7 Habits of Engaging Storytellers for Read-Alouds

Why Stories Matter

0:00What you're about to watch is a professional-development session I gave to a room full of teachers at The Goddard School. It's about how to tell better stories for kids. This is the seven habits of engaging storytellers. Watch until the end because there is a super-fun exercise that I do with the teachers—or, honestly, you can just skip to the end. There is also some footage from when I worked at Disney, playing a very fun character. Hello, everybody. My name is Timmy, otherwise known as Author Timmy on YouTube. I'm a kids' book author and performer, and I'm really excited to be talking to

0:45you guys are you guys having a good morning yes no kids [Laughter] amazing amazing so um so I'm really excited I'm gonna be presenting to you guys seven habits of engaging storytelling to hook and keep kids attention I will try not to trip and die um make sure a couple things to make sure one make sure you've got something that you can take notes with you don't have to take notes the whole time I'm talking but there are going to be a couple of points in this presentation where it's a great idea to take notes also if you have blank paper like this at the end this will be relevant so it'd be cool if you've got blank paper like this also if you don't have scissors that's okay but I'm going to show you something to do with the blank paper that includes

1:31scissors and a stapler um so but you don't have to have that a lot of times when I do that presentation for kids they don't have scissors and a stapler right when I'm doing it so that's okay um also uh I have been preparing this presentation for weeks um but I'm not super used to my slide presentation so um so if I ever just get fumbled or whatever that's because the slide presentation the slide deck is new to me but um I thought it'd be cool I wasn't sure how big of a room I was gonna have um so I wasn't like I didn't know if I was gonna be talking to six people and if I was talking to six people I would have wanted to know why you're here I would have wanted to know your name why you became an educator and what you love and hate about literacy education

2:17we don't we have too big of a group I need to do that unfortunately um but I would really like to get to know you guys individually um uh maybe a little bit later um I run a podcast called The Literacy advocate uh it's where I interview Educators and the question I ask them is what is a commonly held belief or common practice in literacy education that you passionately hate and uh and all the interviews are just me talking about because I find that when you talk to somebody about what they don't like like I like to ask what do you love and hate about your job or what do you love and hate about literacy education and what I find is when you ask this question you can dig down deep into somebody's Deep Lie for why they decided to pursue this uh career in the first place

3:04Educators generally speaking come with a lot of sacrifices you guys work a lot one of the things that I found when I was interviewing Educators is the average and that is passionate about what they do works like 80 is that does that track golf experience how many of you guys have put in 80 hour weeks like on a regular okay that's good that's good uh it might be different in uh in like this sort of education but in the public school system that is very very normal yes for three years how many of you used to be in the public school system but are now here because it was too much amazing that's great

3:49um but anyways I like asking this question because it digs into people's why um we all have uh passionate wise that we that we sort of have motivated us to pursue education especially literacy education for me I want kids to love reading and learning because this will set them up so my personal passion is I want to develop uh an audience of readers that have an uncommon level of literacy and are creative and purposeful about what they're going to do with their life so that's my why um I believe that books are a Gateway so my wife reads over 100 books a year and she's brilliant um I do not read that much unfortu kind of killed my attention and we're going to talk about attention span

4:35in a little bit and I think I think social media has done a lot of damage to attention spans but there are things that storytellers can do to help mitigate that um the best things that I've learned I did the best things I've learned that I did not learn from experiences I learned from books and so developing a love for books is a huge marker of whether or not someone 's and books are experiences um too bad books require attention doesn't it seem like everyone has Ade now now I I'm actually diagnosed with ADD anybody else diagnosed they they got a diagnosis you don't have to share that if you don't want to I realize I'm asking like anybody think they should have been diagnosed with it here ADHD

5:21um so I actually was uh when I was a kid um my mom was doesn't it very well like I think he might be deaf and and they took me to the doctor a couple times um and the doctor eventually was like no your son has ADD and then they prescribed meds and my parents made the choice to not put me on I think that I think that's you gotta make but I'm kind of glad that my parents didn't put me on the myth although every once in a while I kind of wish that I was on demand so I'm Timmy a little bit about my background I was a Peter Pan performer at Disney [Laughter]

6:17um so I say that I've been an educator All My Life um I studied education I was uh studying to be a teacher at UCF I got all the way to the end of the degree and then with like five credits left I dropped out of uh UCF uh They Call UCF you can't finish I am one of the statistics uh I the reason I dropped out of UCF was because when I was doing the the training where you're like in classrooms actually doing instruction I was like I was just thinking about my future and I was like okay this is a this is like a this is a commitment like you know potentially like a lifelong commitment that I'm going to be making of just being in classrooms teaching all the time and I knew that what I really wanted to do was be a kids book author so and and my my

7:04parents were very much Pro traditional path so um to the dismay of my parents I made the decision to say stop pursuing my education degree and went and became a kids book author instead so I dropped out of UCF and I went to an art school and pursued building an art portfolio and and going that route and I don't regret it but um there have been times where I've been like man I kind of wish that I was a teacher um but I I believe that I've been an educator All My Life um I taught my little brother how to read when he was so there's this huge age gap between me brother Tristan um I was 17 and he was I started teaching him how to read um and then I went and became a teacher at a place called Disney University

7:52so um so I thought that was one of the classes that I taught um and a couple of other classes I taught at this University um and I've been a kids book out there like I said because of my little brother Tristan now I have a link here I don't know if you guys want to see this yeah okay this is me as Peter Pan yeah that's not very much I said sorry well both are true well you should leave it at 10 sorry are you looking for a big hairy beast yeah why not do you already have a prince okay yeah do you want one um

8:43you don't usually find one they're hard to find well not here there's a lot of princess here Gaston he's over there do you know if he wants to marry anyone though he seems rather happy the way he is [Laughter] oh no you guys always just get into the good part so I didn't think about this when I when I was doing this like when I was doing this interaction because like okay here's the thing this is just one of you'll do a 45 minute set you'll do like

A Storytelling Exercise

9:15130 interactions and so and and one of the things that they tell you at Disney is uh you gotta make them all different so so it's improv so you're really trying to just look for anything about the person that you can make a story out of and um I just saw that she was dressed as Belle so I'm just just saying stuff and um I said I'm like are you sure you don't want Gaston he's really big my comments just went nuts tell him we sent you do you want to why not he's really big he's got a ponytail so you look the same it's Sun City well we'll find you a prince okay

10:03smile princess good luck finding a prince well I get to use the blue one we're so happy to see both of you because you're wearing it when we're so happy to see if we go back to school during your days very no you can live in our family you won't really go to school or you can just move to Neverland I supposed to I suppose she won't grow up if you go to school that means you're on your way to Growing Up well but they said I have to go to school well I'll make you a school you'll make me a school yeah can we

