You know how some people, when they hear "tell me a story", can rattle one off instantly? With no preparation, no outline, nothing? I am definitely not one of those people. When August asked me recently to tell him a story, I had no idea where to begin (or end). I stammered and said, "I don't know any stories." Lame, right? Well, I accepted long ago that I'm one of those people who desperately needs boundaries, rules, or limitations to even get started on a creative project, even one as simple as telling a child a story.
One day, while standing in line at the post office, I found these cute cards for free. I picked up two, one for each boy, and tucked them in my bag. At home, I set them on a counter and forgot about them until one afternoon, August picked them up and said, "Read this story, Mama."
"There aren't any words August, it's just a picture."
"Read this story, Mama!"
"But August, there aren't any words!"
"Read it!"
At which point I finally realized that I needed to stop being so literal and tell him a story about the bear and the fox. And it was easy! I was able to make up three stories about how the fox and the bear came to be sitting together, hugging, in the middle of a snowy wood. August asked me to tell the stories several more times over the next few days.
It made me want to rush out and find more cards so I could tell more stories! I did a quick search on Amazon and found these Animal Village Tell Me a Story
August has started telling stories of his own, which usually involve a boy going for a walk in the forest and encountering a wild pig who eats him up. (!)
Are you a natural storyteller? Can you invent characters and plots on the spot? Or do you need a little prompting, like me? If you have any resources to suggest, please do so in the comments.
Photo by me.
Looking to while away a little more time on the Internets? How about reading my post about kissing boo-boos, or this one about not asking kids to smile for pics?
Tim
Have you tried story games? They are fun!
We have some story cubes, which are like dice for telling stories: https://www.storycubes.com
And we have this great storytelling card game, too: http://www.atlas-games.com/ouat3/
Your kids might be a bit too young to make up their own stories, but I bet you could use them as prompts for your own storytelling.
Jodi
Thanks for these suggestions, Tim. I'd heard of the dice but not those cards, and they look fun. I recently read an article based on a study that showed that creativity, vis-a-vis storytelling, goes way down as soon as a household has a TV: children essentially don't think of plots other than what they're seeing on TV. I'm sure that using these kinds of games will help them maintain their storytelling creativity!
Dava
I just read this one for the first time (not sure how I missed it before). This is me exactly: "I accepted long ago that I'm one of those people who desperately needs boundaries, rules, or limitations to even get started on a creative project, even one as simple as telling a child a story."
Jodi
I always felt like a creative and artistic failure because, if given a blank canvas or sheet of paper, I could come up with *NOTHING*. When I finally realized that my creativity needed boundaries or limitations—and that that's okay—I felt such relief!
Annika Lundholm Moberg
Hi Jodi!
Funniest thing happened today. I am the Swedish artist behind this postcard and I got a nice email from a person in the US, asking if I had anymore of those fox & bear postcards! He (or possibly she, I don't know) had found it through your blog and through detective search over the internet he found me at last. So I asked where he had seen it the first time and he send me the link to your blog post.
I love that August was so determined to hear the story about the fox and the bear and that you could make something up by looking at the card. I am children's book writer and illustrator and even though I do make up stories I have hardly ever been able to do it on demand like that. My kids thought I was so boring when they were younger and asked for a bedtime story - my mind was always completely blank! (Mind you, I think it had to do with the exhaustion from being a parent with toddlers.)
Anyway, just wanted to let you know. It's funny how internet connects people all over the world 🙂
I hope you have a nice day!