30+ Best Storytelling Activities to Enjoy With Your Kids

In my opinion, storytelling is the interactive art of narrating stories, which also has the power to pave the way for our kids to develop a lifelong love for stories, books, and reading.

I have noticed that kids can develop their language and listening abilities through storytelling, which also helps them foster their creativity and imagination 💭 by allowing them to think of ideas and dream of new worlds.

Storytelling Activities for Your Kids

I recommend making storytelling a fun and lively experience for your kids by including hands-on and interactive activities for them to learn from and enjoy. 😊 You’re at the right place if you’re in search of activities for your kids.

We can tell stories in various ways apart from the usual oral recitation and written storytelling methods we have grown up with through these activities.

In this blog post, I have compiled a list of activities you can make use of to make ordinary storytelling sessions entertaining for your kids.

Storytelling with Storybooks

I believe the best way to introduce your little ones into the world of storytelling is by gradually getting them used to it by having storytelling sessions at home.

You can choose storybooks 📖 to read aloud with your kids and engage them using gestures and voice tones to provide a fun storytelling experience. 

I have found that storytelling sessions are a perfect way for our kids to have an immersive and enjoyable experience of discovering new worlds through stories.

If you have any book recommendations for kids, please leave them in the comment section for others to discover.

Storytelling with Prompts Jar

You can fill a jar with small pieces of paper containing random words, sentences, and phrases as prompts for your kids to make stories. They can then randomly choose a slip from the jar 🫙 and include the chosen prompt to tell creative and exciting stories.

Pro Tip:

I suggest helping your kids by asking them more questions to prompt them when they’re stuck or unsure about how to continue.

Storytelling with Drawn Maps

My son enjoyed storytelling with some maps of different places.

Get your kids to design, draw, and paint maps 🗺️ of imaginary places – cities and towns complete with schools, hospitals, parks, and libraries with fun names.

Encourage your kids to tell stories using these drawn maps of imaginary places and incorporate the lives of the people living there and the adventures that take place.

Storytelling with Complete the Story Game

Turn storytelling into a fun and interactive group activity with kids collaborating and contributing to creating a story 📖 together – a fun activity that my son’s kindergarten class did a few years ago.

One person can start with the story’s introduction with one to two sentences, and the next person adds a few more sentences to continue the story.

This continues until all kids in the group have contributed to the story with their sentences, which helps them improve their listening skills and the ability to think of ideas on the spot.

Storytelling with Toys

Looking back, I remember how much my son always enjoyed storytelling activities with his play toys.

Let your kids bring out their box of play toys 🧸 – Lego bricks and blocks, animals, soft toys, dolls, miniatures, etc., and they can use them to narrate creative stories.

This activity allows kids to use the everyday toys they play with and create magical worlds.

Storytelling with Live Events

I recommend taking your kids to live storytelling sessions conducted by authors or storytellers 📚 in libraries and public spaces, where they perform stories from children’s storybooks for kids to participate in an interactive storytelling experience by diverse people.

Storytelling with Names

What’s in a name? – A fun storytelling activity my son’s class did in kindergarten to break the ice 🧊 between kids and encourage them to listen to others.

Make kids sit in a circle and ask each of them to share the story behind their name – the meaning and how their parents chose that particular name for them. 

Pro Tip:

You can make this activity more fun by asking your kids to share an imaginative story where the main character has their name.

Storytelling with Role-Play

In my opinion – role-playing is an efficient and engaging way to get your kids involved in a story and exhibit their acting abilities while doing so.

Start by reading a story with your kids from a book of choice and help them understand the story of the said book. Kids can choose different characters to role-play 🎭 and retell the story using their acting skills.

Pro Tip:

Sometimes, when I have the time and energy, I let kids use simple costumes and props for their roles.

Storytelling with Everyday Objects

Let your kids visualize and create stories by giving life to everyday objects they see around them, like chairs, mugs, cutlery, and pens. Prompt them with questions❓to help them form the story with the everyday objects as their characters.

