Telling Stories to Kids

Fortunately, help is available. I found some good books with lots of good ideas in the local library. The best book I found was Telling Stories to Children by Marshall Shelley. Shelley presents many ways of looking at the challenge of finding material and delivering it successfully. ("Successful" means that the audience doesn't run off in mid-sentence to do something more interesting, like scotch-taping Deanna Troi to Gumby.)

Here are some miscellaneous notes on telling stories. Most of these are presented in Shelley's book.

Story Ideas

• Stories from your own personal history
• Family stories
  • stories about kin, distant or close, living or dead
  • when I was your age
  • when you were small
  • one of our best times was when ...
• Things child has done
  • the biggest mess you ever made was when ...
  • the time you were most scared was when ...
  • the first time you ...
    • saw snow
    • went swimming
    • ate ice cream
    • rode a bike
    • brushed your own teeth
• Child's own traits
  • I knew you were unique when I saw you ...
  • I was so glad you were in my family when you ...
  • Once when you got hurt, you had to be brave ...
  • I could tell you were kind when you ...
  • I was so proud of you when ...
• Events that will be coming up in the next few days/weeks
  • family events
  • vacations
• When driving, stories about where we are
• What if...
  • ... elephants could fly
  • ... you lived underwater
  • ... you were invisible

Story Starters

• Once there was a raccoon who never washed his hands before he ate. All the other raccoons would wash their hands and even their food before they ate, but not Ricky ...
• One day Frieda and Felix woke up, and their bedroom was filled with bubbles. Where had they come from? They decided to find out. But first - how would they find the door?
• Have you ever heard the story about the hunter who went hunting with crooked arrows? All his arrows were crooked, and when he shot them ...
• Penny looked up at the grey sky and wished it would rain something fun - like marshmallows - instead of cold, wet raindrops. Suddenly she felt a soft plop on top of her head. She looked up, and she couldn't believe her eyes! It was ...
• Paul had never been to a museum before, so he didn't quite know what to expect. That's why he wasn't too surprised when one of the statues leaned over and whispered ...
• Everyone else said that Mrs. Lawrence was a spy. But when the Thomas twins peeked through her basement window, they were amazed to see that she was really ...
• Long, long ago there lived a tyrannosaurus named Tim, who liked just about everything that started with the letter "t". He lived teacups, tennis shoes and traffic lights. He liked tap dancing, too. But there was one "t" thing that Tim couldn't stand ...
• Pamela didn't believe in the Mushroom People until one day she looked at the ground and noticed a mushroom that had a tiny front door on its stem! Curious, she bent down and pressed the tiny doorbell ...

Stories

• Kelsey the worm, who was the fastest worm of all. One day, she say another worm tunneling through the ground ahead of her! (It turns out to be her own tail.)
• Abby, Bonnie and Connie, the girls who had never seen an apple tree (don't be too sure of yourself): Their father shows the tree to Abby in the spring (blossoms), to Bonnie in the summer (apples) and to Connie in the winter (bare), and they all think they know what an apple tree looks like.

Fables

• The boy who cried "wolf"
• The hare and the tortoise

Bible stories

• Adam and Eve, the gardeners
• Noah and the Ark
• The good Samaritan

Famous people and events

• Daniel Boone escapes from a bear by hiding under water and breathing through reeds
• Davy Crockett eludes a bear by grinning him down
• St. Francis goes to a town where a wolf has been frightening the citizens. He goes to the wolf and tells him he has been doing wrong. St. Francis then convinces the town that the wolf has promised to be friendly, if only the people will give him food. They agree, and the wolf becomes a friend of the town.
• Boston Tea Party: revolutionaries dress as Indians, sneak about ships and dump the tea

What Telling Stories Can Do

• Stories feed the mind and the emotions
• Stories link us to life: shared traditions, expressions, frames of reference
• Stories link us to our cultural and family past
• Stories help adults and children communicate
• Stories help children develop skills
• Stories help build character
• Stories can inspire to greatness

Some of Chris' Favorites

• Captain Streeter
• The boy who wanted to be a pirate
• The Pilgrims and the first Thanskgiving
• Nora and the Great Bear
• Finn McCool and Culcullain
• Paddy McGee, the Boy With No Stories

Your comments are welcomed.

Return to my home page.