Looking for a way to spend quality time with family and friends? Often the simplest activities can create the most memorable experiences. Try group storytelling! It's like creating a tapestry together. Each time someone contributes to the story a unique thread is woven into the tapestry and the picture grows more colorful, textured, and full.
For a place to start, try putting together a storytelling basket. Look for a fun basket, ideally with a lid and fill it with a feather, a seashell, pine cone and other treasures from nature, a picture of the sun, a picture of water (or a small blue silk), small finger puppets, small toy animals, interesting household items and a scarf large enough to use as a blindfold. Sit in a circle and choose someone to begin. Tie on the blindfold, and have them pick an object from the basket. Once the object is chosen, the blindfold can be removed and the story unfolds . . . If you wish to forgo the tried and true "Once upon a time . . .", perhaps you'd like to use: "A story is a story, let it come, let it go . . ." often used by storytellers in West Africa, or "A great while ago, when the world was full of wonders . .", perhaps "A long time ago, and yet perhaps it wasn't such a long time ago, there lived . . ." and here's a nice one for a magical nature story . . . "Back in the time when animals still talked . . . Squirrel Nutkin sat up in the pine tree, eating pine seeds for breakfast and chattered to Crow. . ." . Continue around the circle, allowing each person to tie on the blindfold, pick an object and continue the story until you feel the story is complete.
You may want to write down the story and ask each person to illustrate their part of the story, collect the pages and bind them together into a book.
Don't have time to make finger puppets?
www.lucuma.com has some great hand knit ones.
Why the alligator? I live in Florida!
Two fun baskets with lids. You could collect little objects from craft
and thrift shops for your story- telling basket. Of course it doesn't
need to be this fancy, I just wanted to share some treasures with you!
The bear finger puppet pattern can be found in the book
"Journey Through Autumn" available on the book/resource page.