I have been trying to encourage my daughter to write short stories. She is not a natural story-teller like her younger brother but we are slowly getting there. One of the things that seem to work with her is if we use a story that she knows (one of her story books) and then we ask her to create her own version.
We have done a few of these stories with her but mostly with her just telling us the story. This time I wanted to try and get her to write her own short story, so we used one of her favourite characters, Percy the Park Keeper. We started off by downloading the black and white stick puppets from Twinkl (FREE) and she and her brother coloured them in (we spaced if over a few days and did 2 copies so that we could get a nice range of characters). Then I set up a story telling area for her. I also added some pencil crayons and some woodland stickers in case she wanted to add any extra touches.
She started off by choosing her characters and tried to organise them to illustrate her story
And then she started writing out her story.
She did get a bit stuck with some spelling so I gave her the Park word mat (Twinkl FREE) that we have used before, as I really wanted her to try to write it by herself.
It was not a very long story but it was her story so I am thrilled and more importantly she was very proud of the end result. And the stickers ended up being a great distraction for her younger brother.
If you have Percy the Park Keeper fans check out this older post for some other activities – Percy the Park Keeper
ofamily learning together 