Storytelling activities are one of my favorite things to share. Most of our storytelling fun happens spontaneously, but I thought it was about time to set up a planned activity. I wanted to stretch our storytelling a bit now that Little M is writing actual words on her own. (She’s always loved writing but now her sentences are closer to being something other people can read too!)
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For this activity I bought a brand new box of Crayola Crayons. There is something so inviting about a fresh set of crayons.
Not all of the crayons had fun names, some where simply Blue or Green. I went through the box ahead of time, laying out the ones that I thought might inspire a story.
We have a writing and drawing journal that is perfect for my 1st and 2nd grade writers. I love the size of the writing lines and the area to draw that this one provides. I ripped out a few pages and set everything on the table.
Crayon Name Storytelling Activity
I thought it would be really fun to pick a color and read the name. We would then start a story inspired by the name of the crayon. We would use the color as part of the picture. Crayon after crayon would be used until we had a complete story. Fun right!?!?
We started out that way and Little M ran with it, changing the activity to fit her. I love it when she does that! It usually ends up even better than I expected.
I read the names out loud (even of the colors she didn’t use) as she worked. We talked about different parts of her picture and she read me the story when it was complete.
She ended up with about 8 different pages, a new story on each. Although she only used the crayon names for the first two, the idea of using the paper for creating a story was obviously sparked. YAY!
Little M loves words, she always has. It’s so neat to see her now learning how to combine her love of writing and her love of exploring words. We are learning together what the best way to find a balance between experimenting with words and learning the correct spelling. This Reading Mama has an awesome post on Invented Spelling. She shares tips on encouraging kids to play with words as a way for them to really understand how they come together.
Big M has very little interest in writing and would rather look a word up in the dictionary then try to figure out the spelling on his own. It’s very cool to watch the two different approaches in learning to write, I’m excited to see what comes next!
Have storytelling activities crossed over to actual writing for you yet?
What a lovely idea! As a child I loved the smell of crayola crayons and they are still so evocative of my first classroom at school!
I love smells that bring memories. They have a way of whisking you back in time. Thanks so much for sharing.
This is like an idea I found on someone else’s blog about using paint chip/sample paint names to inspire storytelling. Paint people use some really creative names for their paint colors!
What a creative idea! Thanks so much for sharing this at After School.
Thank you for linking to my Invented Spelling article! I simply adore this activity. So much fun and VERY creative.