The PLACES stories
Welcome to the PLACES stories
Here you will find eight stories created especially for the PLACES project.
The stories are suitable for working with various aspects of UN’s global goals no. 3, 4 and 10 with a particular focus on well-being, cooperation and inclusion. Some of the stories also touch upon issues related to other SDGs.
Each story has been tagged with some of the topics that we think the story invites to talk about. These tags are only for you as a teacher to get a quick overview. Revealing them to students in advance is often fatal both to their experience of the story and to their motivation and success in including their own experiences and in using playful activities to arrive at the perceptions each story is a possible entry point to.
In the classroom you can experience the stories in many different ways.
For instance:
- Watch one or more of the recorded versions together (each story has an extra version without an ending, so you can decide for yourself what to happen at the end)
- You (the teacher) can watch the stories yourself and tell them to the class in your own way live
- One or more of the students can see one of the stories and tell it to the rest of you
As for the stories without endings, you can work as a whole class or in groups with making up endings. Maybe the suggestions on the PLACES Playful activity cards Playful Story Building and Stories into Movement can ignite the work.
The recorded versions of the stories are designed for two different age groups, but here too you have further options.
You can retell the stories for another age group.
Older students can work with the stories for the younger ones in order to:
- Tell them to the younger ones at school live
- Modify them to better suit a target audience of their own age
Maybe the stories suits your students no matter, what age group they belong to.
Perhaps you yourself will find even more ways to play with the stories.
Remember that here you find tips and guidance on how you, as a teacher, can work with telling stories yourself. You can also use many of these tips to guide your students, when they also start storytelling.
The playing possibilities on the PLACES Playful activity cards with STORY BONES suits all the stories. The same do activities on the cards Playful Story Building, Stories into Movement, Storytelling Theatre and Playing with Variations of a Story.
Cards that fit particularly well with certain stories are mentioned next to the individual stories
Enjoy!
Dragondancers – full length
Dragondancers – no ending
Dragondancers – SDG 4 + 10 – age group 8-10
Only once a year do they come. The dragons. And they rest only one night in the caves on top of the mountain. Then it’s time for the dragondancer test.
You can only pass if you get hold of a dragon scale, so throughout the year students in the two villages at the foot of the mountain have been practicing the art of net and knife. But in the two cities they prepare in completely different ways …
We think that this history lends itself particularly well to working with the PLACES Playful activity card Story Bones – Dragondancers and the Wild Card Be The Teacher
#test anxiety #cooperation #getting everyone ‘on board’ #more focus on process and the use of tools than on tests.
Stone soup – full length
Stone soup – no ending
Stonesoup – SDG 10 – age 8-10
The sun shines down on an ordinary small town. You know, the kind of town where most people know each other, but many keep to themselves. But on this day, a strange van stops in the city park, and a small family comes out with a very special stone …
This story is a variation on a traditional folk tale that can be found in different versions throughout Europe. The stranger or strangers are in some places a group as in this version, in other places a lone monk, soldier or vagabond. In Northern Europe, the stone is most often a nail, while in other countries it can be completely different things. But we share the basic story.
We think that this history lends itself particularly well to working with the PLACES Playful activity cards Story Bones – Stone soup and Playing with Variations of a Story.
#economic inequality #social inclusion #collaboration.
School camp – full length
School camp – no ending
Scool camp – SDG 3 – age 8 -10
Bianca and Gregor never agree on anything. And to collaborate? Forget it! But on the class school trip, something very strange happens …
We think that this history lends itself particularly well to working with the PLACES Playful activity wild card Walk in my Shoes and the activity card Playful Story Building.
#conflict resolution #understanding different perspectives #social functioning of the class.
Stunner – full length
Stunner – no ending
Stunner – SDG 3 + SDG 4 – age groups 8-10 and 11-14
14-year-old Michael is called ‘Stunner’ because he ‘stuns’ his classmates. He hits them very hard on their shoulders. In a way, it has become part of his role in the class. And he plays it well. But one day he has to be a substitute in the 2nd grade by mistake, and there is a conflict in their classroom. What to do? Should he stun them?
We think that this history lends itself particularly well to working with the PLACES Playful activity card Story Bones – Stunner and the Wild Card Be the Teacher.
#non-violent conflict resolution #peer learning, #social and emotional wellbeing #the ability to change
Filter this – full length
Filter this – no ending
Filter this! – SDG 3 – age group 11-14
Max life. That was the name of Max’s insta profile. And everything that was on it was delicious and expensive. And edited and filtered. Because it is of maximum importance how life looks from the outside, right?
We think that this history lends itself particularly well to working with the PLACES Playful activity card Messy Monday.
#self-image #self-esteem #comparing oneself with others #self-acceptance #peer pressure
Tops – full length
Tops – no ending
Tops – SDG 3 + SDG 4 – age group 11-14
You know that noisy silence that can descend when the teacher has asked a question to the whole class? When there isn’t even the sound of fabric against fabric as a sign of students raising their hands?
Tops raised her hand. There was relief from the others. Way to go, Tops! But her answer is wrong …
We think that this history lends itself particularly well to working with the PLACES Playful activity card The Olympics of Mistakes.
#social inclusion and exclusion #selfesteem #the process of learning #anxiety of making mistakes #social and emotional wellbeing
Mirror mirror – full length
Mirror mirror – no ending
Mirror mirror – SDG 3 + SDG 10 – age group 11-14
You know the classic image of a person having a little angel on one shoulder and a little devil on the other?
One day Anna wakes up and can see someone on her own shoulders. They’re just not caricatures of good and evil, but miniature versions of her parents and other people who have an opinion about who she is and what she does.
We think that this history lends itself particularly well to working with the PLACES Playful activity card Playful Story Building and the wild card Walk in My Shoes.
#peer pressure #self-esteem #peer support #understanding different perspectives
Upstream – full length
Upstream – no ending
Upstream – SDG 3 – age group 11-14
The summer holidays have just started and Anna and the others from school are bathing at the bathing place by the river. But later her skin starts to itch. She decides to go up the river to see if she can find out why.
We think that this history lends itself particularly well to working with the PLACES Playful activity wild card XXX.
In addition, we think that the story can lead to a conversation about collaboration across borders, for example inspired by the PLACES info card: EU INTEGRATION.
#environmental pollution #active learning and citizenship #pupils’ empowerment
