Telling Stories

We have a daily circle time in our regular schedule.  During circle time we have a calendar activity and discuss upcoming special events.  There is also time for the children to share any information about their own adventures with their family and friends beyond our little group.  Today, we are starting something new – creative story telling.

I’ve been impressed by the storylines in their dramatic play activities and toyed with a variety of ways to document this creativity.  I first introduced the idea of ‘story telling’ to the children last week.  We discussed some ‘rules’ – although I suppose they are really just guidelines;

• There will be only one Story Teller each day — everyone will get a turn just not all on the same day.
• Use your imaginations – we want to hear creative stories.  I will write the stories down as the children tell them.
• I don’t want to hear ‘recaps’ of TV shows or movies that they’ve watched.  Here I’m counting on the children to ‘tattle’ on their friends since I don’t know much about some of the shows they watch but I know they often correct each other when they re-enact these stories during dramatic play.
• Stories can be based on actual experiences but I’m hoping they embellish them and add ‘what if’ or ‘I wish’ components.
• The stories cannot upset or offend any of the listeners – such as using one of the others in the group as the ‘bad guy’ in the story.

To give them an example I told the first story yesterday – a variation of a camping trip experience that I had with my family when I was a child.  Today, one of the children will be the story teller.  I expect the stories will be fairly simple at first but as the children gain experience as story tellers they will become more confident and their story telling abilities will grow.

In the future, to expand this activity further I’m planning to have them create illustrations and make actual books of their stories.  Maybe I’ll even highlight some of them here…