10:50teach dancing there as long as we also teach fighting um but I'm not very good at fighting well that's why you have to learn [Music] cubby can teach you do you guys have any good jokes what do you have any good jokes um I know one what what is the best kind of cake what pancake they laughed I don't get it you don't get it oh he's Pizza Pan Christmas all right one two three hey Peter tell us about your shoes are they special they're pointy

11:37they're just smart intense for you I can't tell you who made the shoes but I can tell you Michelle slow down oh see it's right there I sewed it all myself I tried to put it on the soap but it didn't work to do it that's why I got a month [Music] in case you're not familiar with all of the Peter Pan Laura lore um they they train you in all of this when you're when you're working against it um Wendy is Peter Pan's mother he basically abducted her because he didn't have a mother um took her to Neverland she has a crush on pan pan kind of just beats her as a mother um and pan is a brat I mean an absolute

12:23brat you can move that back if you need to I just couldn't oh okay no worries um yeah he's an absolute brat so trying to balance like being Disney appropriate with saying like the most bratty things that you can think of was was part of the job okay all right thank you for letting me know what you guys in that um so that was my job I did that between uh 2000 uh 10 50 000 18 . and that video I don't remember when that was probably more than six years ago um and I learned a lot about storytelling there so Disney has this whole training that they put their character performers uh that's related to storytelling um you're supposed to see like I said like 130 people in one set

13:11and everybody's supposed to get a unique experience and one of the things that they train you on is when you are interacting with a kid most of the time this wasn't the case in this video most of the time they are like they're not even going to talk to you you're a total stranger they've seen you on TV a million times but now you're in real life talking to them and so you have to be able to take the child bring them in tell them a story engage with them see them off and do it in such a way where they feel like they had a conversation with you even though they didn't say anything and the whole time you're doing it there is a line of hundreds like hundreds of people that are and they are listening to every story that you tell so you can't just rinse and repeat like you got to just come up

13:57with new stuff and new stuff and new stuff so it was really good training for me for storytelling um and I hope that I can bring some of that to this presentation um why I became a kids book author is because of my little brother Tristan the this is what he looked like he's now um 19 years old so I he actually looks like this now it's almost flattering things yes this is my mom's fresh baked bread I don't know what's happening there um so how I became a kids book author um like I said I I've always known since I was 17 years old that this is what I

14:46what I even worked into 17 my little brother was four and I was just looking for ways that I could engage and interact with my little brother Tristan and kids books are like a great medium of Engagement between adults adult to kids and so I was reading you're the turtle to him has anybody ever read your little the turtle I know did you guys know that that book is about Adolf Hitler what what to read it with the awareness that like uh Ted giesel Dr Seuss uh before he was a kids book author he was a political cartoonist and one of his big like motifs throughout his political cartoons was trying to get America to get involved in World War II and so a

15:31lot of his political cartoons are about Hitler um and uh then he he was he did a kids book before that before he was doing political cartoons um actually I think he was doing political versions and he did a kids book then he did political cartoons for a long time and then after the war he did a bunch of kids books and the majority of the kids books that we know about happened after the war and uh like obviously because like he was writing I mean he was active from the 40s to the 90s so huge span of time but Yertle the turtle is about uh World War II and so is Horton here's a who if anybody didn't know that um uh he uh he was uh a little bit um racially prejudiced against the

16:18Japanese which I think everybody in America at that time was um and Horton Hears who was kind of like his repentance book about that um yeah so anyways some crazy stuff that has nothing to do with this presentation but just some knowledge that I have um but anyways I was reading Yertle the turtle to my little brother Tristan I said this is gonna be the short version I'm sorry um my little brother Tristan and I was like I think I could do this and so I wrote my first book which was called Billy the Dragon and it I brought a bunch of books with me because there's an activity I want to do with you guys um so this is what it looked like when I first made it I was called Billy the dragon uh It Was Written in the same rhyme pattern as Yertle the turtle so you're the turtle

17:04oh my gosh I didn't realize this is the first copy ever when I took it when I took this the shipment this showed up on my doorstep in my apartment it took up an entire parking space it was like a big palette of books and um the first book I pulled out was this one so that's wild I should treat this with a little bit more pressure um it starts with the same rhyme pattern as Yertle the Turtle in the country so you know the turtle is like in the dark of the shade and the pool something something I don't have it memorized memorized but it follows a I believe it's iambic pentameter which if you've ever studied meter that's like Shakespearean meter um so so I tried to follow that in the

17:49country of dragons where the volcano ran with ashes out pouring rains over the land you'll find by a large lava lake by a hill a gruff-looking dragon named fire breath build I mean ugly Dragon there's no doubting that it is dark scary cave he sits broken John go near the cave by the large level pool any dragon that does must be some kind of pool and so I thought at the time that if you wrote a kid's book it needed to rhyme that is all a farce that is not true everybody thinks that because of Dr Seuss and actually the industry is kind of tired of people submitting manuscripts that wrong uh because and the reason for that is actually sorry I said this is going to be a short version the reason for that is actually because most um books are that are written in rhyme are not

18:34written in meter and if you ever tried to read something that was written with rhyming but was not written a good reader it's like it's so clumsy it's really hard to read at Dr Seuss always wrote in perfect meter there are very few exceptions to that he almost always wrote in absolutely perfect Shakespearean meter so um I don't know why I told you that but I wrote this book for my little brother Tristan and my goal was just to engage with him and build a connection so every night before bed I would write a little bit more I'd be like just I did and that was amazing and my goal was I just wanted to make him laugh scare him gross him out get some kind of a reaction out of him with every little bit more that I wrote and that went on

19:21to influence the whole way that I think about writing kids books and we're going to talk about that today as it relates to storytelling which a concept that I call reaction triggers and it is probably I've never heard anybody talk about it but it is probably the most important thing when it comes to comes to making and um it's going to storytelling and it's also going to relate to story writing oh and while I was working at Disney uh some friends of mine saw me illustrating Billy the dragon and they were like you need to go and get this thing published and there are two routes that you can take if anybody is anybody in here ever interested in potentially becoming a kids book author like I've already started amazing I know you awesome

20:07um so uh there are two routes that you can go there is the route of traditional publishing and there is the route of pendant uh self and Hope hope and that's the route that I went

Reading the Room

20:22because I didn't want to go the traditional rock is a very long route of querying and getting rejections and going back and forth with Publishers and agents Stephen King says if you want to become a published author you get a big nail and you hit you you put it on the wall behind your desk and every time you get a rejection letter you put it on that and eventually your stack of rejection letters will be so heavy that it'll pull the nail off the wall and then you just get a bigger nail and you just keep putting rejection letters on it until eventually someone says they'll pump and that's what Stephen King says about it and I believe him is a very grueling and long process to try to get something traditionally published I have done it finally um I have one Simon and Schuster published book it's probably the only one I'll ever do because it's great for the clout but beyond that

