You can find many other sweet spring stories in our Spring Tales collection of poems and stories for children.

You might also enjoy a spring workshop we are giving in Boulder CO – The Incredible Story Egg

Contact Suzanne for ordering books or registration for the workshop

The Snowdrop By Hans Christian Andersen (Adapted)

The snow lay deep, for it was winter time. The winter winds blew cold, but there was one house where all was snug and warm. And in the house lay a little flower – in its bulb it lay, under the earth and the snow. One day the rain fell and it trickled through the ice and snow down into the ground. And presently a sunbeam, pointed and slender, pierced down through the earth, and tapped on the bulb. “Come in,” said the flower. “I can’t do that,” said the sunbeam – “I’m not strong enough to lift the latch. I shall be stronger when springtime comes.” “When will it be spring?” asked the flower of every little sunbeam that rapped on its door. But for a long time it was winter.

The ground was still covered with snow, and every night there was ice in the water. The flower grew quite tired of waiting. “How long it is!” it said. “I feel quite cramped. I must stretch myself and rise up a little. I must lift the latch, and look out, and say ‘good morning’ to the spring.” So the flower pushed and pushed. The walls were softened by the rain and warmed by the little sunbeams, so the flower shot up from under the snow, with a pale green bud on its stalk and some long narrow leaves on either side. It was biting cold. “You are a little too early,” said the wind and the weather – but every sunbeam sang, “Welcome,” and the flower raised its head from the snow and unfolded itself – pure and white, and decked with green stripes. It was weather to freeze it to pieces – such a delicate little flower, but it was stronger than any one knew.

It stood in its white dress in the white snow, bowing its head when the snowflakes fell, and raising it again to smile at the sunbeams, and every day it grew sweeter. “Oh!” shouted the children, as they ran into the garden, “see the snowdrop! There it stands so pretty, so beautiful – the first, the only one!”

The Incredible Story Egg

A Workshop for Early Childhood Teachers and Parents

Sat. March 27                    10:00-3:00

4072 19th St.   Boulder Waldorf Kindergarten                              Boulder, CO

Join us for a day of exploring the creativity and story imaginations within the felted egg!  We will wet felt beautiful egg forms, and turn them into story vessels that sail the sea, plant a garden, rock a baby, house a little mouse, and other delightful story helpers!   The children will be delighted with your enchanting egg creations, and also the story that lives inside them!

Come for a day of renewal and skill building in the realm of story magic!

Suzanne Down is longtime Founder/Director of Juniper Tree School of Story and Puppetry Arts,  the early childhood specialists.  She has relocated to Colorado from British Columbia, and looks forward to developing wonderful opportunities for you to learn the art of the story.

Workshop fee is $60 plus $15 materials

Contact Suzanne for pre-registration and  information:   suzanne@junipertreepuppets.com

720 438-8344

http://www.junipertreepuppets.com

to view other upcoming workshops click here

to sign up for our email story newsletter click here

One Spring, I was telling stories for four days at a large street festival.  I was a roving storyteller, mingling freely with the crowds, drawing children to me like a pied piper.  I used my most colorful one-pocket story apron and bravely set out.  Whenever there is a large event with many distractions, I find the story apron the best storytelling helper ever!  The key is to have short, lovely ‘tales’ in the pocket so children and their families are free to move on with the festivities.  This is not a ‘show’ with a definite period of time for stories, it is an ongoing series of mini shows.

I was prepared with many poems, stories, and songs in my story basket, for changing my pocket full of finger puppets and small lap puppet characters.  I also had colorful wool tucked away  just in case I ran out of stories.  All went well, the ponies, roosters, elves, and sun-spirits were chosen and tales told out.  Then one little 4 year old girl with big soft eyes waited patiently for her story.  I was out of my regular stories, so I proceeded to make a ‘story doll’ out of the colorful wool I thankfully had thought to bring along, with  a story about my grandmother.  This was made as I spoke the story, the same way you make a wool angel….or yarn doll.  Then at the story’s end I spontaneously gave the child the wooly doll, and told her to put it under her pillow while she slept, and maybe it would tell her stories in her dreams.

The next day, that little girl came looking for me, her ‘doll’ tucked in her pocket.  Such joy and wonder was emanating from her as she told me her doll had told her stories, beautiful stories.  Other children started requesting the wool story, they followed me and listened again and again to the story doll tale.  I decided to empty all of my pockets of the carefully chosen tales, and put rainbows of wool in my story apron pocket.  Throughout the festival, children would find me, their wool dolls with them, smiling, and sharing in the story on mysterious levels.

I began to realize the incredible power of creating a story helper before children’s eyes that was woven and tied with the magic of a story within it.  These little puffs of wool took shape and gave an imagination to each child who received one.  The wool doll’s soft open quality left space for the story imagination to brew and take on a deeper life for each child.  I have heard from moms since the festival, that those little puppet dolls were cherished for a long time, and lived by their pillows, or in their pockets.