My son had a lot of fun creating and visualizing exciting stories with random things around him with his imagination.

Storytelling with Upcycled Story Magnets

You can upcycle old storybooks and magazines into fun story magnets 🧲 that your kids will love. Cut some pictures from the pages, paste them onto thick paper, and glue magnet pieces to the back.

You can get your kids to arrange these magnets on the refrigerator and tell stories using the upcycled magnets as a hands-on and exciting storytelling activity.

Pro Tip:

I also made upcycled magnets using my son’s drawings, which we decorated the refrigerator with after the activity.

Storytelling with Family Photographs

I found a fun activity to bring out your old family photographs 📷 kept away in albums by using them for storytelling – true to the proverb, and a picture is worth a thousand words.

Let your kids choose the photographs they like to create stories for each, using the people and the backgrounds as the base of the stories they imagine.

Storytelling with a Group Drawing Game

My son did this activity in kindergarten, and everyone had so much fun!

First, kids draw pictures and create stories as a fun group storytelling activity to develop their interpretation abilities.

Arrange kids in a circle and hand out sheets of paper to draw and color pictures 🖼️ they like. Kids can exchange their drawings amongst the group and think of a story to accompany the drawing they got.

Storytelling with Coloring Paper Cut-Outs

My son, who enjoys coloring, loved doing this activity for storytelling sessions, which led me to notice that coloring activities have a calming effect on kids.

You can print outlines of various images on paper – people, buildings, animals, birds, etc. Kids can color them 🖍️ with crayons or colored pencils, cut, arrange, and set them on the table to tell their stories.

Pro Tip:

We repurpose these paper cut-outs afterward to make bookmarks and decorations by punching a hole and tying a ribbon.

Storytelling with Story Boxes

You can fill empty cardboard boxes 📦 with a mix of random objects, photographs, Lego blocks and bricks, toys, and some slips of paper with random words, sentences, and phrases. 

Let your kids look through these boxes and try to tell a story by including the different contents of the boxes. 

Pro Tip:

I recommend you alter the contents of the boxes every time for your kids to come up with new kinds of stories.

Storytelling with Prompt Cards

I found prompt cards helpful for my son to create different stories.

You can make a stack of paper cards with various creative prompts 💡 for your kids to work with and create fun stories.

Shuffle the prompt cards for them to pick a card from and encourage them to try to tell stories with the given prompts.

Storytelling with Drawings

“I sometimes think there is nothing as delightful as drawing.” – Vincent van Gogh.

I wholeheartedly agree with this quote and found a fun way to include my son’s love for drawing in storytelling activities. 

You can give your kids blank sheets of paper, let them pick up their pencils and crayons, and express their creativity and artistic skills by drawing and coloring ✍🏼 different things they like. 

You can include their colorful and creative drawings as prompts for them to weave creative stories centered around their art.

Storytelling with Sentences

My son loved doing this activity with various sets of sentences.

Give your kids four to five random and ordinary sentences to work with to create enchanting stories by including all of them. 

I realized that my son learned to transform these simple sentences into creative and out-of-the-box stories with this simple activity.

Storytelling with Story Cubes

I love the idea of story cubes, which are similar to dice, have images on each side, and can be used in numerous ways to make storytelling exciting.

I recommend you draw or print an outline template of a cube and let kids draw and color any random images on each side – people, objects, buildings, and settings. Cut along and glue them to form a 3D cube. 

Kids can roll the cube and tell stories based on the images on the face-up side of the cube.

Storytelling with Conversational Questions

I found that engaging in conversations with your kids where you ask them questions ⁉️ can help them create their own stories, but with a little bit of help.

Your conversations can help your kids in storytelling – where they work on the plot by finding answers to your questions about the characters, settings, and situations.

Storytelling with Retelling Exercises

A simple way, I would say, to help your kids improve their memory and understanding capacity is to make them recollect and retell a story from their memory.

