Even if your students love making up stories, when pressed to do so they may have difficulty starting. For this activity, different things that students see on a walk will inspire their tales.
The story doesn’t have to be about the location where you take your walk. However, the objects that they notice will act as prompts for their imagination. To remember what they’ve seen, while walking, students will collect beads in the colors of some of the things they see on their walk. After the walk, they will use the beads to recall what they saw and incorporate these objects into their story.
One student may earn a yellow bead for the sun; another student may notice a yellow leaf to earn that bead. Because of the variety of objects, each student will have a unique list to trigger his or her creativity.
Materials for a Storyteller’s Necklace
You will need pony beads in assorted colors, crochet thread or yarn cut to necklace length, and some plastic baggies. Shoelaces also work well and make it easier for younger students to string their own necklaces.
Take an Observation Walk
Tell your students that their goal at the end of the walk is to tell or write a story that incorporates the things that they see during the brief journey outdoors. Point out that if they see a bird, that bird could appear in their story in a cage kept in a princess’ room, on a desert island, or on a windowsill of a city apartment.
To help them remember some of the things that they see, they’ll collect a plastic bead for each thing they want to include in their story. While walking, students can put the beads in plastic bags so they don’t go crazy stringing the beads while moving. In addition, when they go to tell the story, they can arrange the elements of the story any way they want.
You can limit the number of beads the children collect or point out that each bead equals an object they need to include in their story.
Making a Storyteller’s Necklace with Children
Back in the classroom, students should set out the beads they collected. They will list the colors on a piece of paper. (If they have two blue beads, they will list blue twice.) Next to each color, students write the name of the object that earned them the bead. The beads act as memory prompts for concocting the story.
As the students consider the story they would like to tell, they can set the beads in order. When they are ready, they can string the beads onto the shoelace or yarn and tie the ends together.
So, beads in the following order: yellow, blue, green, brown could translate to a story that starts as, “One sunny day, a blue jay flew out of its home in the maple tree to look for acorns. He…”
You can use this activity to encourage a written story or an oral tale.
This storyteller’s necklace uses colored beads to help students recall different things that they first saw on a walk and then incorporate into a story they tell aloud or put onto paper.
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