I am SO not a storyteller. I read books – I need a script. I admire storytellers immensely, but it’s just not me. Plus I talk too much. If I were to hone my storytelling skills I might be unstoppable. So for me it’s books.
Storytelling, however, is a great thing to encourage in young children. It encourages imagination and creativity, increases vocabulary and helps communication and listening skills. Storytelling though free play is also a way for children to make sense of their world, problem solve and see the perspectives of others.
If you quietly sit and watch a young child engaged in free play, you’ll often hear snippets of the incredibly complex worlds and characters they are creating.
Very young children can sustain their stories and free-play worlds over days, weeks, months… coming back time and time again to the characters and settings of their stories and making them more elaborate.
My husband Dan has had two rounds of back surgery this year…it’s been a fun year. For months now PudStar has been playing and telling stories about babies who need to keep going to the hospital – babies with sore backs, scars and bandages.
I also realised the other day that her ‘treasures’ container was now a pills container and I watched her line up all her babies, give them all their medication and tell them to go to bed. Wasn’t so sure about the ‘pills’, but she’s obviously been watching, absorbing and responding!
When children share their stories with trusted adults or peers, they are sharing and exploring their own worlds… their experiences, fears, joys and passions.
So with this in mind, PudStar and I made some ‘story starters’, which are prompts for story ideas – storytelling or story writing. I’ve them seen all over Pinterest and have been looking for an excuse to make my own. Story stones are perfect with young children as they are durable and ridiculously easy to make.
Our stones were mostly made from stones collected from the beaches at Brunswick Heads, but you could just as easily buy a bag of polished stones.
You can paint the stones if you wish, and then it’s a matter of drawing/painting characters, settings or props, and/or cutting out tiny pictures from magazines.
Then you simply glue and varnish. We used Mod Podge from the craft store to glue and varnish.
PudStar was in charge of backgrounds and picture choosing, I was in charge of intricate cutting and gluing. ChickPea? She mostly just got in the way and got squawked at by Pud.
When they are done and you have a lovely collection of them, the possibilities are endless. Here are a few things we’ve done with them:
TOP 10 WAYS TO USE STORY STONES
1. Take a bucket of them in the car. Children in the back can take turns pulling out stones and telling stories. The car is a time when I am captive and just have to listen to Pud…did I really just say that? Well it’s 20 minutes when she has my attention and we might as well use it for storytelling!
2. Leave them around the home or classroom for free play. Not every session with story stones should be structured. Some of the best stories will come from times when a child picks up a stone or two and incorporates them into their free play.
3. In a classroom or group, choose a stone from a bag and tell or write a story about that stone. Help the child to identify if their stone might be a character in a story, a setting for a story, or a prop/object for a story.
4. Sort your stones into characters, settings and objects.
5. Use several stones to tell a story: a collection of characters, or a setting and a character.
6. Lay them on a desk, picture side down. As a child chooses a stone to flip over, incorporate the picture into a story… great for plot twists. This can be a group or individual activity.
7. Give a bag of story stones as a gift to a friend.
8. Create sets of story stones about themes… a set of fireman and rescue worker stones or some schoolyard stones – which would be perfect for exploring and problem solving schoolyard issues.
9. Draw ‘sets’ for your stones. Have children draw or find pictures of a beach, a stage, a fantasy castle and use the stones to tell the story that is happening in the setting.
10. Actually I can’t think of another way right now… leave an idea in the comments section below! How slack am?
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