Storytelling is big around our house. The tiny person is totally into making up her own universe filled with adventures, conversations, friends and a bit of drama to keep it interesting.
I’ve always been excited about her penchant for telling tales. But, there are definitely times when the stories veer off into the “We’ve obviously been watching WAYYY too much TV lately realm.” So, I’ve been looking for ways to get her thinking less about the Backyardigans and more creatively, but also chronologically, putting pieces of a story together like a puzzle.
No expectations of the Governor General’s Award being won any time soon, just some basic beginning, middle, end stuff. But, how the heck was that going to work?
Then, local Kindermusik educator Carol Anne Parkinson forwarded me an e-mail and handed me the perfect solution – story boxes.
This easy project had amazing results and it was something that not only gave our daughter a great way to keep her stories going, it also let her work on fine motor skills and a sense of accomplishment in that she pretty much made the whole project.
Here’s what you need:
- An old tissue box
– Old magazines (we used thrifted Chirp magazines from SVD)
– Scissors (safety for the preschoolers)
Directions:
- Let your tiny person(s) cut shapes, creatures, signs, words, anything at all out of the old magazines and stuff them in the tissue box.
– Then, pull the pieces out – 3 at a time – and have your kiddos make up stories using the images they just pulled out of the box. We took three out to start the story and, after getting one part done, grabbed three more to continue and let it grow until we had all of the pieces out and had told a very long story.
It sounds ridiculously easy (which is why I like it). But, I was totally blown away at how much our daughter got into the whole thing. You could make story boxes on different topics, with themes to go with other home learning projects, or even put snapshots in the box and have your kids tell stories about the family and friends.
It’s a great way to get their brains cranking on a chilly Autumn day.
The Family Art Room
Our craft cupboard is always open around here.
Check out all of the crafty goodness in our family art room (and it’s a whole lot) HERE
Very cool idea.
Neat idea… I’m going to try it for sure. Reminds me a little of a variation I used to do with my Grade 5 students at the beginning of the school year… it was called “Summer in a Shoebox” and the kids filled up their shoeboxes with artifacts, pics, etc. from their summer vacation and then shared stories about their time off… the images/objects really sparked storytelling and writing similar to the story boxes idea… trust Carol-Anne to find something cool like that… she rocks!
That’s a great idea! I’m going to try this with my third grader – I think she’d have so much fun with it!
Great idea! Easy and fun. I’ll try this with my son. : )
Your version looks a lot more organized than what actually happened at our house! Glad you could use the activity, I can’t take total credit…KM has a free parent newsletter (you don’t have to be enrolled in KM) with age-appropriate (baby/toddler/preschooler/big-kid) activities that can be sent to your inbox. It comes about once a month and the last one had a literacy focus. Often it is music/season related, but always a welcome addition for me – just when I feel I am out of ideas…
AWESOME!!! We’ll be doing this tomorrow – just what that stack of Chirp, World and etc needs……I love stuff that is EASY and WORKS!!!!