Ever since this experience, I have increasingly developed my work and relationship with wool puppets.  I have watched my young preschool groups wrapping colors of wool here and there, discovering a fairy, a valentine baby, a leaf boat, a soft cradle, and see how they can sink into the wool and be in a deep calm space for a while.  And what pleasure to bring it all to life with a simple story

When this quality is brought to gentle life through gesture and story, children are given a chance to softly open and receive the gift.  That is magic isn’t it!

There are some upcoming workshops working with needle-felting wool puppets.

A  good resource for short poem stories for the story apron work can be found in Around the World with Finger Puppet Animals

The more a young child hears the rhythmic language of the nursery rhyme, the more it supports deep breathing and healthy blood circulation! All in all a fabulous group of teachers and parents, happy smiling characters, and now, many children enjoying the benefit of all those lovely puppets going into classrooms full of little ones who will love them.

Here is an earlier blog on nursery rhyme wisdom for you to enjoy.

I will be doing the same workshop in July in Santa Cruz, CA. It is called a Therapeutic Rod Puppet Workshop, and will be held on July 30th through 31st, 2010. If you are interested in more info, please contact me.

The Hidden Wisdom of the ‘Worker’ Character in Story

Workshop for Early Childhood Teachers and Parents

February 13          Sat. 9-5

7820 Lemon St.,   Fair Oaks, CA.  95628

What is it that lives so wisely in the story characters that do meaningful work in the world?  How do their deeds impact our children’s developing moral sense through the powers of Will?

In this workshop we will explore these profound questions and more. What unites the fisherman, the woodcutter, the baker, the shoemaker, and the farmer in becoming living models of ethical life for the children?   We will work on understanding the value of the rhythmic gesture of these ‘doing’ characters.  Through discussion, demonstration, puppet making, and story scene presentations, the answers to these questions will come to light.  We will make wool roving worker puppets and find their true healing gesture in story.

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Suzanne Down is Director of Juniper Tree School of Story and Puppetry Arts, go to www.junipertreepuppets.com for full information about her work.

Contact Suzanne

Workshop cost – $85 plus $15. Materials

Language Arts, Nursery Rhymes and Puppetry for ECE

Jan. 16,17  2010                    9-4 Sat., 9-1 Sun.

A Workshop for Teachers, Parents, Speech Therapists. North Vancouver Waldorf School

2726 St. Christopher’s Rd        Childcare available upon request

The development of speech and language is one of the greatest achievements of our lifetime.  Yet research shows that language skills and thus literacy are rapidly declining in our schools.  What lives in the mystery of speech mastery, and how can the therapeutic art of storytelling and puppetry be one of the best supports for our children’s love and aptitude for language.

We will look at the wisdom of rhythm, alliteration, consonantal delight, and joyful soundings of the nursery rhyme in storytelling and visual presentation through puppetry.  We will create a magical Rod Puppet of the Wee Willie Winkie character, and delight in the ways of bringing him to life!

Suzanne Down is longtime director of Juniper Tree School of Story and Puppetry Arts. Her certificate part time summer training focuses on pedagogical, artistic, and therapeutic puppetry. You can also view the upcoming puppetry events and courses.

Please contact  Margo Running at 604 904-4198  x2 or lifeways@gmail.com for information and registration
Weekend cost is $125. plus $15. Material fee.

When we add a visual piece to the spoken story or verse, we engage the sense of sight as well as hearing.  As children are most adept in seeing the world, this skill helps ‘hold’ them in the imaginative picturing the puppet story creates, giving their hearing organs more time to take in the quality of the words.  In a sense, time to ‘digest’ and process the spoken story.  To present this story in a simple way, build up a table top winter landscape with snowy white, pale blue, lavender silks, soft cottons. build up a ‘hill’ with a form under the wintery cloth where the sled can whooosh down with delighted passengers. The children can run tumble in the ’snow’ after the sled run.  All we need to do is create a picture of what children would do in movement in such a happy setting.

I like to follow up a little ’story’ like this with the real thing.  If possible, at outdoor time, play in the snow, find a hill to slide and run  down.  This ‘doing’ activity takes the meaning of the words into the child in a  most meaningful way.  Friends in coastal British Columbia might enjoy a January 16/17  workshop on early childhood puppetry, which is a wonderful skill builder for the early childhood teacher and parent.

Little January
Tapped at my door today
And said, “Put on your winter wraps
And come outside to play”.

Little January
Is always full of fun
Today we coasted down the hill
Until the set of sun.

Little January
Do stay a month with me
And we will have such jolly times
Just come along and see

-W.C. Marshall

Visit Etsy to view a photo of needle felted sledding children to give you puppet ideas.

As the soul descends from spiritual worlds to be born on earth, there is a sacrifice of the cosmic rhythms of planets and stars to enter earthly chaos. The newborn arrives with no rhythm, the first breathing is chaotic. The baby needs this inner rhythm restored from the outside life by the parents, especially the mother. The mother begins to establish a daily earth rhythm of feeding, sleeping, rocking, and soft lullabies.

