Eleanor Rigby, Old Misery and tales of change

I have just had an interesting session exploring some story making with a group of 10 year olds. The class are working on songs of the Beatles and seed planting!! This rather nice video of Eleanor Rigby and a subsequent discussion of the lyrics set quite a sombre note which was picked up with the French tale of Old Misery, a cantankerous old lady who is fiercely protective of her apple tree. The children were set the challenge of creating stories which established a feeling of loneliness but then lifted and changed the mood. There were to be no "fluffy bunny" happy endings though! 15 minutes and a lot of talk later we sat down to a series of tales involving friendships broken and reforged, illness, loss, despair and hope! I am hoping to post some of the recordings up on the site. There is something very powerful when such a core theme is opened up and the video and storytelling introduction worked very nicely.