Summary: Today we’ll be diving a little deeper into creating stories with your kids. I don’t know about you but I truly love to read read to my kids and have them read to me. From the very beginning, it has always been important to me to share my love of reading with my kids. New readers often develop favorite stories which they request night after night. To give myself a bit of a break from reading the same story for months at a time, I would often request that we create stories together. This activity quickly became our new bedtime routine. In the beginning, I often would use the tried and true, “Once Upon A Time” as my kids were familiar with this opening. I would make my kids the main characters to engage and get them excited about the activity. As this activity was often part of our bedtime routine, I focused on positive and uplifting stories with happy endings. My kids would become the heroines of these stories and make or create something great! My youngest daughter, Daphne, loved the beginning line of “Once Upon a time, there was a brave princess named Daphne that loved [noun or verb]. One day she...” I would intentionally and create a cliff hanger for her to add on to the story. After several times back and forth we would create some amazing stories. Sometimes, my girls would get so excited about creating stories, that they didn’t want to go to sleep. I would then say something to the effect of “this part of the story has come to an end but tomorrow we can create a new chapter” as a way to entice them to sleep. More often than not, the promise of creating a new chapter the next night was usually enough to get them to relax, fall asleep, and dream up the next adventure. At times, we would need to revisit some of their favorite stories to lull them to sleep. A word of advice: Don’t let yourself be distracted when creating stories with your kids. They can tell when you’re engaging with them or whether you’re only giving them part of your attention. The point of creating stories together is to engage with your kids on a deeper level so check your email after they go to bed. Nothing is as important as your kids anyway. I know that for some of you, the prospect of creating stories with your kids causes more anxiety than relaxation. Don’t let the momentary fear you feel stop you from experiencing the world through your child’s imagination. Like all worthwhile endeavors in life, the element of fear should propel not repel you. If you don’t feel ready to dive right into story creating with your kids, you can set the stage by reading some of your kids favorite books and talking about the parts of the stories. Discuss what happens at beginning, middle, and end. Who were the characters? What happens in the story? For more advanced readers needing some new challenges, introduce terminology like: plot, themes, protagonists, antagonists, conflict, resolution, moral, and, more. After creating an understanding about the parts of a story, introduce some story starters such as 3 random things (i.e., a castle, a cowboy, and a soccer ball). Encourage your child to use these items in their stories. It’s always amazing to me how kids can easily weave various objects together into a beautiful, sometime, serious, sometime comical stories and certainly always entertaining stories. Once you’ve tackled bedtime stories, you can move into creating stories at other times or for special occasions. Take your story creation to the next level by recording your kids narrating their own stories or visit websites like www.storybird.com. They are currently running a writing contest through October 15th so get busy, create stories with your kids, and submit them to www.storybird.com. Please post your stories here on the blog - I am looking forward to reading what you create with your kids!
