An Invitation to Read - Storytelling

Call it strewing* or successfully surviving Snow Day No. 2, but I knew that it would be a great idea to get out those face-shaped craft sticks that I'd been keeping for just the right time. That time had now come! So once the kids were tucked into bed the night before, I laid out a stack of wooden craft stick faces, felt markers, glue, paper, and a cornucopia of small articles that they could glue on. There were googly eyes (of course!), buttons, mini pom-poms, felt shapes, and more. It was meant to be a feast of creativity, something they could dig into for the larger portion of the day. And if I'm honest, when I included a few books to the offering of crafting items on the table, I hoped that this open-ended activity would lead to some interaction with the written word as well. Let me tell you how it went.

My kiddos awoke and I could hear them chattering excitedly by the dining room table as I purposely stayed in bed so they could discover this "invitation" on their own. They came in and asked if they could start creating, to which I sent them on their way, encouraging them to do just that. And what followed was literally hours of colouring, gluing, giggling, cutting and more gluing...and then I heard it! The story-telling had begun!

These craft sticks are shaped like people's faces after all, and people have personalities and jobs and ways of speaking and different interests... Soon we had a young lady (don't let the white hair fool you) heading off for a swim, an angry-looking brother whose joyful personality was on the flip side of the stick, and then there was George, Curious George. I casually grabbed our well-loved copy of Curious George stories and laid it out for my son who saw the gesture and came right over to look for a picture reference. Soon we had The Man With the Yellow Hat and a bird stuffy named, Petey, that my son remembered from a Curious George cartoon they had watched. Now, amongst the growing crowd of unique characters, we had a couple that were familiar, and a storybook to tie them together.

It is important to note here that I made sure to let my son lead in this George-creating process, even though my heart was dancing with that Mother-Teacher joy that comes when your kids get excited about a topic you are teaching them or desiring them to show interest in. Restrain yourself, Erin, restrain. Much to my delight, and to that of his sister, JJ initiated a mini puppet show where I read his most favourite story from our Curious George collection (one he has us read on repeat for MONTHS when he was about 3), while he used his newly-created stick characters to act out the story, held up from behind a sizeable couch cushion. It was silly and fun! And that same little boy is currently setting up a more elaborate puppet theatre stage as I write this for what I can only assume will be a charming and hilarious puppet show this afternoon.

Real life here: my writing was interrupted for said puppet show, and it was indeed a hoot! More than one puppet left the stage with an eye missing, but fun was had by all (contrary to the belief that the fun stops when someone loses an eye.)

The benefits are many when these wooden sticks are introduced. Story-telling is not only great for the imagination, but think of the connections your child can make later when reading because they are already familiar with how a story is structured. They are practicing that, and increasing their understanding of story, just through the act of story-telling. And there is the way that reading gets flipped on its head and no longer looks or feels like work. Fun, creativity and connection awaits you all in this Invitation to Read.

*Strewing is a term used by the unschooling/homeschooling community which involves parents laying out items for their children to engage with if they choose to do so.