Leap Into Literacy
September/October: Grade K
Storytelling with Story Stones
Story stones can be a great hands on manipulative to use when your students are learning how stories work. This is a great prerequisite to launching your Reading and Writing Units. They foster language development and increase vocabulary while encouraging imagination, communication and listening skills. Storytelling through free play is also a way for children to make sense of their world, problem solve, and see the perspectives of others.
Get Lost in a Story...
Story stones can be created for a particular book or personalized for narrative writing. They are perfect for young children as they are durable and easy to make, with just a few supplies. You can paint right on the stone or have your students cut out little pictures of people, animals, weather, places, etc. A coat of Mod Podge will secure it.
Top Ways to Use Story Stones
- Model how to use story stones in storytelling minilessons.
- Set up a story stone center for storytelling.
- Create sets of story stones about theme...a set of fireman and rescue worker stones or school wide stones-great for exploring and problem solving classroom issues.
- Sort your stones into characters, settings, and objects.
- Use several stones to tell a story.
- Lay them on a desk, picture side down. As a child chooses a stone to flip over, incorporate the picture into a story.
- Draw 'sets' for your stones. Have children draw or find pictures of a beach, a stage, a castle and use the stones to tell the story that is happening in the setting.
- Home/School Connection: Have your students make a stone or stones at home to add to your classroom collection.