Story Telling for Children

I will admit it…

I saw this idea on a printable kids menu at one of our local favorite breakfast spots.

The light bulb went off in my head. Brilliant. Create a story by filling in the blanks. The great part about this activity is that it extends across a spectrum of ages and levels of literacy. So you can adjust it depending on your child.

My child is 3 years old so this image shows a very simple version of the activity. I wrote a story with marker on a good sized piece of paper leaving blanks where NOUNS (PIGS, TRAINS, MOUNTAINS, etc) and some VERBS (PIGS PLAY, TRAINS CHUFF, MOUNTAINS STAND, etc) should go into the story.

If your child is ready, combine two blanks for an ADJECTIVE and a NOUN (PINK PIG, LOUD TRAIN, TALL MOUNTAINS, etc).

If your child is even beyond that level have him fill in the blanks himself by reading and maybe even writing the story himself. My son truly enjoyed the exercise and we’ve only just begun story telling 101 in our home.

I started with a very simple story with mostly nouns, a few verbs and one or two adjectives. The next time we do this activity, I’d like to sit down with my son and write the story out with him. I have several of these “Fill in the Blank Story Sheets” already made by hand for effect.

There are so many great ways to integrate story telling into your home. Don’t get me wrong, I work at this stuff every day. In fact, I wrote a whole post about it, listing the ways we can easily integrate story telling into our daily routine. I frequently reference this post as a reminder.

More Story Telling for Children:

• Making up Fairy Tale Lyrics
• Story Cubes
• Story Telling Activities to do with kids