Performing stories

Some people are nervous at the idea of performing, but performing doesn’t need to be a big deal. Reading a poem or showing how a fish moves with your hand can be performing if done for others.

An easy way of encouraging residents to perform stories is to give residents a simple story such as The Little Mermaid.

Give the residents a selection of props such as coloured material, shells or seaweed, then encourage them to create a storm or an undersea world using their props and their voices to create sounds.

The results can be very effective. Find stories with a few different locations (a forest, on a boat, a train station, etc) and assist residents in creating their own scenes with props, sounds and music.