Storytelling in Language, Lore, and History
Storytelling in Language, Lore, and History: (4-6, 7-8, 9-12) Highlighting history, folklore, mythology, and personal memory, Jim presents powerful and humorous tales of action, adventure, and wonder, all with great messages for living a productive life.
Participation Tales
Participation Tales: (K-3) This diverse collection of fables and folklore is presented in an engaging, audience-participation style to blend skills of prediction, repetition, sequencing, word play, rhythm, and characterization with lots of lessons and humor.
Read Across America
Read Across America: (K-8) Read Across America honors the memory of Dr. Seuss and all creative storytellers with a wacky character-rich collection of age-appropriate adaptations of folklore and fables along with original tales that weave wordplay and audience participation into a memorable feast of fun. An engaging forty-five minutes, Jim inspires reading as a lifelong gift.
Bringing Bullying to Bay
Bringing Bullying to Bay: (K-3, 3-8) Jim has created two different age-appropriate programs for primary and secondary students to help educate students about bullying behavior, give them strategies to combat it, and works with each school to support policies to curb such behavior.
Primary K-3: Jim blends his true and fictional stories with his humorous characterizations to engage children to become aware of bullying behaviors and learn what they can do to support each other and stop such nonsense.
Secondary 3-8: Jim presents a serious, often humor-filled, yet powerful personal story that details how and why bullying creeps into schools and becomes pervasive. Jim gets students involved in problem solving as the story unfolds. The epiphany at the end highlights the need for CARE: Cooperation, Action, Respect, and Empathy.
The Story of Character
The Story of Character: (All ages) Supporting universally embraced character traits of honesty, integrity, perseverance, loyalty, compassion, cooperation, courage, and other concepts a school may wish to highlight, Jim’s stories celebrate good character.
STEM
STEM: (K-3, 3-8) STEM guidelines help Jim create two age-appropriate, exciting assemblies.
STEM: (K-3) The natural world has long been a favorite subject for fable, folklore, mythology, and wonder. The fables of the animal world, myths of stars, and landscape formation blend with the folklore of why things are the way they are. The stories give everyone appreciation for how the natural world has been explained through the centuries by the human world.
Innovation and Invention: (3-8) Starting with Benjamin Franklin and electricity, Jim recounts the ideas, the struggles, the so-called failures (no such thing), and resilience of various scientists and inventors who helped create the modern world.
STEM: (K-3) The natural world has long been a favorite subject for fable, folklore, mythology, and wonder. The fables of the animal world, myths of stars, and landscape formation blend with the folklore of why things are the way they are. The stories give everyone appreciation for how the natural world has been explained through the centuries by the human world.
Innovation and Invention: (3-8) Starting with Benjamin Franklin and electricity, Jim recounts the ideas, the struggles, the so-called failures (no such thing), and resilience of various scientists and inventors who helped create the modern world.
The Power of Mythology
The Power of Mythology: (4-12) Jim presents his dramatic retellings of selections from the world’s various mythologies. While the stories are an art in themselves, the lessons listeners can take away from Jim’s tales are food for understanding the many aspects of the human experience through centuries.
The Art of Storytelling
The Art of Storytelling: (All ages) Jim demonstrates a broad range of storytelling skills as he incorporates a palate of colorful facial expressions, a symphony of varied voices, a myriad of sound effects, a delight of body language, expressive gestures, and a heartfelt commitment to engage his audiences into becoming part of the story themselves. Great for inspiring students to join local storytelling festivals.
Stories for a Multicultural World
Stories for a Multicultural World: (All ages) Experiencing an eclectic mix of animated and participatory tales, students of all ages learn to appreciate that in a world full of diversity, there are many commonalities which bind all cultures together as human beings.
Red Ribbon Programs
Red Ribbon Programs: The Language of Health. Jim has created interactive, age-appropriate assemblies for Primary (K-3), Secondary (4-6) and Middle School (7-8) to challenge students to make informed, good decisions, reject drug use, and embrace those activities which lead to good health and success in life. This is a wonderful way to combine artistic education with health education.
1848: GOLD!
1848: GOLD! (4-8) This dramatic narrative of the first year of the California Gold Rush is filled with drama, characterization, and audience participation. Students see how a small discovery grew into an avalanche of changes that created a state, expanded a nation, and attracted people from all around the world.
Resilience
Resilience: (7-12) No matter what the challenge, the stories of individuals who manage to overcome them and preserve their sense of self makes for inspiring stories. From the tales of disaster survivors to those who put others first to those who rise above unsurmountable difficulties to prevail, the stories offer inspiring messages to listeners to hold their values high and never quit. Jim also creates storytelling programs to fit special requests for themes presented outside of schools. One particular favorite is Ghost Stories as Jim is a master of tales from libraries to graveyards. Another is Star Stories where Jim adapts myths and legends to explain how the prominent stars, planets, and galaxies got their names.