How to Make Story Cards to Rev Up Imagination

Now that creative writing has been introduced into the school curriculum, I’m trying to help Miss T rev up her imagination so that writing stories will come more easily to her. Toward that end, I made story cards for a game we can play together.

You pick up three cards from a stack, images face down, and tell a story, based on the random images you draw.

Make the Story Cards

Materials Needed:

• 12-X12-inch colored cardstock
• Magazine cutouts or web printouts
• Paper cutter
• Small, sharp scissors
• Glue stick

Cut cardstock into quarters, so each card is a 6X6-inch square. This is a nice size to handle and big enough to ensure pictures pop.

Select bold, sharp images of a good size to fill cards. Cut out backgrounds; you don’t want the images to pre-suggest a story. Glue images, one per card.

Grandma’s Tip:

Before recycling magazines, tear out interesting images and save them in a folder, ready to use for various projects, such as making kid-authored books and simple puppets.

Story Cards Game Play

Turn the cards face down and have each participant draw three cards. Then take turns telling a story based on the images. Kids may need a few minutes to gather their thoughts.

It doesn’t matter if the story isn’t polished or exciting–the point is to start the ideas flowing and exercise the creative mind.

Each child can tell their own separate story or build on another child’s story. If the child seems stumped, you can help. Look at the images with them. What do they suggest? Give the child a few ideas to get them started.

While the story is being told, you can ask questions to help the child build in more details to stretch their imagination.

Story Ideas

Here are some examples, to start:

• A key: could be a key to someone’s heart, a key to a car, a key to unlock a mystery
• Candlelight: can summon up a magic spell, express a nighttime escapade, or kickstart a story about a sudden power outage
• Corn: could inspire a Jack In the Beanstalk story, a popcorn popper that keeps popping nonstop, or corn kernels that turn into teeth
• Shoe: a magic shoe to take you around the world, shoes that come alive at night when everyone is sleeping, or start a modern-day Cinderella story
• Mittens: magic mittens that allow you to play any instrument like a virtuoso, an updated Three Little Kittens story, or a world where winter lasts forever
• Flower: how to save the last flower in the world, flower petals instead of breadcrumbs for a Hansel and Gretel story, or a hunt for a flower to win a princess

Story Cards with Faces

Pictures of expressive faces can also inspire stories. You can create a separate game just around faces or mix them in with the other cards.

A Shameless Bribe

It occurred to me that, after playing with the story cards once or twice, this game may seem suspiciously like schoolwork.

So, I announced that we would have an ice cream party upon completion of 20 story card rounds. We did two on Saturday and two on Sunday. Twenty seems like a good number. The goal shouldn’t be too achievable; yet not so distant to seem impossible.

I’m thinking of the kind of party with varieties of ice cream, dessert sauces, aerosol whipped cream, sprinkles, toasted nuts, bananas, and more…. Grandma is quite focused on nutritious snacks–it’s usually fruit and cheese, a panini sandwich; PB&J with milk–so an ice cream party is a big deal.

What Children Learn from this Activity

• How to use their imagination to create a story
• How to connect ideas as they link one image to another, to make a coherent whole

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