21:08uh I'm just doing a lot better as a self-published doctor so storytelling is a grade in everything that we do in every job and every relationship um this is kind of a weird metaphor but I believe that storytelling is Humanity lubricant um if you've ever tried to give someone advice um and felt like you're just your words are wasted a lot of times if you tell a story all of a sudden you've lubricated that whole situation or if someone's upset with you and you just start storytelling a lot of times that will lubricate that situation um the best storytellers make the most impact have the most friends are life-giving in relationships and this is very important can teach they can give advice and they can be followed stories teach better than lessons teach

21:56unfortunately that's just unfortunately true but if you think about it the times when you've learned the most have been experiences that you've had or experiences that you've heard about someone else having so there's this thing that I learned never tell a story without making a statement and never make a statement without telling a story and I learned so I went to this thing called The Living a better story Retreat it was a retreat that um somebody that I met I I have this podcast called the purpose-driven entrepreneur where I interview entrepreneurs and uh one of the guys that came on he was telling me about you know his business and everything and then after we got off the podcast he asked me if I want to go to living a better story

22:42which was a retreat that he was starting and the cost was I think two thousand dollars a person and I could not afford that um I was really broke at the time and I said um I was about to write up an email that was just like hey there's no way that I can afford this and I'm a Christian so this will come up a lot whenever I talk but um I just felt like God was telling me like you just need to say something like just say what you actually can afford so I wrote him I was like um the most I could afford is 500 bucks and he was like done you're in Come On To The Retreat and it was one of the most transformational experiences I've ever had I went to The Retreat it was several days long there were 12 people some really great storytellers um just talking about life and purpose

23:28and one of the things that I found to be the case is every time one of these speakers would get up to talk I was just captivated by what they had to say and everything that they were saying was it was like it wasn't just going into my head it was like going in deep and it was because they never made a statement without telling a story or never told a story without making a statement and if you notice I just did the same thing so I just did that you know and you gotta practice this practice this when someone asks you for advice next time so next time somebody asks you for advice or better yet uh next time you feel like you need to give someone advice instead of giving advice tell a story and just see how that goes

24:14um this works really well with spouses because I don't know if you know this but spouses don't generally like to hear advice from their spouses yeah they really don't especially never mind um yeah they really don't yeah and I'm honestly on the same way I've told my wife I was like babe I'm just I'm never looking for God I'm just never I'm just never looking for it what yeah yeah um I'm like babe if you ever feel like you need to give me critical feedback you just need to point me to somebody to talk to that you think could be me that critical feedback because I'm just never

25:00looking for it figure I should just put it on me it does go the other way though um yeah but yeah um unfortunately um this works the best what's possible um if my wife tells me a story instead of giving and I think that um I think everybody is like this um we we for some reason we take advice a little bit better from people that are not family at least I do um but generally speaking we take advice I think the most from people that are um it's ingrained in everything we do um so I think it would be good if there are two things that I want to talk about in this so obviously the focus of this

25:46presentation is the art of story presenting but I am a story maker and I don't know if there's interest in this but I thought it would be cool story making so I have people that come to me and they ask for advice on how to make stories for kids I would love to talk about that and it is going to relate so everyone has a story in them and this is a this is something that I like to do with people that uh that have the potential to have a story in them that they might share with kids this is a set of questions that I ask I'm going to ask these questions of some Brave volunteer

The Origin of Reaction Triggers

26:31and uh and we might come up with something that they could write a story about um so does anyone want to be the brave volunteer somebody that I could ask these set of questions to um I'll give you some hints about what the questions are if you've never thought about making a story for kids one of the questions that I ask is um what is something that you want kids to understand because you know if they just get it it will alter the trajectory of their life is there somebody that would volunteer to give me an answer tonight yes well I don't want to dominate does anybody else want to yeah yes

27:17I'm trying to do chores I drive do better yes themselves awesome so so getting kids to adopt the idea of having like a personal Drive okay so I would tell you to write that down so personal drive so that's your um so if you think about that topic Leslie what is the opposite of your theme so if your theme is yo go ahead lazy as heck okay so I would also get you to write that down so the the the positive is having a personal Drive the opposite is being lazy as heck what is dangerous painful or frustrating about living opposite to your theme so what is dangerous painful or frustrating about being lazy as heck

28:05um you don't learn anything you don't learn anything okay anybody else have any other thing dangerous painful or frustrating accomplish anything you don't accomplish anything you don't learn anything you don't accomplish anything what else I would say you feel like you have a wasted life when you get older you're going to start first no purpose no purpose you're not prepared not prepared for Life yeah you're going to feel behind chronically behind next question what's dangerous painful or frustrating about living according to your theme what's dangerous painful or frustrating about living with a personal Drive what's wrong with personal Drive you don't always get to do what you want to do and sometimes you have to do what you have to do you don't always get to do what you want to do sometimes you

28:51have to do what you have to do anything else it can get in the way of like like other things relationships um just savoring life like so I have a strong personal Drive um not to brag I I just need this flatly like it gets it gets in the way of stuff and it is also something I attribute success to but my goodness one of the hardest things for me is just savoring the moment savoring what is happening I'm just constantly thinking about the next the next um anything else was dangerous painful or frustrating see this is very important when you're writing for kids because one of the things that I'm trying to avoid in kids books is something that happens a lot which is top down like instruction like hey kids

29:37be like this well if you do that you're not this is what I tell people is what makes the kids most powerful is its ability to take an adult and get them to enter into the world of a kid and then invite that kid into their world or into their beliefs and that's the power that you have if you make a story for a kid so what talking about what's dangerous painful or frustrating about living according to your theme it adds a strong level of humanity to what you're writing about so so it doesn't feel like anything else dangerous painful or frustrating about having a strong personal Drive mm-hmm yes anybody um oldest kids oldest kids

30:23yes does anyone feel that overwhelming sense of personal responsibility yes what were you gonna say oh just that that's you yeah uh someone said something over here oh just to bounce off being the perfect child when you're not perfect in that one second you feel like a failure yes yes for sure um anything else dangerous painful and frustrating about living according to your theme having a strong personal Drive no time yeah yeah very much constantly overwhelmed constantly overwhelmed so when you're writing for kids these are the things that you want to show if you're going to write a book that's about having a strong personal Drive do

31:09not shy away from showing the negatives of the thing that you're trying to put on display as good and so the next question I ask is why is it worthwhile anyways we've talked about the negatives of both why is it worthwhile to develop a strong personal Drive right in your seat self-esteem goes up Pride self-pride self-pride yeah pride in your work pride in what you've accomplished pride in Pride incoming yeah and by the way when I do this with people because this is what I do I coach people on how to make their stories um uh I I tell them like okay write these things down write these things down because the next step after that is you're going to try to write a plot plot like an actual storyline outline

