I came up with this storytelling game for kids to encourage them to create a story from a picture that someone else draws.
We always try to find different ways how to make storytelling more interesting and how to find those high imagination towers that kids often climb.

So we combined two favorite activities: drawing and storytelling.
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Storytelling game for kids rules
1. Everybody draws a short story.
2. After we finish, we exchange the drawings and try to red the story from the painting. For example, I got my daughter's paper so I had to look at her drawing and create a story from it (or try to imagine what story she had in mind).
3. After the story is told, the original artist can say what he really meant by drawing it or he can add to the story that was just told.
4. You can draw as many drawings as you wish. We liked it so much, we ended up making at least 5 drawings each (which made 15 stories that night).
Mastering the art of storytelling is a challenge for me too, so I really enjoy the moments when my daughter's imagination takes all of us to places where I would not be able to go by myself.
This storytelling game for kids is so beneficial because:
- kids practice drawing to tell the story
- the drawing helps to improve their visualization skills and actually grow their immagination
- trying to understand what other person draw and create a story out of that will boost Interpretive skills. (That's when a poorly drawn elephant by me becomes "spaceship with the big horn".)
Useful tips when playing this storytelling game for the first time:
- explain the kids that they should draw at least one character as this would help create a story,
- encourage them to draw the environment whether it's a room, dark forest or the middle of desert,
- advise them to use colors to describe the theme better (dark colors will bring cold, scary mood and brighter colors will create happier mood).
Remember
The main goal of this storytelling game for kids is not to draw the best picture or to guess what others drew. Our main purpose of this storytelling activity is to encourage storytelling. Free, full of fun and unlimited imagination. The drawings are just the tools.
Lisa @ OneRedShoeBlog says
I really like this idea because it fosters imagination amongst our kids. Great idea. This would be an easy one in the car too!