to me.

It was a family of turtles.

Student: Yeah.

Noelle: Ah, okay. So there was a family of totals.

I take the story dictation during rest time. It’s a quiet time, so I call the student over.

Student: The shark.

Noelle: There’s a shark in your story?

Student: Yeah.

Noelle: It just probably takes five or ten minutes. They tell me the story.

Student: Then I [speaks Spanish].

Noelle: And often because we’re a bilingual school, it’s really a motivator for the kids who are just learning Spanish to try to tell the story in Spanish. Then we clean up the mats and we get in our circle, and then I call the student up to sit next to me.

There was a family of turtles.

I read the story aloud.

Student: Do you want to be the baby?

Student: Uh-huh.

Noelle: And then they are responsible for choosing who the actors are.

Student: Do you want to be the mommy?

Noelle: We just go in a circle, so it’s not popularity contest, but more of just whose turn it is.

Student: Do you want to be the sister?

Student: [speaks Spanish].

Noelle: And they put them in their places, and then I read the story for a final time, and they act it out.

The turtle said hi to the girl.

Student: Hi.

Student: I’m not the girl, she is.

Student: Hi.

Student: She could do it like this.

Noelle: Oh, so if you’re a turtle, then you have to go like that.

For the very shy kids, it gives them a structure and a platform and rules to be able to do that.

And then the shark ate all the totals.

For other kids, it gives them that much-needed like, this is my turn. I’ve been wanting this all day long.

So it depends on the child. But it is very powerful for everyone to have that kind of spotlight on you.

Wow, look at the shark.

Schools That Work

Amigos School