31:55that that that takes takes us through these different things and gets to why is it worthwhile anyways and then the next question I ask is is there anything that you want to directly teach in your book because like I said stories teach better than lessons teach so if you're wrapping something up in a story you have an opportunity to directly teach something so in my book Lucas the dinosaur entrepreneur did I bring in is the question I know I've got one in my backpack

32:44here it is okay in my book Lucas the dinosaur entrepreneur I directly teach kids that hey if you want to be an entrepreneur if you want to be somebody that can make your own money here are two here here's something that you can do make two lists make a list of everything that you love to do and make a list of everything that you already know how to do or have to do every day because the next question you're going to ask is what from this list could I monetize what from one of these two lists could I monetize that's what it means to be an entrepreneur to find something that you're good at that you love doing that you already do that you already know how to do and monetize it yourself um so that's what I directly teach in Lucas the dinosaur entrepreneur the next question I ask is okay as it relates to

33:30personal Drive is there anything that you want to directly teach in your book like hey kids this to develop a personal Drive thoughts hard work pays off okay but anything practical anything like hey like if you want to develop a personal drive or if you want to see the fruits of a personal Drive do these three things or or take this

Learning From a Read-Aloud

33:52action every day or what what great yes that's great develop a morning routine there's the whole idea of like if you wake up and the first thing you do in your bed my wife loves this um I do not do this um I am a why would I make the bed I'm going to get back in the bed at the end of the day that's me but she will make the bed first thing in the morning because that sets the tone nice read listen and Associate what does that mean like so we read about um [Music]

34:39uh um amazing okay so everything that comes next is all about creating the plot so I'm going to skip this for now um because um I actually think it would be cool if we do this at our tables so what I would love for you to do is pair up with somebody okay find a buddy okay you're going to take turns asking each other these questions okay and I'll I'll highlight the question that we're on so that we can take turns asking the question some people like to do an industry specific book so instead of them what is something you want kids to get because it'll change the trajectory of their life sometimes they ask the question

35:25um what is something that you have to say about this industry that is unique that you have you don't hear other people say so for example if it's writing a kids book like if I was going to write a kids book about writing a kids book I have to say is you need to fill it with reaction trigger and Trigger so I would that's that would be the main idea of my book okay but you either think hey if I wrote a kids book about teaching or if I wrote a kid's book about such and such profession you could ask the question what's the unique thing that I have to say or if you're doing a topic book think of a topic that you want kids to get there's an idea you want kids to get because it will change the trajectory of their life so where you are sitting with your notes I would love for you to pair up we're going to start with this first

36:11question okay um this is so close I love I love to see this did anybody realize that they think they might have a kids book in them but they didn't think that they had before I would love to hear from somebody if they're like man I think I need to write a kids book about like anybody want to share with the groups anybody want to share with the group yes you have foresight goal setting and a

36:56good train of thought to like set best perspective on life and just general things so they are yeah they set their set up to seed and yeah how did you answer the questions like what was um what was the opposite of that the opposite of that is coasting through life thinking everything come to you and how did you answer the painful frustrating it's painful because and the frustrating concern Ed for the future of Oppression and ability to thrive in life more anxiety yeah yeah and then how did you answer

37:43the painful or frustrating verb according to your theme so it's hard to set your train your brain to think a certain way yeah hard to do that but it's also hard when you when you realize that you're not you're not yeah so and then what'd you think of for worthwhile or worthwhile because then you set yourself up awesome awesome and then direct the teaching I think you're going to directly teach ER foreign

38:37Journey so you've got your character starting at their starting place with their wants and desires right but in order to get those ones and desires they have to do things that the chaos and then in chaos they change and they emerge from chaos having order in their life again and Having learned the thing that they needed to learn from the story so it that's a little bit um high level but what's fun is you can go you can go off the question what's painful dangerous or frustrating about living opposite to my theme and that gives you that gives you the beginning why does your character why is your character unhappy well what's painful dangerous or frustrating about living opposite your theme that gives you the starting state of your character so then they realize what they need to

39:24do is whatever is your theme but then we answered what's painful dangerous or frustrating about living opposite to your theme so that gives them the chaos that they plunge themselves into in pursuit of change and then they emerge having changed having adopted this new way of living and maybe along the way they learn the framework that you're trying to directly teach um does anybody else want to share with me what they came up with yes go ahead um so we were talking about like anxiety kind of similar but it was it's okay to make mistakes it's okay to make mistakes um and so how many questions were if you're afraid to make mistakes miss out on opportunities to learn from those yep and then you

40:09won't grow learn fulfill your dreams um but you will be humiliated was the um yes and then um it makes you stronger and then we put for the last part be forgiving of others when they make mistakes forgive yourself and don't be hard on yourself was that the direct teach like these are the three things be forgiving of others be forgiving of yourself yeah yep what was the third one well uh kind of overcome what did you put for dangerous painful or frustrating about living according to your theme oh humiliated yes being humiliated yeah regularly yes regularly like to be a kids book author you're gonna make a lot of mistakes like if any of you guys

40:55decide to pursue this um one of the ones that I've made so many times is publishing books with typos oh my gosh it's the worst feeling when you order a print run of a thousand bucks and it costs you thousands of dollars and then you get those books and you see typos it is the most painful thing okay um so here's the thing so we I just love that exercise with you it gets you thinking from the author's perspective of like how to make stories one of the frustrating things though is attention spans um attention spans Man kids have very very limited attention spans so if if any of you decide to write the story or as storytellers we have to we have to operate with this understanding of very

41:41short attention spans I did not get this on the beginning so when I wrote Billy the dragon my first book this book has 2 000 words in it be just for reference the average Kid's book for a second grader is 32 pages long with about 600 to 800 words uh this has 2 000 words in it and 60 pages long as long yeah this was very difficult to once I started performing this for more than just my little brother I started to realize like oh very long in fact it was so long I um when I first made it there were chapters chapter one yeah like have you ever seen a picture book with chapters um let me see my man these illustrations oh

42:26um chapter two it started anyways I re-illustrated it a long time ago uh so this is the new version Oh this is actually I ripped the pages out um because I I took one one copy pulled out the pages and put them on them on so this is not a good example to show you but this is a re-illustrated

Building a Performance Toolkit

42:51version of the book here are some of the new pages it's just a little bit better artwork and um I cut the word count in half account it's now 60 of what it was um so this is a better book than it was before it's still my longest book um all the books that I've written since then are much shorter because of attention spans um but there are seven things that storytellers can do to help maintain a child like to keep and hold on to a kid's attention and this is the main stuff that I want to get into in this talk um and uh and what I would love to do is I want to show you an example and I just want you to take notes of what do you notice that I'm doing that is going to

