Works for Me Wednesday: Encouraging Creative Storytelling

This is the first time I’ve participated in the internet uber sensation that is Works for Me Wednesday, but listening to my kids play this game recently got me to thinking that others might benefit from it, too!

First of all, do you have the game Apples to Apples?  I really hope so, because it is a wonderful, fun, creative game you can play with kids of many ages and groups of many sizes.  Oh, and you’ll need it if you’re gonna take of advantage of my “Works for Me” this week.

The game includes stacks of two different types of cards:  nouns and adjectives.  I won’t go into how the real rules of the game go, but here’s how we play sometimes:  each player grabs five noun cards and two adjective cards, and then makes up a story including all seven.  That’s it.  Easy, right?  Ha ha ha ha.

I’ll start.  Here are the cards I drew:

And here’s my story:

I kept my eyes peeled during our many road trips to the overwhelming Niagra Falls, ignoring the sound of tough car horns and the smell of fast food.

You give each player just a few minutes to sort their cards and develop their story, and then it’s time to spill.  Some stories are funny, some make no sense at all, and some are just sorta mundane (like mine!).  The thing is, they are all unique and they all encourage your child to think on their feet and let loose with being creative.

Now, would you like to take a spin with those seven cards up there?!  Go on, try it and leave a comment with your story!