Story stones

 

D has a fascination with collecting sticks and stones at the moment. After initially trying to discourage his mounting collection I decided I may aswell embrace it and so his story stones were born...

These are very easy to make and I love how portable they are - perfect for slipping in your handbag on a day out. There are a few different ways to use story stones - at the moment we use them as story prompts (so D will "act out" a story based around the stones) but when he's a little older we can try other things - like picking a stone at random and then free-styling a story, until another stone gets added in etc.

At the moment he has 3 main "groups" - Frozen, Peppa and Mr Menv-themed. I love listening to his stories - so far we've had Peppa eating ice-cream with Anna, George swimming with Elsa and Olaf building a sandcastle with Mr Tickle. Story stones are a brilliant way to engage their imagination, whilst getting them to practice language skills without them even realising :)

So if you'd like to make some of your own all you need are:

- some stones

- stickers or images cut out from magazine (or printed off from computer)

- modge podge (or watered down PVA glue)

Choose which image fits best on which stone (this was also a good opportunity to teach D the difference between rough irregularly shaped stones and smooth flat pebbles). Then either stick it directly on the stone if it's a sticker (e.g. our Frozen ones), or stick it on with a layer of the MP/glue if just an image (e.g. the Mr Men ones). Then cover the whole surface with a layer of MP/glue and allow to dry.

That's it.

So simple! But a perfect take-anywhere toy that you can keep adding to whenever you find the right size/shape stones :)