43:36help kids uh that is going to grab kids attention and that is going to help hold on to kids attention so I will let you choose which book I play um I've done a bunch of these online readily I'm gonna listen for somebody to tell me which one I should play here I'll zoom in so you can see the second this one right here grumpy monkey what I'd love for you to do is just take notes okay as a Storyteller as a performer what are the things that I am doing that grab kids attention and that whole kid's attention whatever you see I just want you to Jive down what's up readers are you ready for another read aloud I'm author Timmy and today we are reading

44:22grumpy monkey by Suzanne Lang and Max Lang before we start don't forget to hit the like button hit the Subscribe button ring the notification Bell I'm doing new read aloud videos every single week and I don't want you to miss it let's go grumpy monkey by Suzanne Lang and Max Lang one wonderful day Jim pansy woke to discover that nothing was right the sun was too bright the sky was too blue and the bananas were too sweet ew Jim was confused what's going on maybe you're a group suggested Norman from next door I'm not

45:07grumpy Jim insisted he definitely seems a little grumpy to me what do you think on his walk he met Marabou oh Jim scrugby Norman told Marabou why are you grumpy Jim it's such a wonderful day grumpy me I'm not grumpy said Jim look at how you're standing Marabou said it's true said Norman you're all hunched so Jim loosened up then he ran into lemur Jim's grumpy Norman told lemur are you grumpy Jim it's such a wonderful day grumpy me I'm not grumpy you're

45:53[Music] bunched up so Jim raised his eyebrows then he tripped over a snake oh no that's the last thing you need when you're feeling so grumpy grumpy me I'm not grumpy then why that frown said the snake I think it's because he tripped over you Norman whispered to snake so Jim you put on a smile I don't know about that smile that looks a little creepy to me finally Jim looked happy but he didn't feel happy inside everyone wanted Jim to

46:41enjoy this wonderful day you should sing with us said the birds Jim didn't feel like singing you should swing with us said the monkeys Jim didn't feel like swinging you should roll with us said the zebras ew Jim didn't feel like rolling you should stroll with us said the peacocks Jim didn't feel like strolling grass with us you should stomp your feet you should take a bath and make a splash you should hugs someone I don't think that's a real hug

47:28you should laugh [Music] you should take a nap you should eat old meat orthum honey you should jump up and down you should sit in the sun you should dance ooch I don't know about that dance partner Jim didn't feel like doing any of that why are you so grumpy Jim ask the others it's such a wonderful day I'm not grumpy shouted Jim as he beat his chest and he stormed off Jim felt sorry a little sorry for

48:15shouting at everyone but mostly sorry for himself I guess I am grumpy and just as he was starting to feel really sad he came upon Norman Norman was slumped his eyebrows were bunched up and he was frowning what's the matter are you grumpy no I danced with porcupine oh no he got poked in his booty are you okay ask Jim it hurts but I'll probably feel better soon enough said Norman are you still grumpy yes but I'll probably feel better soon enough too for now I need to be grumpy it's a wonderful day to be grumpy Jim agreed

49:03and he already felt a little better at the end was a grumpy monkey by Suzanne Lang and Max Lange I hope you loved it if you liked it don't forget to hit the like button hit the Subscribe button all right thank you guys thank you so much so um what I would love to hear now is I hope you were taking some notes because um it it might look like I'm doing so many different things but I'm really only doing a few different things and so I would love to hear if you notice something that I did that would grab or keep a kid's decision I am related to kids emotions now I get to benefit from the fact that the story is like perfectly poised for that yeah

49:50but I am taking every opportunity that I can or that I can think to to like hey you know like honestly if I was doing this in front of kids it probably would be a good idea for me to like have you ever felt like this yeah um but yeah comments in between people often don't do this but it does so much and uh that's one of the major things that I want to talk about yeah the comments in between yeah voice changes anybody do voices when they read the kids anybody afraid to do voices when they read does anybody uh okay does anybody not ever read the kids I saw hands for voices I saw no hands

50:35for afraid to do voices but I did I did see people that did not put their hand on their voices so anybody just refused to do voices um okay yes voices guys uh it is one of the most important things that you can and if it feels intimidating I want to talk to you about some things that there are four voices that ever literally everyone can do these four different so I'll show you what they are acting out the character with what and what way am I acting on the characters what am I actually doing yes yes yeah sound effects movement and faces exactly that's the acting sound effects

51:21movement faces I'm also acting out the characters emotions I shouldn't have said that I wanted to hear from you guys so I'm sorry sorry Bad Teacher um uh but yeah so um I didn't actually put sound effects in the slide but I'm gonna add that one in this is about to become eight storytelling um sound effects okay anything else anybody noticed all the silly words that you use that kids love and it's like ew and things like that booty anything else silly words that I used you booty by the way if you're writing a story this matters so much you have got to put stuff in there that you know if you just say it or if the parent that's reading the book just says it the kid is going to die laughing so I make

52:09[Music] I think she's in every book that I write or that I coach someone into writing um anything else I I bought that but how do how do you keep from you know saying you know using all these things that is not and then losing your class oh that's great that is going to be the first one that I talk about so there's some classroom management that I do I always set the tone with the kids at the beginning anytime I do a read aloud I first set the tone with the kids because I will lose them when I say the word they will be gone yeah um anything else people notice yeah um in in uh Billy the dragon uh the

52:55sequel the poisonous Woods one of the characters they all get really really scared and one of the characters is like I'm scared and the other one's like I'm sad and the other one's like I pee is bad um anything else anybody noticed that I did in this story props I did use props it's about to be nine storytelling habits yeah I did use props now you won't always have props but you can pantomime props if you don't have props and pantom Mining them is body languages um anything else anybody notice yes and that's a big one and so that's inclusion so that's one of the habits

53:41inclusion anything else I'm gonna jump to talking about each one of the habits

The Seven Habits

53:52have it all right so what storytellers can do here are the seven habits that I that I come up with manage the room's energy that's the first one I always do it first because I will have to do it throughout so starting by setting the tone is so important because I will have to manage the room's energy throughout the story and there are so many things that you can do to manage a room Center talk about this um stand incorporate students facial expression slash body language volume difference we didn't we didn't talk about that one you guys know this volume difference voices and number seven reaction triggers I will talk about what you can do as tell her that's boring and it's not full of reaction triggers how can you make the book full of reaction I will sometimes read books that are

54:37more boring and I don't know have any of you guys ever tried to read a book for kids and you found out that it was really boring while you were reading it this happens um I brought with me an example it's so tragic anybody know who Dave Ramsey is yes so he wrote a series of these books and they are tragically boring um and they're in here somewhere oh period here it is uh here's an example they look really good like the obviously the illustrations are adorable um look at all this text [Music] one of the markers of a boring book is when every page has a wall of text so if I were reading this book to kids before I read it I would go through and I'd go what are the three sentences that