All through the early years, parents and first teachers work to bring this spiritual support on earth – Rhythm. A rhythmic life from this new beginning helps build the forces of inner strength which later form the moral forces for the soul’s future. This is essential today in a world which lacks rhythm and lacks morality. The prime gift of the nursery rhyme is in this power of rhythm. Rudolf Steiner states that “rhythmic processes are nothing physical whether in nature or in Man. They might be called semi-spiritual. The physical as a ‘tang’ disappears in the rhythmic process, rhythm replaces strength”. We can see the incredible spiritual support to the young child when we work with rhythm.

The meaning of the words in the nursery rhymes takes a back seat to the possibilities of rhythm and repetition to help establish a clear healthy breathing, circulation, and immune system, throughout the body, right down to the toes! The nursery rhymes work right into the heart beat and circulation, not into head thinking. They mirror the cosmic rhythms for the young child finding their way on earth. As timeless world rhymes, their language has become lifted and alive rhythmically in the world ether. This means they have an added etheric quality to them.

We can say when we speak or sing them, we do so with a more etheric breath. This nourishes the physical and emotional breath bringing order and balance to the etheric/physical/emotional circulation. Nursery rhymes take the power of rhyme, repetition and rhythm which together heal inner chaos and make order within the cellular level. These qualities go right into the body, into the circulation and releases the child of chaos. Nancy Mellon, therapist and therapeutic storyteller, emphasizes that “70-75% of the power of the nursery rhyme is in the rhythm and repetition.

The picture and images provide the other 30%. The real work is the etheric rhythmic element helping the clear breathing and circulation go through the body. We don’t want to dwell on their meaning. It is the delicious rhythmic that strengthens and helps the physical and emotional circulation. All comes into order and balance”. We can think of speaking the nursery rhymes with a ‘lifted language’ parallel to singing in the mood of the fifth. In this way the speaking is truly the rhythm of the heart and pulse, not a beat which has more the hard physical quality of a hammering. This differentiation between bringing the nursery rhymes rhythmically instead of with a beat is key to it developing a healing potential.

If we begin to look at the rhythm ‘long – short’ as in Cobbler, cobbler mend my shoe, Have it done by half past two, or: Humpty dumpty sat on a wall, Humpty dumpty had a great fall as well as: Rock a bye baby In the tree top When the wind blows The cradle will rock. We see in this long/short a gentle incarnating rhythm. The long/short rhythm is not spoken in a syllabic way, but with a flow in the words. Imagine a mother rocking her baby or young child, and crooning ‘rock a bye baby’. She is creating an etheric rhythmic substance within and around the child, which is working deeply on the inner life of the child, bringing order with right rhythm.

One way a teacher can support the healing rhythmic work of the young child is to bring the nursery rhymes with puppetry. When we imbue our puppets with an etheric substance, making the nursery rhymes visible in this refined semi-physical way, we deepen the healing quality we offer the child. Here is an example of using puppetry with the nursery rhymes. I have developed a mother rod puppet which holds a puppet baby – the archetypal mother, a model imperative for the child. The puppet sings ‘rock a bye baby’, lovingly holding the baby and rocking the baby in a gentle lemniscate.

The lemniscate as a form is the doorway to the etheric realm, a potent choreography for puppetry. The observing child inwardly mirrors the rhythmic quality and movement/gestures of the puppet, all created with intention and consciousness to offer a healing experience. The child breathes rhythmically and deeply when watching, inner order is being established. This lullaby can be repeated three times (or more!) , then mother puppet puts the baby in her cradle for a nice sleep. Teachers can greet the day like this, or use it at rest time.

Parents can do this for a peaceful bedtime ritual. Children are desperate for these healthy rhythms. Nursery rhymes and puppetry are one of the joyful rhythmic and etheric supports available to us. The visual pictures of the puppetry holds the child in the imaginative space while the nursery rhyme rhythms do their deep and wise work. Suzanne Down is long time director of Juniper Tree School of Story and Puppetry Arts, now based out of Vancouver Island in Canada. She and Nancy Blanning, educational therapist, offer a 5 day professional development course on the therapeutic wisdom of nursery rhymes and the 12 senses for circle-time and story/puppetry.

In addition to the new site, Christmas preparations and celebrations, I am working on a new outdoor puppet show. It is a puppet adaptation inspired by ‘The Three Little Men in the Woods”’ (Grimms) where I have altered it into a nice little Mother Earth story.  The original Grimms story is found here for your great pleasure.  I love combining the magic of story with the wonder of nature in winter.  I find the possibilities the natural story landscape gives us exciting and endless.  I have added some photos of the story, now you can add to that by imagining a candlelit path for the children to follow to the story land.  This creates a mood that opens hearts before we even begin.

On the subject of gnomes, I am working on a book called ‘Old Gnome Through the Year’.  There will be 12 stories of the adventures of a love-able old gnome, one for each month of the year.  They will come complete with puppet and prop making instructions.  I will let you all know when it is available to purchase.

As the next blog will be after Christmas, I wish you all a joyful holiday time with loved ones this deep winter time of family and community.