Storytelling Activities
for Children of All Ages
(Even You)

1. The one word story—Everyone sits in a circle.  The first person begins the story with a single word, and each person in the circle contributes a single word in turn until a complete story has been told.  This works best with large groups.

2. The one sentence story—Everyone sits in a circle.  The first person begins the story with a single sentence, and each person in the circle contributes a single sentence in turn until a complete story has been told.  This works best with medium size groups.

3. The story web—Everyone sits in a circle.  The first person holds a ball of yarn and begins telling a story by contributing several sentences (a paragraph or so).  Then holding on to the end of the yarn, s/he passes the ball to someone across the circle whose turn it is to contribute the next paragraph, hold on to the yarn, and pass the ball to the next teller.  Continue until a complete story is told and everyone is holding one or more parts of the yarn, forming a web that connects the storytellers to each other.

Next, try to untangle the web by telling another story in reverse order so that the yarn is passed back eventually to the first speaker.

4. Whose story is it?--Form teams of three tellers.  Each teller in the group shares a short (1-2 minute) personal story.  The group then chooses one of the stories for all three tellers to tell.  Reassemble the group, and one team at a time, each teller tells the story as if it happened to him or her.  The whole group then must decide who the story really belongs to.

The real question behind this activity is:  does the story belong to the person to whom it happened or to the person who can tell the best story?

5. Sitting under the apple tree—This story begins with a chant that the whole group repeats together:

One at a time, each person in the circle tells a personal story that is believable, though not necessarily true.  The group then votes by holding out two fingers in a V shape if they believe the story is true or crossed fingers if they believe the story is false.  The teller must reveal whether the story is true or false.

Like the previous activity, this one explores the question of whether it is more important for a story to be “true” or to be believable.  (As a storyteller friend of mine likes to say, “All of the stories I tell are true, and some of them actually happened!")

6. Gibberish stories—Put the group in pairs.  Each pair will consist of a storyteller and an interpreter.  The storyteller must tell a story in gibberish, as if s/he were speaking a foreign language.  The interpreter must then “translate” the story for the rest of the group.  Make sure the storyteller understands that there is no "right" version of the story.  The interpreter gets to make up the story as it goes along.

This activity is wonderful for demonstrating how much storytelling depends on elements other than language.  For example, gesture, intonation, volume, facial expressions and so on give clues about what the gibberish story might actually be about.

This site is part of a sabbatical project created by Linda Evans, English Department, Mesa Community College, and funded by the Maricopa County Community College District.  Please send comments, suggestions, and ideas to Linda Evans, English Department, Mesa Community College, 1833 W. Southern Ave., Mesa, AZ, 85202 or email levans@mail.mc.maricopa.edu.