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My hero is MaLu, a small African healing elephant. MaLu has a red trunk and I invented him to convey pedagogic impulses more easily. Please read also Impulse 7: Children, our Guides.
You should take the following into consideration when working with children:
•When you read or tell a story, your facial expression and your gestures are very important. The best way is to narrate lively and slowly.
•If you want to produce the greatest possible effect, schedule 1 – 1.5 h for each short story and divide the time into 3 parts: Introduction, short story, review.
•Here are some examples for an introduction and for a review: show pictures of animals and explain what they are, what they eat, where they live etc., let the children imitate or guess animal sounds, observe animals, tell habits: f.e. elephants are social animals, cut out animal pictures and make jigsaw puzzles, animal dance (children move like the animals), show animal pictures and let children copy them, paint the children's faces like animals' faces, dress up like animals, let children craft animals, make ornaments that look like animals, talk about the impulses.
•Avoid to reward children because of their sickness. Adults who were always given a reward when they were sick, tend to fall from one sickness into the next one, because they do not want the rewarding to stop and they would have to do disagreeable activities, because they get visitors, because they are in the centre of attention (= secondary benefit). Moreover, healthy siblings may become envious and get sick, too, only because they would also get a reward.