Thursday, April 5, 2012

Storytelling Cards

Each Wednesday, Boogs and I head over to my friend's house to have a "learning playdate". Our previous playdates have been focused on Science activities. This week we decided to switch it up and focus on storytelling. I saw this post on A Mom With A Lesson Plan and knew our kids would love it. Our kids range in age from 6 (as of today, April 5th) to 20. Basically each child gets a set of four index cards on which to draw/write specific components of a story - Character, Setting, Problem, Object.



C and I were amazed at how engaged the kids were in writing/drawing their cards. They asked for more time to add extra details. Even the 8th grader happily participated, though her object card was "giant dump". (SIGH)

Sadly, we could not find the big tub of crayons
so we were limited on our color choices.
Once everyone was finished with their cards, we separated them into the four categories and passed out a card from each category to each person. Then the storytelling began. It was hilarious! We had such a good time telling brief (2 - 3 min) stories using the cards. We shuffled the cards, handed them out again, and everyone got to tell a second story with different cards. The kids complained when we told them it was time to stop so we could eat dinner. They wanted to create more cards and keep playing.


The kids had some extra time to run around outside and construct parachutes for their Lego Minifigures.
We LOVE our Wednesday Learning Playdates!

7 comments:

  1. You are the reason for the smile that will be stuck on my face for the rest of the day!!! (What an awesome experience.)

    ReplyDelete
  2. What a great idea! I need to start some storytelling with my 3 year old. I love the learning playdate idea! Visiting from Link and Learn.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I love, love, LOVE this!! We are huge fans of stories and I can just see the creativity flowing in this kind of activity! Thanks so much for sharing at Teach Me Tuesday!!

    ReplyDelete
  4. I love this idea. I am just beginning my journey into story telling with my 3 year old. Felt boards and allowing him to "read" a book to me are good sa far. Thank you for sharing on the Co-Op!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Glad you all liked this activity so much. Be sure to check out A Mom With A Lesson Plan to see where this idea originated. The link is in my post.

    ReplyDelete
  6. is there a place to just print these out ? I am a single mom with limited time to draw these myself ?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Part of the fun is for the kids to draw their own character, setting, plot idea, and object. There is a game, Rory's Story Cubes, that you can purchase. https://www.storycubes.com/en/
      Or, you could google story cards and see if you can find some. Good luck.

      Delete