Story Stones are a great way to get students excited about story telling and they are surprisingly easy to make!
Materials Needed:
- Stones
- A variety of stickers
- Modge Podge
- Paint Brush
- Small container to pour the Modge Podge in (this is optional)
*I purchased all of my materials at our local Dollar Tree*
The Process:
Step One: Pick a Sticker!
Step Two: Press the sticker onto a stone.
*Repeat Steps One and Two for all of the Story Stones you will be making.
Step Three: Modge Podge all of the Story Stones. This helps the stickers stay put for longer use.
Step Four: Let Dry
When all of the Story Stones are dry, they are ready to be placed in a basket and used for story telling.
How Do the Students Use the Story Stones?
There are a variety of ways to use Story Stones, but my favorite way is to allow the students to make up stories with them!
- Students draw one Story Stone at a time out of a basket.
- They then use the first stone drawn as a story starter. For instance, if they draw out a football helmet they might start their story, “Once there was a football player.”
- They then draw another stone out and use it to help them continue their story. If they drew out the race car, they might then continue: “He had a red race car that he loved to drive fast in.”
- They would then draw another stone and so on and so forth.
Leveling the Story Telling:
In the beginning, I remind children that a story should have a beginning, middle, and end so their story should continue until they have this.
As story telling develops further, we discuss that stories have characters, settings, problems, and solutions so their stories should continue until they have included all of these.
*For children who are pre-writing age, they are asked to orally tell their stories. You can offer a recorder for them to record their story and play it back or they can tell their story to a partner.
*For children who are of writing age, they are asked to write their story.
What are children learning?
- The magic behind story telling
- Discussing beginning, middle, and end
- Discussing characters, settings, problem, and solution
- Building oral language and vocabulary
- Practicing writing and sentence structure
Other Ways to Use Story Stones:
- Story Retelling (using pictures or paintings of favorite stories)
- Sort all of the stones into character, settings, and objects
- Allow students to use them during free play
- Encourage the students to draw “set backgrounds” for their story stones. i.e., castle or a football field
- Use the story stones for plot twists in favorite books (draw one out of a basket during read aloud and see how that would change the story)
What are some ways you can think of to use Story Stones? Drop your suggestion in the comments!
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I love the idea of using stickers! I’ve made story stones using acrylic paint with older children; now I can bring this activity to the younger age group. Thank you!
I’ve found that story stones really support communication and collaboration when used for oral story telling in a group.
I really love that ideas in which students san see the stone and makes a sentence to continue the story.
I really love that ideas in which students can see the stone and makes a sentence to continue the story.
Could you use this idea and have kids make stones that reflect something about themselves. My favorite things for example… then they “tell the story” of themselves to someone else using the stones?Ooooo there is a connection to story stones and native americans. They put their stories on stones using symbols. They carried the “story stones” in a pouch.
Hi Jodi! Your idea sounds fantastic! Storytelling is something that we were born to do! We innately tell stories all day long! Giving children any opportunity to retell those stories in a concrete way deepens the connections to the stories. It gives the ownership and builds self confidence. It promotes cognitive development as well as language development! As an extension you could add paper and writing tools near the story stones so that your children can transfer their stories into written language!