55:24I everything else I'm cutting now and I'm just going to describe what's happening myself in a way that's full of reaction triggers and that's also a test I do when I'm writing kids books I get somebody else to read it to their kid and I say hey I want you to read this the way you would read a boring book so when you see text that you just don't want to read Because you see your kid just say what you think the page should have said and then I go okay that's what the page should all right so let's talk about each one of these things managing the room's energy did anybody take classroom management when they were when they were College it was my favorite class uh when I was studying to be a teacher so um in classroom management my uh University professor said you are the master

56:11manipulator of your classroom that was her she would just say that over and over again over again you are the master manipulator of your classroom manipulator of your classroom meaning a manipulator is somebody that can get somebody else to do what they really want to do ought to be the master Terminator of your classroom and there are things that you can do to masterfully manipulate um the room's energy um so here are some of the things that I do really really accessible ones when I start so when I walk into a classroom I'm like what's up everybody are you guys excited if you're reading to kids you're like guys it is story time we are about to read a kids book are you excited and if you bring that level of energy you're going to get that level of energy well now I just brought the energy way up so now I need to do something that is

56:58going to put me in control of the energy so the next thing I do is before we begin act we'll usually pause because I usually have to um and if I if pausing doesn't give me back the room's energy there are some other things that I'll do um you you could always go back to if you're listening do this if you're listening touch your hand if you're listening touch your ears if you're listening I see a great listener over here if you're listening touch your shoulder another great listener right so that gives um and then I then I say okay while I'm reading in case I lose focus practice that together ready roomity

57:44room now you have to be listening because you never know when I might remedy room yes it is now if you ever hear me like this the land and then um if I think I need a third I'll do laser focus laser focus is Hit or Miss I want to come up with a good replacement for it um so I'm I'm open to ideas but laser focus is where you get kids to laser focus on you the problem is lasers in their minds go right so I have to do like a whole thing on why lasers are silenced I'm like

58:30anyone ever used a laser pointer they don't make any sound so if I say laser focus you're gonna take two sides [Laughter] so then I say let's put it all together ready roomity room yeah and now I've brought the energy back down so I brought the energy way up now I brought the energy back down and now I open the book and I start reading so managing the room's energy you will have to do this throughout the story because when you say poop and everybody's dying

59:16laughing first of all just pause and let them roll because now you have a method that you can get them back so let the moment happen let them start dying let them start rolling whenever you think the moment has had its moment if they naturally come back to you that's awesome a lot of times like second graders will just match a lot of times kindergartners I will have to get so I will say roomity room and about three of them will say yes and then I get down low hopefully more of them have seen these usually by laser if I don't get everybody back and I'm working with little kids I go right back to my if you're listening inside your head I just don't have a problem with

1:00:01going like okay it's reading time but if I have to do a classroom management exercise three or four times while reading the book part of managing the room's energy is managing my energy and so I find that if I don't get enough sleep I get frustrated when I shouldn't get frustrated if I have gotten enough sleep it does not frustrate me that I've lost the room four times and I back four times that that shouldn't frustrate me like it's just it's part of classroom management to have to do that so managing the room's energy is one of

Reaction Triggers in Practice

1:00:32the big big things it's so on next up is stand okay and move um I have body language in here um and I want to get into like what you can do with your body but um my first thing is this a lot of times when I see teachers doing Story Time read aloud time they sit when I go to perform at schools they will always put a chair for me and I always just ask them to take the chair away um and that's because if it's just part of managing the room's energy but if I'm sitting I'm less of a focal point and I want to be a major focal point so and also it's everything else I'm going to manage my own body's energy better if I stand so if I stand now there is one exception and that is um

1:01:18sometimes variability helps to manage serves energy so it can be beneficial like sometimes um if I'm if I'm like giving like a lesson church I will go from doing like something where I'm standing and presenting to doing something where I'm sitting in a chair and getting go back to standing so the variability helps but generally speaking you will have their attention better if you stand and standing will help you do everything else that the storytellers do so okay this one's big inclusion incorporate the students um what do we say that I was doing that was including students when you guys were somebody gave this one yes um asking for the kids opinion right

1:02:03that's it that's including of students but here's another one that I do I love to do this um is get the give kids different characters that they can play in the book now to do this you might have to read the book ahead of time to know like where are the like which characters would be great for kids to do usually it's uh role speaking rules where there are very few times where the character speaks and uh what they say is either easy to read or you can just tell the kid what the person says so I like to do what this book Harper Hears No I wrote this book with 30 moms um it is I asked the 30 months hey what do you want me to write a book about it so in this story Harper she's not supposed to do and gets in big

1:02:49trouble for it and there are a few different parts there is the mom there's the narrator speaks for Instagram and uh the way that I do it is what your four students that would be great up here they're good at following instructions they like being in front of the other students and they um for people to come up and they play the characters with me and the way that I like to do it it's another great um I will have the I'll have I try to get two two or two boys and um I will ask if I if I get two girls I'll be like hey which one of you wants to be the mom and which one of you

1:03:34wants to be the narrator or if I get two boys I'll say hey which one of you wants to be I saved Grandma for one of the boy um and the reason is the kids in the audience love it and the boy likes it because usually at first they're they're mortified that I just gave them grandma and then I'm like okay listen in your oldest most ancient voice I want you to go and then they go and the kids just start dying laughing um and I'm like awesome let's give it up for Grandma and that usually gets them like to feel proud that I gave them Grandma so incorporating the students is another big one it's a great way to maintain their uh attention um so facial expressions and body language um

1:04:20this is not super complicated but basically you want your facial expressions and your body language to match what's happening in the story so if you notice in Grumpy Monkey right you can said the monkeys you can roll with us said the I forget who said people right you could um so yeah the Lemurs um so just do with your body what's happening in the story same thing with your facial expression whatever the emotion of the character is put that emotion on your face so if the character is scared just literally put it on your face practice that in the mirror scared

1:05:09um volume difference so this was this took me a long time to learn but sometimes Whispering does more than yelling there are two ways that you can get kids attention when you've lost the room one of them is Utah you talk so much louder and so much stronger than them that you based biked the other one is you get really quiet and sometimes you will lose kids and you have to do a classroom management thing but generally speaking I will go from very loud to very quiet regularly throughout the reading um and a lot of times the book will lend itself to that so anytime you're giving

1:05:56something set of steps you don't have to whisper but you can just just the kids will lean in sometimes I'll be like uh for Billy the dragon he gives the secret plan Steve tells the secret plan and I forget what the words are but and sometimes the kids will literally start to scoop in because they want to hear what the senior plan is so volume difference you can accomplish more for Whispering sometimes than yelling voices there are four voices that everyone can do and we are going to do

