Story Hunting

Kid/s choose a book each.

Scavenger Hunt: Kids find 5 items around home that are in their book.

Memory game: Player 1 places all 5 items in front of them. Player 2 needs to close their eyes while Player 1 takes away an item. Player 2 opens their eyes and has to guess which item is missing. Keep playing and taking turns between players. Then start to take away 2+ items for guessing.

Treasure Hunt: Younger kids: hide the items around the house and play ‘hot and cold’ as you find them.

Older kids: Draw a treasure map of your home/specific room. Kids hide the items around home, plotting their location on their map. Swap maps and find the treasures (either between the kids, or as a team with the parent)

Story Path

Tape a long piece of paper on the floor and draw a path of sorts. Take out loads of stickers, markers etc and then the kids draw around it from their imaginations. As they go along the path, you can add speech bubbles and little bits here and there and ‘build’ a story along the path. You can talk about beginnings, middles & ends and how plots 'work'. (Thanks to Dannii B- Mazor!) 

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Also try Book Cover Art: choose a book and recreate the front cover, eg

Story Collage

Grab a bunch of old magazines, newspapers, junk mail flyers, etc, and cut out pictures to prompt storytelling. Ideally let them select a range of items on their own. Use the completed collages as the basis for a simple story, asking kids to tell their own story from their finished masterpiece. If they are unsure how to begin or continue, use simple prompts such as:"Once upon a time there was…""One day…""And because of that…""Until…""And, finally…"Your child’s stories might start out very short and simple, but the more you share storytelling experiences, the more confident they will become.