Storytelling Activities for Children
FLOWER POWER
Take turns pretending to be various flowers, plants, or trees. Ask family members to guess what you are. How it walks, if it could? Dance? Sing? Remember to act out specific features of the object, like height, width, weight, smell of its flowers, prick of its needles, etc. For example, if the object you pick is a rose, make sure you pretend to smell it and touch it and--OUCH!--watch out for those thorns. If you’ve selected an apple tree, make sure that you pluck and eat at least one apple from its branches.
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FLOWER POWER
Choose
a flower, plant, or tree and start talking about your life as that object.
Don’t actually say what your are. Let other family members guess,
based on your personal story. For example, if you are a lilac bush, you
might say, “People are jealous of me because I’m so beautiful.
What can I say? They’re right. I’m always dressed in the most
up-to-date purple clothes, I wear fabulous perfume that people come for
miles to smell, and I’m popular too. Bees swarm around me.”
NATURE SOUNDS
Go outside and close your eyes. Raise a finger each time you hear a different
sound in nature. If you’re not a country kid, you’ll be amazed
at how hard this activity is. This activity will help children become
more attuned to nature.
SQUIRREL TALK
Choose a popular story with which you’re familiar. Take turns telling
that story in the language of an animal. If you’re a dog, you must
bark the entire story. If you’re a cat, meow your tale. You’ll
need to rely on other storytelling devices besides vocabulary, such as
hand and body movement, facial expressions, and voice modulation.