1:06:41them today yes so when you paired up earlier we're gonna pair up again and we are going to practice some voices okay now um there are here are the four voices everyone can do everyone can talk with their normal voice we can all do that that's just your actual normal voice everyone can go low can we do that just say I am talking low and bellowing foreign you can always just pinch your nose and then you'll naturally go to Hazel so either with a nasal Voice or by pitching your nose everyone can everyone

1:07:28go everyone can go to bed everyone can go falsetto Opera ready let's all do that everyone can go oh okay let's do this uh oh I'll I'll get through all of them before I miss before they do it now bonus two bonus tube I love how my my people over here listening no and it works on adults too um okay everyone can do these two

Demonstration: Harper Hears No

1:08:11everyone can uh well actually these are a little bit harder so I put them but I think most of us can do now ancient and Youthful so for ancient you sometimes it helps all the boys boys um so let's try this let's all go [Music] first [Laughter] now for youthful for youthful uh it helps to pull your voice back into each Adventure my Challenge

1:08:59and that you notice is my Peter Pan of course walk to Neverland come on Lost Boys And Lost Girls let's go it's also the voice of Steve and Billy the dragon um uh he's like okay listen up you guys here's what we'll do um so let's just try that just say like in your and oh it helps to pull your voice back the reason I put this in bonus too is because I don't actually know how to teach this for me it helps if I just imagine that my back here um so let's just try it let's just say I I'm full of Adventure yes

1:09:48okay amazing now if you get Brave you can start adding accents accents are hard [Music] that will give you a lot of variability um here are some easy accents um if you're from the south we all know how to have to happen right because imagine you're a family that live in Georgia okay so Southern accent's not hard there are only a few accents that I can actually do I honestly I'm terrible at a British some of you maybe can do a British accent can anybody do a British accent where's top shopping

1:10:33I mean can you say I'm full of Adventure example an adventure in a British accent I'm full of Adventure there was a very so I used to play a character named uh Terence the fairy when I went to Disney if you've ever watched the Tinkerbell series of movies Terence the fairy is Tinkerbell's love interest he's a dust fairy um he has blonde hair yeah and he's got an acorn Satchel full of pixie dust and he's a dust fairy dust berries are responsible for the pixie dust they give the pixie dust out to the fairies one scoop a day no more no less

1:11:19you know what fairy Gary says um and uh and very Gary's boss um and so like as Terence Terence has this almost the same voice as Peter Pan but it's slower to make him sound more like laid back so it's like hey there mainlanders hey come on fly over here and tell you all about Pixie dog there is so much to know to know um and uh and his boss is named fairy Gary and I just got used to mimicking fairy Gary so I'd be like now Tinkerbell because Tinkerbell would always be asking for Edison you know what Barry Gary says wow one scoop of kicks [Music] [Laughter]

1:12:06um okay I want you guys to pair up and I want you to practice some voices okay so in your grooves okay just literally Hi how are you I'm great I feel full of Adventures I um I was on Twitter and somebody said like um stop doing kid classroom

1:12:52management uh to manage a room of adults when you're doing uh like PD um so I'm sorry if you're one of those people that's like nobody in PD should be doing uh kid classroom management stuff but I just thought it would be fun um okay the last one the last one that I want to talk to you about is reaction triggers so this matters so much when you're writing a kids book and this is my philosophy as a kids writer and that is if there's a page of the book there is literally a page spread on this spread this is a bad example because it's full of reaction triggers um honestly that's a great book too I should grab like a boring book of if there is a spread and on this spread

1:13:38there is not something that is going to cause a physical or verbal reaction in the kids or if I'm reading one-on-one with the kid and there's not something on this page that's going to cause a physical or verbal reaction react then that was a wasted page bad job author that was a wasted page spread you did a bad job making every single page spread should have something in it that's going to cause a physical or when it doesn't you've got a boring book so that's the way to know if you've got a boring book or not now sometimes boring books they've got such good values in them so you're like I just can't find a book that's interesting that teaches this thing so I'm going to go with this book well then as a Storyteller so if you're if you've got a great book you're literally just piggybacking off of the great reaction

1:14:25triggers that were written into the books anyone ever read the book with no pictures that book is a master class in reaction triggers triggers okay and the the primary reaction trigger in that book is something called power play so I documented and this is uh by the way this I said I said uh Nicole so that she could share with you guys but I went ahead and I documented every reaction trigger that I could think of so here are reaction triggers power play slapstick or pain body part or body function humor anything gross or disgusting anything that's bizarre or absolutely silly self commentary like I'm falling and I can't get up um embarrassment asking questions or calling response this is super relevant for storytellers um Outburst literally a character going ah that will get like it doesn't work

Helping Children Become Authors

1:15:12necessarily on adults but if you just go ah to a bunch of kids they almost start reacting um so if you're reading a boring book and a character is running or falling or whatever and and the author didn't take the amazing opportunity to put out in there you put Albertson 's in there um adorableness anything that's hidden that maybe you like you that's like uh hey can you find like like uh I have no idea what this book is about but if I went um hey you know Junior's room is so messy he's got all kinds of things in here can you guys find the uh the video or the video game can you guys see how much how much money does he have right these are reaction

1:15:58triggers I am getting the kids to point stuff out or tell me what's on the page um suspense spookiness disaster Peril say it with me right if there's a repeated line in the book at some point you should go say it with me uh getting loud funny words you're not supposed to say imitating animals or animal sounds the elephant um anything excessive like any anytime you're just going really really descriptive on something there's a part in poisonous Woods uh Billy the Dragon 2 where it's like the characters get spiders all over them and I go to the kids I'm like have you ever had spiders crawl up your nose or go in your mouth or under your clothes or particularly your armpits or live in

1:16:45your hair and I usually slow it down because like I'm getting a reaction off of everyone I'm just going on and on about something when you go on and on about something that bizarre funny any of these other things uh wild crazy what-if scenarios to imagine like started they in dollars a week for every animal that you took care of imagine if you took care of 10 animals that's a hundred dollars a week I don't know how much that is a year like I'm just getting kids to imagine something um and then yeah so um yeah deeper repetitious descriptions and feelings these are all reaction triggers so as a story writer you're literally going I'm going to tell a plot but I

1:17:31need to tell that plot as a series of reaction triggers the best DreamWorks movies do this if you guys ever watch a DreamWorks movie recently they are literally a story told as a series of gags in the middle so as a kids book author if any of you want to write your own story you're telling your story as a series of reaction triggers as a storyteller you are trying to use the reaction triggers that are written into the book or when there aren't when there isn't one you you put one in there on every page spread if I read a page spread and I do not get a reaction out of the kids before I turn the page I'm going to ask a question because at the very least that's a reaction trigger asking the question is triggering a reaction so that's the bit that's that's the

