Story Workshop – Creating Stories

STORY WORKSHOP
Since Term 1, we have been using Story Workshop to explore loose parts and use these materials to create stories. We can all become storytellers when we use imagination! (There is a photo at the bottom showing how we are hard at work creating stories!)

We have been talking about different elements of a story.
These posters are from Sweet Sounds of Kindergarten.
You can take a look and look at the different elements/parts of a story.

Story Workshop is focused on helping children be creative. This activity encourages your child to use their own ideas, interact with materials, and challenge them to think and connect ideas.

In Story Workshop, we hope to encourage confidence and collaboration. They can gain confidence when they share their story with other children and adults. They can learn to collaborate with others and be inspired and also inspire others.

Other things children can do when they are engaging in Story Workshop:

• solve challenges when creating stories (Ask: How will the problem be solved? Does the problem need to be solved?)
• create and model real-life situations and think of solutions
• to develop their listening, reading, and writing
• it allows students to have a voice and a choice
• they can move at their own pace
• there is no wrong way to tell a story
• they get to interact with different types of materials

You can do Story Workshop at home!!

At home, you can:

• use materials you have at home (spoons, buttons, fabric, small items that you have a lot of, toys, Lego, blocks, sticks, flowers…)
• look at the story element posters
• ask your children to build a setting
• they can begin creating! What are the characters? What is in the beginning, middle, and end?
• Is there a problem? What is the solution? Be encouraging and you can offer ideas, too. You can make a story together 🙂
• Ask them what is their favourite part

When your child is done making their story with materials, we have been encouraging students to start drawing and writing their stories. With 3 pieces of paper and staples/tape, you can make a book (beginning, middle, end)

• your child can just draw pictures and you can write words for them
• or you can encourage them to label their pictures with beginning sounds
• you can also write words and letters, and even sentences if they are ready!
• Add colour to your pictures too and think of a name for your book
• You can bring it to school and share it with the class, too, or keep them at home as story books in your home library
• You can even create stories in your home language 🙂

Here is a photo of our class creating stories. Some children wanted to create books right away with drawings and words. Some made a story with materials and then asked for a booklet. Some made their stories with a friend, and some used the whole time to create a story with materials.