Storytelling - The Gruffalo

Storytelling is a form of art. It helps in developing various skills in children. It helps develop their vocabulary, memory, cultural understanding and many more. Though it can be done with the help of books but not every kid is as imaginative. In that case, one can take the help of characters made with craft to narrate stories to their kids. This can be done normally or with the help of a theater. These are great ways to further enhance more skills in children. Moreover, children can later on also do the storytelling themselves for others which will in turn develop their motor skills and fine tune their skills to use the characters.

Under the theme of storytelling we’ll be doing 2 stories for which we’ll be giving tutorials for making the characters, the background and discussing about the stories. For the first week we have chosen the story ‘The Gruffalo’ by Julia Donaldson.

Characters

The Gruffalo

Supplies needed: Assemble the supplies as have been mentioned below.

Step 1: Start pressing the toilet paper roll from the top center to create a sealed top and two pointed edges.

Step 2: Now we need to cover this structure formed in step 1 with brown paper. Cover it completely, cut the excess and stick the paper.

Step 3: Draw and cut the various body parts of the Gruffalo characters from different coloured sheets as have been shown in the image.

Step 4: All the cutouts of the body parts from step 3 need to be folded from one edge/point tocreate a section as has been shown in the image. This section is for the purpose of gluing the parts to the main body.

Step 5: Assemble the layers of body parts to give it a complete look by sticking on one another.

Step 6: Stick all the body parts (horns, ears, nose, eyes, teeth) in the front half of the body with the help of glue and the folded sections from step 4.

Step 7: On the back portion of the body, you need to stick the foam dots, tail and prickles.

Our Gruffalo character is now ready!

The Fox

Supplies needed: Assemble the supplies as have been mentioned below.

Step 1: Start pressing the toilet paper roll from the top center to create a sealed top and two pointed edges as shown in the image. Seal this flattened top with the help of a tape.

Step 2: Now we need to cover this structure formed in step 1 with orange paper. Cover it completely, cut the excess and stick the paper. Seal the top with two clips. Place these clips for some time till they stick along.

Step 3: Draw and cut the various body parts of the Gruffalo characters from white and orange sheets as have been shown in the image.

Step 4: Assemble the face of the fox by sticking the different layers of body parts upon one another as shown in the image. At last, add the googly eyes.

Step 5: Assemble the body of the fox and stick the tail on the right end corner, everything as shown in the image.

Just stick the face on top of the body and our Fox character is now ready!

The Snake

Supplies needed: Assemble the supplies as have been mentioned below.

Step 1: Cut 1 inch long 4 stripes each of light and dark green sheet.

Step 2: Stick both the stripes on one another from the corners to make an L-formation.

Step 3: Now start folding these stripes one over the other as shown in the image.

Step 4: Similarly, stick other stripes in continuation to these stripes (light one to light and dark ones to dark) one by one and continue with the folding pattern as shown in the image.

Step 5: Stick the last light green flap to cover the dark green one. Also, cut a triangle from the left over dark green stripe in order for it to look like a tail. Everything as shown in image.

Step 6: From the light green sheet cut an oval to create the face shape. To this cutout add the googly eyes and draw nostrils with a black marker.

Step 7: Now from the dark green sheet cut a small rectangle and create a tiny triangle shape from this rectangle to represent the tongue. Stick this tongue to the body. Everything as shown in the image.

Step 8: Punch one hole each at the beginning of the snake’s body and towards the end.

Step 9: Take 2 strands of thick thread. Insert and tie one each in both the holes at one end and tie it to the stick on the other end. This will be used to hang the snake.

Step 10: You can now move the stick up and down to regulate the movement of the snake.

Our Snake character is now ready!

The Mouse

Supplies needed: Assemble the supplies as have been mentioned below.

Step 1: Take the brown sheet and draw a sketch of rat. Cut this sketch out and make another duplicate rat from the same sheet.

Step 2: Draw and cut all the body parts (ears, nose & stomach) from different sheet as shown in the image. Also cut out these body parts for the duplicate rat.

Step 3: Stick these body parts to both the mouse’s bodies as shown in the image.

Step 4: Tape the wooden screwer on the back side of one mouse. Now, glue both these mouse bodies to each other from their back.

Step 5: Cut two thin 2 inch long stripes and cut them from center. Use these to make mouse’s moustaches. Put them close to the nose and on both the sides, front and back.

Our Mouse character is now ready!

The Owl

Supplies needed: Assemble the supplies as have been mentioned below.

Step 1: Take a brown sheet. Draw a circle with the help of any lid or compass.

Step 2: Fold this circle from step 1 from right, left and then top as shown in the image.

Step 3: Draw and cut circles from orange sheet with the help of any small bottle cap. Fold all the circles obtained into half.

Step 4: Stick all the folded circles on the structure obtained in step 2. This is to give the fur pattern look to the owl body.

Step 5: Draw and cut different body parts of owl from different coloured sheet as shown in the image.

Step 6: Assemble all the body parts formed in step 5 to the furry owl body formed in step 4 as shown in the image.

Step 7: Draw different textures as in the image with brown sketch pen on owl’s wings and claws.

Our Owl character is now ready!

The Backdrop

Step 1: Draw a Jungle scene on a white sheet with the help of a pencil.

Step 2: Paint the pathway using the shades of yellow and brown. Also paint the impressions of the Gruffalo’s feet on the pathway.

Step 3: Paint the bark of the trees with the shades of brown and leaves with the shades of green. Everything as shown in the image.

Step 4: Paint the second layer of green to the trees and colour the stones with the shades of grey. Add a few cute mushrooms too.

Step 5: Enhance the trees, background, grass and stones with thin black marker or black pen as shown in the image.

The backdrop is now ready for the play!

The Story

The Gruffalo by Julia Donaldson is a very famous story amongst children. She is known for her illustrative style of writing. That’s is primarily the reason that we have chosen this story as one of the story for our story-telling week. Although we might not be able to match the illustrative heights reached by the author, we have tried our best to depict the same through our backdrop and characters.

The Gruffalo is a story of a mouse taking a stroll through the forest. It is divided in two phases. The mouse on his walk encounters several dangerous animals (namely the fox, the owl and the snake). Each of the animals invite the mouse for a meal to their house with an intention to eat him. However, the mouse is a cunning creature and dissuades each one of them by saying that he is going for a meal with his friend “The Gruffalo” and that latter’s favorite food is the animal in question. This scares away the animals and the mouse walks away. However, in the second phase the mouse finds out that the creature he is explaining to the dangerous animals is not fictional but actually exists!

The Gruffalo also expresses his wish to eat the mouse but the mouse is cunning. He tells Gruffalo, how he is the scariest animals in the jungle and convinces him to take a walk with him through the wood. So, when the mouse and the Gruffalo walk back together they again encounter the same set of animals. These animals flee away instantly as they see the monstrous Gruffalo with the mouse. This way the mouse is able to save himself from all the animals including the Gruffalo with his cleverness!