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Stone Soup Storytelling Activity

Create Your Own Story

"Story Stone Soup" Storytelling Activity

This activity combines a nature walk, a craft activity, and the concept of the classic tale Stone Soup to give your child a creative way to practice his storytelling skills. Since you'll need to gather and create your story stones before using them, when you first try this activity it may spread out over a couple of days. Once the stones are collected and made, though, you'll be able to pick them up anytime you're looking for something fun to do.

Skills Being Practiced

• Sequencing
• Critical thinking
• Storytelling
• Eco-mindedness

What You Need

• Old magazines, clip art, or stickers
• Collection of flat medium-sized stones
• Large pot
• Water
• Paper towels
• Glue gun
• Scissors

Get Ready to Play

1. Take a nature walk to gather stones for your Story Stone Soup. Bring a cooking pot with you to carry the stones. Explain to your child you're looking for stones that can fit in the palm of his hand and have a flat surface on one side. Collect approximately 10-20 stones.
2. Bring the stones inside, and fill the cooking pot with water. Let your child put his hands in the pot and "scrub" the stones until most of the dirt and debris has been removed. Drain the water and place the stones on paper towels to dry.
3. While the stones are drying, look through clip art images, catalogs, magazines, or newspapers with your child and help him choose a wide variety of animals, items, and settings to cut out.
4. Cut closely around the perimeter of the images. That way, when they are glued to the stones there won't be a lot of distraction in the background. Each stone should only represent the image on it. For example, if your child cuts out a turtle, make sure there isn't any water or sand in the background, just the image of the turtle.
5. When the stones are dry, use a hot glue gun to glue one image to each stone. (Hot glue guns should only be handled and used by adults.) The glue itself gets very hot, so keep the stones away from your child until the glue cools.

How to Play

1. Remind your players of the story Stone Soup or read it to them, making sure to emphasize that each character made the soup better by adding his own ingredient.
2. Spread out the Story Stones and explain that each stone has its own way to add flavor to the story. Have the first player choose a stone and begin telling a story using the image on it. If, for instance, he picks up the stone with a turtle on it, the story might begin: "Once upon a time, there was a turtle..."
3. As the player tells his story, each time he starts to falter or needs a little help, he can choose another stone to add a new element to his story. Once he takes a new stone, the first stone goes back into the cooking pot. At the end of his story, all of the story elements will be in the cooking pot.
4. Take the stones out and give them to a new player who can then tell a different story using the same "ingredients."