Try This: Make a Story from Random Photos!

Today I pulled some random photos from my computer to see if I could make a story out of them. Here's what I came up with:

"Maybe I ought to go out today," she thought. "The sun is out, and it's been such a long time."

She pushed open the door and crept down the stairs...

People immediately freaked out and started waving their arms and snapping pictures.

"Did you see that?" said a rock. "Yeah," said a gull. "Crazy. She hasn't been out in years."

"Wow," said the blue jay. "I've got to go tell everyone. They'll never believe it!"

"Whatever," said the rocks. "We've seen it all. I mean really. Who cares?"

Okay, so it's pretty basic - but you get the idea. You could even crop parts out of your photos to use the bits you want. Can you make one? Maybe snap pictures with your phone on the way home and see what you get!

New Free Printable Story Sheet!

Kids have such an incredible innate sense of story. It never ceases to amaze me.

And, it's well known that stories are like a flight simulator for the brain. Kids, of course, already understand this.

Sometimes, I make books with kids. We take a few pieces of paper, fold em in half, staple, and voila - a book.

Just the notion of writing a story induces a volcanic explosion of ideas, from titles to characters to settings and crazy plots. One young author did a story entitled, "What Does a Cat Do When No One is Looking?"

Recently, I've started writing a set of prompts on the pages. They follow a very simple progression that gets you through a story.

Simple boundaries and prompts give kids just enough to work with that they can freely generate ideas, but come out with something they recognize and can share. That feeling of connection that comes from making something someone else will read is huge.

So, I've made a Free Printable Story Page for you. It has the same prompts in it that I use when making books, in a handy printable one-page format!

Try it yourself, or give it to someone you like. And, say, if you want to make it into a book, you can always cut this up, paste the pieces to sheets of paper, and add illustrations.

Enjoy!