story stones

Our recent trip to the Rangitata river mouth meant that we could finally make some of these story stones (I've been wanting to for a while0. They're a great idea for fostering creativity, language development and thinking skills.

Using these, children associate imagination and illustrations. They're perfect for our wee man who starts school in Feburary and for our girl who are both great 'talkers'.

The idea is to pull one stone out at a time and make up a story using the images as prompts. Kids ( and parents) do this until the story reaches its natural conclusion. I have always loved storytelling. I like the idea of helping children visualize a story- instead of waiting for a tv show to do it for them!). 

My step dad read the Hobbit to me when I was 10. I still remember how my Gollum and Bilbo looked and I was fascinated when the films came out. I got to see how someone else had imagined them and how they compared to mine. I absolutely LOVE the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings films and I think this and my memories of being read to are part of the reasons why.

Here's our stones. We made up 15 with me drawing the the kids doing the painting. Nana Wellington ( my mum) has made us a few drawstring bags, one of these will be perfect to store them in.

they painted and when dry I added details

all done!

my faves, love M's ladybird and T's growly bear