1:18:18biggest one okay I think we're out of time I had put in here that I was going to do a live demo 10 45. oh okay I had to put it in here that I was going to do a demo I was going to read one of my books um and then I put in here that we were all we were going to take turns into it like I was going to pass out books and you guys are going to do it we do not have time for that um which would you rather do would you rather do it together as groups or just watch me do it so that was some reaction surprise surprise okay um what book should we do should we do Harper Hears No Billy the dragon or Lucas the dinosaur entrepreneurs

1:19:09so I'm going to read Harper here's no just try to given everything that we've talked about try to take note of the different things that I do that are the things um I would normally start by managing room or gets excited in your Heartbreakers no you guys would be saying yes um and then uh and then I'll do my classroom management and then okay let's get started and um I would also bring up uh three volunteers to be the characters in the book does anyone want to briefly volunteer to join me up here can I get free volunteers does anyone want to volunteer to someone else we pointed somebody and they have to come out I knew it first

1:20:02one all right here you guys hold a copy I'll pull up a copy on the computer all right is everybody ready we're ready we will be playing the part of Harper which one of you wants to be the narrator which would you want to be the mom

1:20:48mom narrator grandma [Laughter] in your oldest was Grandma voice I want you to go hey everybody [Applause] Grace um would you be my oh no more okay what's up would you be my page turn literally just try not to trip on the chords and you're just going to push the down arrow whenever we get to the name okay all right is everybody ready we're ready okay more than ready whatever Harper is talking to Baxter I'll be talking to the narrator just

1:21:33I'm ready for this fact or doesn't think so I'm the queen of this park to be I want to live uh why is everything upside down Baxter and then narrator would you make those sound effects please great job everybody give it up for the narrative that was the best thing ever whoa Baxter

1:22:25Mom I'm gonna go back but the grocery store closes soon we have to leave Mom can we go back tomorrow no they're replacing this slide I'll be super duper duper careful no Harper how many of you have experienced this before where you asked your mom for something over and over and she said no let's go ahead narrator the next day yes they live across from the park can you believe this bag it's right there and we can't go [Music] [Laughter]

1:23:11um [Music] [Applause] do you guys think she's gonna stay on the porch no it's gonna be a short story I can't stop thinking about that shiny thing what if it's a compass from a mountain foreign she'll be in the potty forever I have to go Harper reaches for the shiny thing she lets go she grabs she slips oh no she

1:23:57eats her clothes off [Laughter] [Music] oh and kids just died I don't expect you guys to lay on the floor but if you do you're gonna get him um a penny Baxter it was a penny and look at Harper's knee what are you doing um it's a game Baxter and I are uh seeing how long we can balance with one leg up and look Baxter's doing it too Baxter this is a disaster I'm bleeding

1:24:44my clothes are ripped a Penny's not gonna pay for that Harbor dinner time okay Mom I'm just

Questions and Closing

1:24:52changing so what did you do today Harper I uh play games can I be excused for a minute oh Baxter I don't have any more leggings to ruin packs of things things should tell the truth what do you guys think but if I tell what I did I'll be in so much trouble mom will eat me for breakfast oh wait it's dinner time she'll eat me for dinner right next to the meatloaf but I have to tell her Harper what happened to your skirt oh no she knows forget dinner

1:25:41kept in the fridge for a week a week and threw them in the trash mom I did something you told me not to do I went to the playground Harper I know I'm so sorry Mom it wasn't worth the penny penny it's not important I feel like dog poop no offense Baxter you you you wouldn't eat dog poop would you Mom ew what are you going to do to me well first I'm going to okay Mom Baxter you've got to help me don't ever let me do that again

1:26:29you say the end oh yeah what'd you guys think [Applause] grandma [Applause] you guys can have a seat um thank you so much everybody I hope you had a good time um there were other things that I wanted to do with you that I didn't have time for so this was very educational for me um one thing that I I I wanted to tell you about I can just tell you about it instead of us doing it is there's

1:27:15actually a really great writing exercise that you can get kids um it's super duper easy literally just really just how to take a hold it twice into a book and um and if you're if like if you're just looking for ways to motivate kids to think of themselves as writers here's one thing that you can do so I I tell the kids I'm like okay take a piece of paper hamburger style one time and I get them to repeat after me the steps so I go one step one step two fold it hamburger Style again what's step two I'm like is this a book I'm like no it's close to being a book it does have a spine like a book so step three is we staple the spine

1:28:02with the stapler that we don't have over there and then I'm like is this a book it's a trick question uh not yet it has loose Pages at the bottom but it's stuck together at the top so step four is we cut off the top if you forget these steps I have a YouTube video on my channel where I just literally teach the steps um my YouTube channel is called Timmy reads books if you guys um and then I tell the kids I'm like is this a book and they're like points they don't know what I'm like look it has it has cover it has page one page two page three page four page five page six and the back cover and then my promise to kids is if

1:28:48they make a story even if it's just someone they make a story and send it so you can incentivize kids the same way you can tell them hey if you make a story author Timmy will read it on his YouTube channel so I do um occasional live streams I haven't done one in a really long time but I've got one coming up because a bunch of schools have sent me student made books so what I'm going to do is I'm going to live stream myself reading them if I can't read the words I'm going to make up the words based on what I see so if you have students that you're like man I'd love to me you get them to write a story even if it's just drawing pictures I will make up the words as I read it live on my and it's a live stream so it's live and

1:29:33then it literally just likes um did you guys enjoy this yeah if any of you are curious about own kids but like I got your creative creative is going at the beginning and you'd like to keep that going I have a um uh I have a course that I'm creating anybody that attended this presentation you guys are going to get free access to the Course once I finish it um I've made three videos so far from the course so it's literally like an intro to the course um uh a video version of the first thing that we did today what is my kids and then a deep dive into reaction triggers and how to write a story that's

1:30:20filled with reaction triggers so first three videos are done it's going to be about 10 videos long will take you from start to finish how to make a kids book once I finish it I'm happy to give you guys free access so this is actually a link uh this like you know you can get these slides from from the director of the school um and then these are links so you can click on this and it takes you to the video yeah okay awesome thank you guys so much okay I don't have time for Q a but I'm happy to hang around if anybody wants to ask me anything also my books um I've got a bunch of books that I've made a bunch of books in my company has made as I just think are great or get good

1:31:06examples of bad examples and um you can come talk to me about that too I sell my books they're 15 a piece for 455 for bundle bundle I only brought five bundles with me to this presentation so if you guys want to buy from me today you're happy welcome to I'll sign them um but my main agenda here was I just wanted to give you thank you so much [Applause] great awesome so right now we have a 15 minute break and then you guys are gonna break out into your age uh infant toddler group guys if you don't know which group you're in because you're a floater check your folder it'll tell you here in Corey's training Amanda's training if you don't have one that says anything you're going to be

1:31:51with me okay maybe