Q is for QUIET little Quail!

OK, so today I had to do an alphabet storytime with the preschoolers. You got it, the letter Q. So after making the wee ones pose their bodies in the shape of the letter, I made them listen to the Quail story. This was a retelling of the Coyote and little dove story from Margaret Read MacDonald's Twenty Tellable Tales in which quail begins to cry after cutting her foot on some kwakwi grass. Coyote hears her cry and insists she is singing and threatens to eat her unless she repeats the song so he can learn it. Well, coyote goes off and starts to sing in his inimitable non-quail-like voice and then trips and loses the song, so he has to return several times to get quail's song. Quail gets wise and leaves a rock decoy in her stead, so when coyote gets incensed and makes good on his threat to eat her if she doesn't sing, he gets a mouth full of broken teeth and a new song to sing. You can ham this one up, get the kids to sing quail's song with you, and howl at the end. They actually helped me find coyote's song under the table.