Story Telling on Paper

Because we love to read so much in our house, the make-believe play and language that my kids use are often a reflection of their favorite stories. They love to become the characters in their books and often tell stories that are similar to the ones they are reading.  The have wild imaginations and come up with the funniest things...you wish you could record them all day long!  
One of the things that I love the most about small children is their creativity and their imaginative play.  When Oliver was about two years old I decided to start recording some of his stories on paper.  Just because kids can't write yet doesn't mean they can't get a great story down on paper!  

This is Oliver's first story at age two.  

I bought this pocket notebook to start writing down Oliver's ideas.  I found a simple writing page online that was designed for Kindergarten students and printed a master copy that I could reuse (I kept this in the pocket folder and printed more as I needed them).  I simply taped these pages in the notebook as we wrote new stories.

We always begin by titling our story and then I try my best to dictate exactly what Oliver says.  As their writing becomes more involved their are many great opportunities to prompt their thinking with questions that lead them to include the various parts of a story such as: Setting, Characters, A Problem, Events, and a Conclusion.
Frequently Asked Questions During these Writing Sessions Could Include:

1. Who is in your story? (Characters)
2. Where are they in the beginning? (Setting)
3. How did that happen? (Cause and Effect)
4. What did they do next? (Sequencing/Events)
5. What did they say when that happend? (Dialogue)
6. How did that make them feel? (Character Building)
7. Is that the end of the story or did something else happen? (Conclusion)
8. Did they solve their problem?

**Teaching Tip: When you take the time to record your kids stories down on paper you will see their imaginations come to life.  They love watching you write and love reading their own stories over and over again.  Now that Oliver is four, he is anticipating his writing lessons even more because it means he will be able to write his own stories down on paper.  You will also see how their language is maturing and growing as you watch the stories grow in both detail and depth the older they get.  Story telling is a great part of the writing process and has many parts to it.  It is never to early to start having these conversations with your kids.

An example of one of Oliver's stories at age three.

You can see by age three Oliver's stories have become much more involved.  This particular story was inspired by the game Candy Land and the Disney movie The Fox and The Hound.  His stories almost always include his cousins and his Papa also:) He has begun to include Dialogue at this point and his story follows more of an outline...including a problem, events and some kind of conclusion!

Ellie's first story at two.

These are examples of the notebook that I purchased for Ellie to begin her writing.  This notebook was in the craft section at Walmart and only cost a couple of dollars.  It does not have a section for pictures, so we just write on the bottom and draw her picture on the top of the flip page.  Ellie's stories have a million different thoughts in them!  It's exciting to see how their writing style fits their personality perfectly when they are only two years old.  Her thoughts need to be prompted with more questions in order to piece her stories together, but her imagination is fascinating to record on paper!

**Teaching Tip: Again, this is just another example of a fun activity that you can do with your kids that is educational and beneficial to their academic development.  We don't do this often, but when I think to grab their notebooks out of my bin they always have a blast telling me a story (and I have a blast listening to them)!