Storytelling in a Waldorf-Inspired Co-op: Telling Stories to a Mixed-Age Group

In a Waldorf-inspired co-op, the story is told, not read. One parent tells it from memory, in a calm voice, and tells the same story for several weeks. For a group that meets once a week, about a month on one story works well. Learn the outline, not the words: read the story aloud on three evenings first. Pick something the youngest can follow and the oldest still enjoy. Once the children know it, bring the story onto a table with a few puppets or a simple scene.

Below is how to choose a story for a wide age range, how to learn one, how to set up the room, and when to bring out the puppets. For which tales suit which age, see Waldorf fairy tales and storytelling.

Why tell the story rather than read it?

When a parent tells a story, there are no pictures on a page. The children make them. Erica Russell of The Steiner Connection writes that telling "encourages children to build pictures in their imagination", and that a picture book gives children the pictures ready-made. Simply Waldorf describes the teller as someone trying to be "less visible", so the children can stay with their own inner pictures.

At co-op there's a second reason. A book held up to ten children means half of them can't see it, and the other half lean in. A told story reaches the child at the back as well as the child at your knee.

How long to keep one story

In a Waldorf kindergarten, the same story is told again and again. Camellia Waldorf School describes the teacher telling "the same one for a few weeks, in just the same way." Erica Russell writes that the kindergarten repeats a story for a week or more. A family telling stories once or twice a week, she suggests, might keep the same story for a month.

A weekly co-op sits on that second pattern. Try one story for 3 to 4 weeks, or for a whole block. The children may start saying the repeated lines with you by the second week. By the last week, some may notice if you change a word.

For children in the grades, the story can be a longer thread told in parts, a new part each week. Teaching a main lesson block together covers how a co-op carries a story through a block and how the home days pick it up.

Choosing a story for a mixed-age group

A co-op story has to hold a 4-year-old and a 9-year-old in the same room. Look for:

• clear pictures: a cottage, a well, a dark wood, a golden bird
• a repeated line or rhyme the little ones can join
• a real difficulty, so the older children care what happens
• a good ending, told all the way through

Many of the Grimms' tales do this. So do fables, for a group where most children are around grade 2.

If the ages are far apart, choose one:

1. One story for everyone, and give the older children harder work after it: a detailed drawing, a written retelling, a part in the puppet play.
2. Two stories in two rooms. A short tale for the younger group, and a longer thread for the older group with a second parent. The co-op circle stays together, and the group splits only for the story.

How to learn a story in a week

The parent telling the story often worries most about forgetting. Erica Russell's method suits a busy week: read the same story each night before bed for three nights, and tell it the next day. She writes that there's "no need to memorise the story word-for-word" and that the outline is enough. Camellia Waldorf School's teachers go further and learn each story by heart. Choose whichever suits you.

For a co-op, a few things help:

• Write the scenes on a card, one line each: the mill, the forest, the three doors, the return. Look at it before you start, then put it in your pocket.
• Keep the fixed lines exact. A repeated call, a rhyme, the last line. Tell the rest in your own words.
• Tell it once at home first, to your own children or to the kitchen. You'll find the part you haven't learned.
• Tell it the same way each week. Same opening, same closing, same pace.

Setting up the room

Where the children sit matters as much as how you tell.

• Sit on a low chair or on the floor, at the children's eye level.
• Put the children in a half circle in front of you, the youngest nearest.
• Seat an adult who isn't telling beside any child who finds it hard to sit still. That adult listens too, with no phones.
• Open the same way each week. Erica Russell writes that a candle is often lit or a verse said at the start. Simply Waldorf suggests a small ritual to open and close, such as a candle, a short song or a verse.
• When the story ends, blow out the candle and let it rest. No questions straight away.

Shining Star, a parent-led Waldorf-inspired co-op in Redmond, Washington, moves from morning circle straight into a story. That order suits most co-ops: circle gathers the children, and the story comes while they're settled.

Puppets and table scenes

Puppets come after the telling, not in place of it. Camellia Waldorf School waits until a story has been told a few times, "so that the children have the imaginations within them." Only then does the teacher make a puppet show. Erica Russell adds that it's powerful for children to listen without any visual cues at all. So in a 4-week story, save the puppets for week 3 or 4.

A table scene can be simple. Ashwood Waldorf School describes early childhood puppet plays with a spare setting of "colorful cloths and a few props from nature (a branch, a rock, a pine cone)", with the teacher in full view.

For a co-op, try this:

1. Lay two or three silks over a low table: green for a field, blue for a river, brown for a path.
2. Add a few things from the nature table: a stone, a branch, a shell.
3. Stand the figures in place before the children come in, and cover the table with a cloth.
4. Tell the story in the same words, moving each figure slowly as it speaks or walks.
5. At the end, cover the table again.

Waldorf table puppets shows how to make simple standing figures, and a handwork morning can be given to making a set for the co-op. Older children can take a real part. Ashwood describes older students sewing marionettes, building sets and narrating stories. In a co-op, 8- to 10-year-olds might move the puppets while a parent tells, or put on the play for the little ones. For older children, shadow puppets make a good project for the end of a block.

When a child interrupts

In a group, someone will call out: "I know what happens!", or "My grandma has a dog like that." Keep going in the same calm voice. The adult sitting beside the child can put a hand on their shoulder. If questions come, save them for after, or for the retelling next week.

If a child is frightened, keep going to the good ending in the same even voice, and let the adult beside them hold their hand. The fairy tales article covers scary parts in more detail.

A story plan for the term

Fill this in for each story:

• Story:
• Weeks told:
• Teller:
• Opening (candle, verse or song):
• The scenes, in order:
• Lines to keep word for word:
• Puppet or table scene in week:
• Children who sit beside an adult:

If you're looking for a co-op where stories like these are part of the week, the Waldorf Map lists Waldorf-inspired co-ops and parent-and-child groups. Running a co-op on Starpath is free, and gives the group a shared Waldorf-inspired program with the stories for each block.