I would suggest reading a story with them from their favorite book and working through the story for them to understand the gist. They can make notes on paper and encourage your kids to recollect 💭 the story.

Pro Tip:

I would prompt my son with questions along the way to help make the task easier.

Storytelling with Story Charts and Dice 

You can make this simple chart for your kids to find inspiration for their stories.

Divide a sheet of paper into columns for six sets of different story elements – characters (dogs, ghosts, or people, etc.), settings (school, home, or the beach, etc.), and problems (losing a toy or stuck in a lift, etc.), and draw images to represent these story elements visually. 

Kids can roll a dice 🎲 and work with the element sets matching the number on the face side-up of the dice to create a story.

Storytelling with Finger Puppets

You can make storytelling more engaging with finger puppets made by your kids as a craft and storytelling activity.

Kids can make a few finger puppets of different characters, objects, and so on with colored sheets of paper and a marker to add details, and you’re to stage a storytelling puppet show.

Pro Tip:

You can make some paper loops for the puppets to stay in their fingers.

Storytelling with Wooden Spoon Puppets

If you have a few unused wooden spoons at home, you can repurpose them into simple and colorful puppets.

Transform these wooden spoons into character puppets by letting your kids paint them and add other details with markers to create fun spoon puppets for them to tell stories with.

Pro Tip:

We sometimes decorate the spoons with stickers, glitters, and paper shapes to elevate the puppets, which you can try, too.

Storytelling with Story Stones

I found inspiration from my friend who did this with her daughter, and as they say, every stone has a story to tell.

You can make story stones at home by choosing stones with smooth surfaces from the garden. Your kids can decorate them by painting, sticking paper cut-outs, or stickers of different objects and characters to use as inspiration for their stories.

Storytelling with Story Spin the Wheel

 I discovered that storytelling activities become more exciting when story spin wheels ☸️ are involved, which my son loves.

You can create simple story spin wheels with thick cardboard circles divided into many sections. Draw an object in these sections, like a horse, flower, park, girl, cow, cake, and so on, at random.

To spin the circle, you can attach a small paper arrow to a pin in the middle, and your kids can create stories with the picture on the section the paper arrow stops on.

Pro Tip:

You can let your kids paint and decorate the spinning wheels with paints before you draw the objects.

Storytelling with Story Cards

My son enjoyed telling stories with story image cards.

You can cut sheets of paper into square cards and divide them into three sets for the story elements – characters, settings, and problems. Draw different images on the square cards 🎴 according to the story element categories.

Then, arrange the three sets of element cards in stacks for kids to pick one element from each of these sets to use as prompts for their stories.

Storytelling with Ice Cream Stick Puppets

My son and I enjoyed this craft and storytelling activity with ice cream sticks to make colorful puppets.

First, you can draw or print different objects, animals, characters, buildings, etc., on thick sheets of paper. Glue them to the tops of ice cream sticks to make adorable puppets for a fun storytelling experience that I guarantee your kids will love.

Pro Tip:

I laminated the puppets to use them over and over again.

Storytelling with Story Charts 

My son enjoyed storytelling with a story chart 📄 to create different story ideas.

Make a story chart by dividing a paper into columns for different story elements – characters (dogs, ghosts, or people, etc.), settings (school, home, or the beach, etc.), and situations (losing a toy or stuck in a lift, etc.), and draw images under each of these story elements to serve as prompts for kids to use.

Guide your kids to find inspiration from the combination of the drawn story elements from the columns to create fun stories to tell.

Conclusion

I’ve noticed that these storytelling activities helped my son become more interactive and expressive, and my toddler daughter, who’s barely two, is just waiting to begin her journey with stories. 

I hope you enjoyed reading these fun storytelling activities that I put together that can keep your kids engaged and entertained.

Please leave a comment below if you have anything more to share or any questions you want me to answer – I would love to hear more of your thoughts. ❤️