Flashcard Storytelling Game

I want to share a game that the girls have been asking for all week.  It reinforces both reading skills and creativity/imagination. All you need is a set of flashcards that have a word on one side and a picture of the object on the other side (I got ours for $1 at Target), or you could make your own with index cards.  Here's how we play..

Place the cards with the picture side down, all over a table.  Each person takes turns picking a card, and reading it before flipping it over to reveal the picture:

 

Once each person has 5 cards (or some other number you pick), go around the room and make up a story with the cards you selected..

Here, E is telling a story about a king who locked up an owl in a prison, but he escaped through the bars.  I don't remember the whole story, or how she integrated the jar and hat, but it was very creative.  We've been doing a lot of read-alouds recently, and we're currently reading Dr. Doolittle, which is how she knows what a prison is.  I've noticed that as the variety of read-aloud stories we go through increases, the girls' imaginative play has become more elaborate.

To my kids, this is a storytelling game, not a reading game, so they get pretty excited about it.  I've found that the learning activities that contain some form of dramatic play and creativity are the most successful ones at our house.

Today, before we cleaned up, we sorted the cards into living and non-living:

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