Some of my most cherished childhood memories are from the time spent listening to stories. They transported me to a different world and ignited my imagination. The characters in those became my friends and I learnt a lot from them too.
Stories can be fun, they can put you to sleep and be educational without seeming didactic. On this world storytelling day, I want to share with you all, 10 creative ways to narrate stories to your little ones.
1. Shadow play – rather than having your child glued to your mobile phones, use the phone’s torchlight as a spotlight and create the characters of your story with your fingers. It’s fun to watch them try to catch the shadows!
2. Finger and Hand puppets – It’s always fun to imagine while you listen to a story, but putting a face to the characters can help to engage your little ones and perhaps can be a craft project of making the puppets too!
3. Roleplay – You could assign roles from a known story to your family members and act the story out. This is a new twist to an old story.
4. Taking turns – There are always stories that are favourites and your children never get bored of hearing them on loop! Turning the story into a fill in the blanks activity or doing alternate lines can make it more fun for them and less boring for you when it’s the Nth time.
5. Mashup – Lots of children’s stories have common premises and similar characters, so mixing up two stories can result in a mega episode like the cross-overs they have in television series. Maybe Goldilocks can be with three little pigs instead of bears or Cinderella and Snow White can be cousins?
6. Voices and Noises – Younger children who are just exploring the world will surely enjoy a story with exaggerated imitations and impressions! And who knows one day it could be an alternate career for you too with all that practice! Working as a dubbing artist can be a new work from home job opportunity to explore!
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7. Sing a story – Find a tune you like and try to fit in the story as lyric, so that can be your family jam for the next road trip or bonfire night!
8. Create a story – when your little ones are bored of all their regular ones, maybe it's time to wear your imagination cap! Cough Harry Cough Potter Ahem! Well, the idea isn’t original, but your story can be, perhaps the next best seller!
9. Draw your story – This is another creative collaboration of art and maybe it could be the illustration to your aforementioned best seller too!
10. Watch a movie – This is like the cheat meal of this diet, on days where getting your chores done seems impossible, switching on the telly and playing frozen again, might be a saviour! The idiot box when watched in moderation and with selection can be educational too!
