Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Story making games for kids

When my daughter was young, she and I started to play a game of Memory following the original instructions. I enjoyed playtime with my daughter, but I really didn't want to play Memory again, at least not at that time. So I told her, let's make a story with the pictures. So we laid out all the Memory pieces, face down, and took turns turning them over and making up a story as we turned over each card. We were both hooked.

Sometimes we made a short story with a few cards, sometimes we made individual stories with a few cards. Sometimes we made a super long story with all of the cards!

We both enjoyed the story making game so much, that I started making story cards just for our story making creations. I even shared the game with her second grade class. Talk about a continuing story story and trying to get kids to build on what was already said, may have been a bit much for a class full of second graders; however, it did work much better in small groups and perhaps less cards. I had some story games printed up and called it StoryMaker and gave them out to friends to play with their kids. Most of them really enjoyed it and their kids creativity flourished.

One mom reported back that, that StoryMaker was the only game her kids wanted to play anymore. Another mom said that her daughter became more expressive and used creative thinking skills more.

If you're looking for a game to encourage creativity and fun, try creating stories with Memory cards. They have fun pictures to create a story with. And when you're done making up stories, you can always play a game of Memory!

All the best to you with making stories.

Here are some Memory game possibilities for you to consider.




Cheryl Paton
CherylsArt on Zazzle

2 comments:

  1. It is a wonderful opportunity to model different narrative techniques. We use these most often when we go out to dinner (hats off to Monty Python) and the kids are impatiently waiting for their food; it is great to be able to take along a tiny game rather than a backpack full of books.

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  2. UK, thanks for commenting. You made a wonderful point about being able to take something small along to a restaurant or such.

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