If you’ve heard of story stones and you want to try them with your children, it’s good that you understand what they’re for. Story stones are a tool to create stories, which means this is a great way to encourage imaginative play.
Story stones each have a picture prompt, such as scenery, characters, objects, moods, etc. And they’re used as inspiration to come up with stories using these things as a foundation. Story stones can also be created for a particular scene or theme, such as space, nurseries, movies, children’s stories, and more.
As you can imagine, the possibilities for creative play while using story stones are virtually endless. What’s more, they encourage language development, imagination, and creativity in a different way.
You can use story stones on their own to narrate stories or set scenes for imaginative play, but you can also use them along with books, playdough, dolls houses, and other tools to help your children act out their story.
Using the story stones to create stories is quite simple. All you need to do once you’ve made your story stones is to lay them down in front of your children and then allow them to take turns picking a stone and then they’ll have to come up with a sentence that’s based on the images from the stone.
As mentioned before, you can use the story stones to extend one of your children’s favorite stories or to extend the story of a book you’re currently reading with them. You’ll be amazed by what your children can come up with, and it’s a great way to keep them engaged in reading and language development while having fun.
To create your story stones:
All you need to do is get some stones, which can be a fun activity on its own. You can take your children to the park and look for stones you can use together. You can also buy them online or at your closest hardware store, but I recommend going on a little expedition anyways. You probably won’t find as many smooth stones as you’ll need, but you’ll find a few, and then you can buy more.
Once you have the stones, get together with your kids and start painting the images you’ll be using on the stones with acrylic paint. Just make sure you seal it! If you’re not particularly artsy, make it a crafts project by cutting pictures from old magazines and gluing them onto the stones. Getting stickers online is another alternative.
Making your own story stones is super easy, and your kids will have as much fun doing that as they will playing with them and creating beautiful stories.
As a parent, it’s essential to encourage our children to engage in imaginative play and allow them to create original scenarios. This doesn’t only promote language development; it also allows them to put themselves in different situations, which are often social and have tons of fun.
