Ella-Bunny's story about Ella and the Bunny

I'm having so much fun with Ella starting to tell stories. Ella's nickname is Baby Bunny (or Ella-Bunny) because she was born near Easter, and consequently she loves bunnies. The last two weeks in her art class, she made a bunny sculpture and today she painted it gray and white. She called it Snowy. And so her story today is about Snowy.

I always take down her stories verbatim. I have realized that there are two ways that she tells stories: concept by concept or word by word. When she does it concept by concept, she thinks, then talks for a few sentences, then thinks some more, and then says some sentences while I type fast. When she does it word by word, she pauses after each word so I can type it, then back-reconstructs the sentence in her mind so she can go on to the next word after a pause.

Earlier on, she did it concept by concept. Now, she's taken to telling the stories more word by word, watching as I type each individual word. I can't tell whether she is doing it word by word with the express purpose of watching me type the word, or for another reason. In any case, she's watching me type.

Today, when she was doing the story word by word (with the occasional phrase thrown in), she was dictating:

Madison brought her cat. Ella brought...

and then she watched in amazement as I typed "her bunny."

"That's right!" she said. "How did you know I was going to say that?"

Note: The child was READING what I was typing, and she knew that I was typing ahead of what she had actually said.

Actually reading what I was typing. I wanted to pat myself on the back.

After she wrote her story, we went out on the web and found a photo of a bunny and a cat and pasted it into the story. Here, in case you're interested, is the story:

SNOWY AND ELLA

Snowy is a cute, cuddly bunny. She likes to play in the snow. Once, when it was winter, Snowy went on a walk with Ella. They walked through the forest in the winter because Snowy liked the winter. They came to a part of the forest where a cat was in their way. The cat was attached to a leash. It was her sister Madison’s cat. Then they walked through the forest with their animals. And then they walked home.

They played with their animals. Madison rolled some yarn for her cat. And Ella threw a ball for her bunny. The bunny and the cat had lots of fun with their owners Madison and Ella. And at bedtime, they read stories with books, and the animals hopped into bed with them.

Then, in the morning, it was time for the animal club that could do the greatest sports. They brought their animals to camp so they could do it. Madison brought her cat. Ella brought her bunny. They jumped, they twirled, they hopped around, they did everything that was great. And surprise, they both won the contest. They went home.

The End