A Story Jar

Not much thrills me more than to hear the imaginative wanderings of a little mind. My boy is very creative and is at a fun stage right now. He LOVES his stories and the funny ideas he comes up with. Adventures are big at our house too. While we read every day, we don’t often make up stories to tell each other so to add some more inspiration and encourage him in this, I made him a story jar. We’re including it in our home schooling pre-school time but he enjoyed it so much that it became a family time activity. Drew even wants to use it as creative writing inspiration. I think that creative story telling may be the motivation she needs to love writing more so I’m excited about this.

Here’s what I did to make it. We had tons of little stickers that had detailed pictures many kinds of animals, foods, numbers, letters, toys, and random objects. They are 1/2 inch by 1/2 inch and I don’t remember where we got these from but they’ve been around in the kids’ sticker container for a long time and always got passed over for the colorful stickers. I couldn’t find any for sale, but if you don’t have stickers of your own, another option would be to search online for icons you could print out. These could also be laminated. I stuck the stickers on construction paper and cut out around them with my paper cutter leaving a small border. The finished ones were about 3/4 inch by 3/4 inch. Then I put them in a baby food jar and used some more stickers to decorate the jar.

There are many games you can play with a story jar! Here’s just a few ideas.

1. Take turns drawing a couple pictures and weave them into a story. We’re pretty flexible on rules. If you want to look before you pick you can. If you want to, you can pick more than 2.

2. Sit in a circle. The first player draws one picture and starts a story using the picture. The next person draws one picture and uses it to continue the same story. Continue around the circle maybe once or twice like this until the story is done.

3. Have each person draw one picture for the first player and give them all to him/her. Then the first player tells a story using all the pictures. Then everyone draws one picture for the next player. Continue on like this for each turn.

You can use a letter or number to add challenge or for older children. Some fun ideas are to use a lot of words in your story that start with a letter, or to make a character’s name start with the letter. Maybe if they draw a number 2 you could challenge them to use as many 2 syllable words in their story as possible. Or they could use a certain word that many times in their story.

For my first story I drew out a space rocket and a beach ball. I told him a story about a little boy’s father that was an astronaut. The little boy gave his beach ball to his father when he had to go into outer space because he wanted his father to have something of his for the trip and he thought it would be a fun thing to have where there was no gravity. The father deflated the ball and folded it up in his suitcase for the trip. The rocket blasted off and went up to a space station. From so far away the planet earth looked about the size of a beach ball! And the father thought of his son so far away when he looked at the beach ball. When the father’s time in space was over, he returned to earth. And when he walked out of the space ship, he was holding the beach ball. His son was so excited to see him and they gave each other big hugs.

Israel was very excited to see what he would get for his turn! He drew a bald eagle and a gift. His story was that the bald eagle was flying when suddenly a present dropped from the sky. The eagle knew it was Christmas so he thought the present was for him and when he opened it, out came a… bird! At this point Israel laughed and laughed.

For my second turn I got a dog and a pencil. I told them the story of a dog that loved to write and draw and made many books to share with his friends. He loved to share them with his dog friends but was sad that he couldn’t share them with his human friends because they didn’t understand dog language. One day the dog found a translator pencil that could translate for him and after that he was able to share his books for everyone to enjoy.

If you want some ideas for what to put in a story jar, here’s what mine had:

Vehicles
ship, car, airplane, hot air balloon, train, race car, space shuttle

Misc.
toaster, bed, eye, question mark, music note, soccer ball, football, baseball, basketball, alarm clock, umbrella, wall clock, globe, lock, lightbulb, barn, robot, smile, gift, pencil, book, award ribbon, shoe, television, scissors, balloons, cowboy boot, farmer

Animals
cow, mouse, manatee, gorilla, sheep, crab, bunny, duck, flower, spider, frog, pig, mosquito, fly, squirrel, butterfly, cat, rooster, turkey, wolf, lizard, eagle, elephant, turtle, fish, dinosaur, donkey, dog, seal, koala, moose, monkey, bear, panda, swan, camel, raccoon, rhinoceros, lion, whale, flying pig

Food
strawberry, pear, orange, cheese, ice cream, pretzel, apple, pizza, bread, watermelon

Nature
tree, apple tree, maple leaf, sun, clover, cloud, mountains, egg, shell, cacti, planet

Shapes
cube, circle, star, crescent, arrow, heart,

Letters and Numbers