I have done quite a bit of writing about my nieces S and J. Storytelling week is made for my niece T. So finally (and way past due) she will be making her big debut. T has a fabulous imagination. I love making up stories with her because she can bring life to the most ordinary of topics. She once had her grandma convinced that she had cut her tongue open. Grandma was concerned enough to search out an adult to find the real story!
How to make Storytelling Cards
It was a quiet hour (rare) while the big kids were still at school and Cousin J was napping. Cousin T, Little M and I got to work making storytelling cards.
I folded a piece of white construction paper into a very small rectangle and then creased the edges. This gave Cousin T and Little M lines to cut on. I think I ended up with 16 very small rectangles, but you can make them whatever size you want.
I asked the girls to pull out 4 cards at a time. Each 4 sets of 4 (yep… 16 cards. 😉 ) had a different “theme”.
- Character ~ One main character on each card. (I reminded them to make each character different. It’s better if you don’t end up with an entire royal family.)
- Setting ~ A place where a story can happen. (So any place!)
- Problem ~ Stories have hurdles the main character must overcome… draw some.
- Object /thing ~ Something to add to the stories… just to make things interesting!
****I used a colored pencil to write what they were drawing next to the picture. That was a big help later. ****
I “framed” the pictures with pink construction paper and then contact papered them.
*** Important tip! When I made the cards later with Big M I color coded them by making all of the characters have the same color background, all of the settings have the same color background and so on. This made a huge difference when it came to the actual story telling!***
We are storing our cards in an old Jello box. I thought the kids might decorate it, but they are happy with it the way it is.
(Make sure to check out how we used these storytelling cards.)
I am loving all of the story telling ideas!! I think I may need a whole new Pinterest board for them.
If you make one… I want to follow it. 😉
I made it. It’s mostly your posts right now, but I’m having fun finding ideas to fill it! http://pinterest.com/inspirationlabs/story-telling/
Yeah! I can’t wait to see all the goodies you find.
This is a FANTASTIC idea! I’m doing a toddler activity swap with some other moms in two weeks and I think I’m going to modify this idea for the on-the-go busy bags I’m swapping with the other moms/kids. Thanks for the inspiration.
That’s so crazy! I’m doing a busy back swap too! I haven’t thought up any ideas yet. How fun!
I have a few ideas that are a little too old for the kids I’m preparing for over at Pinterest. Here’s a link to it in case you need some inspiration: http://pinterest.com/sasmommy/things-to-keep-kids-busy/.
AWESOME! Thank you!
LOVE LOVE LOVE! I’m a speech pathologist and this is a GREAT activity to do with children with speech and language delays. I’m going to PIN this now!
Yeah! Thank you!!!
This is such a fantastic idea! These would be great to take along on road trips and vacations! Thank so much for sharing!
This is not just for little ones, I’m going to try this with my Cub Scouts tonight. They can earn arrow points for storytelling and I’m going to have them each make a set of cards, but mix them up from all the boys and have them draw from each category to tell stories. This also helps with their public speakign skills. Thanks for the idea, I’m sure it will be a hit and get the imagination juices flowing!
FANTASTIC!!! Please come back and tell me how it goes.