After two recruitments and eight training sessions, 69 enthusiastic mothers have joined this charity organization, currently serving children in grades 1, 2 and 3. With the perspective of real mothers telling stories to their own children and using the beautiful pictures and wonderful stories in picture books in a subtle way, they enter the children’s classrooms at noon on Fridays. In the midst of the children’s busy day of learning, the storytelling moms are like a warm stream that flows into the children’s hearts and minds with the reflections and life enlightenment of the stories.
Life education
If education is a long way to go, then life education is a simple act, a smile, and a gentle voice. Life education begins at home and continues at school, warming, communicative, moving, and storing in memory a moment that will not be forgotten. With the right “three views” in every aspect of life, children are reminded to know, accept, appreciate and realize themselves; learn to listen with respect, accept others, love and care, and live in community; and understand the value of life and life beliefs. The process of learning picture books is a process of enjoying life. This kind of care is the unification of social values, personal values and the value of education in the practice of “life activities”.
born for love
This is how Story Mama came to be at Qingpu Union School District. Like a medium that connects home and school, children can feel the warmth of the world, and at the same time learn about the world in a broader dimension. In just a few minutes, children can learn about the problems they need to face in different areas of life, learn the right way to deal with them, and find more and better ways to transform their thinking to solve problems when they really encounter them one day.
With the full support of Qingpu Union’s Executive Principal Huang Ying and Primary Department Director Liu Guixiang, the active promotion of Grade 3 Team Leader Ms. Yu Chenli, Grade 2 Team Leader Ms. Gao Yansheng and Grade 1 Team Leader Ms. Fu Shirong, the first “Storytelling Moms Team” was born in September 2020. The school invited an expert in picture book education, Ms. Shu Ping, who has spent 10 years telling stories to other children and has become a favorite storytelling mom in children’s hearts, to train the team. Ms. Shu Ping has said she wants to do only worthwhile things in her lifetime and has been practicing her life philosophy. During the training, the mothers were deeply moved by the stories told by Ms. Shu Ping, leaving tears in their eyes, more deeply appreciating the deeper meaning she wanted to convey, and admiring the compelling power brought by reading good picture books. They felt that mothers’ love could be passed on in a one-to-many way through the stories, and that love and warmth would flow among more children in a different way.
By sharing picture book stories with the children, the Story Mama team allows the children to explore through books in a group relationship, in the five areas of “self-awareness”, “group relationship”, “environmental awareness (nature, humanities, survival)”, “pursuit of life and beliefs”, and “character development”. The children can explore the five areas of “self-knowledge”, “group relationship”, “environmental awareness (nature, humanity, survival)”, “pursuit of life and beliefs”, and “cultivation of character” in a group relationship, and communicate and discuss with the children by age and stage, so that the children can deepen their impressions with the collective collaboration of ideas to achieve. The children will be able to deepen their impressions and apply their learning in a group discussion.
As the year 2022 comes to an end, the Storytellers team has taken shape (over 70 members) and has its own badge. The Storytellers are led by the leader, Ms. Xie Fang, with the 3rd grade team leader, Ms. Xu Yuan, the 2nd grade team leader, Ms. Zhu Yan, and the 1st grade team leader, Ms. Chen Xi, in charge of the team. 2021.12.31 was the first gathering of the Storytellers in Qingpu Xiehe. It was a milestone day when the story moms put on their beautiful outfits and invited the school leaders and grade level teachers to join them in giving thanks for the present and welcoming the new. The assembly was planned by the head mom, Fang Xie, and all the moms worked together to write poems and lyrics. From the ice-breaking session to the poetry recitation, the awarding of the story mom badges, the school leaders’ speeches and the group photo of all story moms, the whole process was warm and heart-warming, which deeply connected the hearts of the story moms together.
The only goal of Story Moms is to tell more good stories to warm each other and touch children’s hearts in the following years. In 2022, the storytelling mothers will grow stronger and better, and continue to deliver lovely stories and loving energy to the children.
Self-introduction by Xie Fang, Story Mom Leader:
I am the mother of Don Yi jade in class 3A. My years of service in an all-female company plus flexible working hours have given me more parent-child time. From telling stories to children to parent-child reading, I deeply appreciate the influence of picture books on children’s growth. Joining Concordia StoryMom is to be touched by the power of life education; becoming a TeamLeader is an added responsibility and mission. I would like to be the thread that threads the “pearls” and make the Storytelling Moms team a beautiful “landscape” in the joint work of the family and school in Qingpu.
StoryMom contributor and librarian Qing Chi introduces herself:
I am the mother of Qian Yi in class 1A. I majored in art and design, and I run an aesthetics-related design service business with my husband. With the birth of my first and second children, I have focused more on how to get along better with them. Since I also love to read illustration books, I started to explore picture books and story books suitable for children when my eldest was three years old, and I would enjoy parent-child time together and write down some of my reading feelings as a record. I still remember vividly the scene when I told my second child about the “Tatsuya Miyanishi” series of picture books when my first child was around, it was a wonderful experience, and I benefited from it and also developed my child’s habit of exploring knowledge from books. I hope that I can expand this love for my children a little bit more, spread it a little bit more, become a mother who “knows what she is doing”, and be a role model for my children.
