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Wednesday, March 7, 2007

Story Starters

Recently a friend introduced me and my girls to Story Starters by Karen Andreola. It's a fabulous book! " A story starter suspends a student in the middle of a predicament. He is then faced with the question, "What happens next?" This is his cue to expand and embellish the story however he wants. He learns to write freely, with imagination and zest-and with far more boldness than he may be accustomed to. To spark even more curiousity, each story is illustrated with one or more engaging 19th century pictures."

We decided to let our four oldest girls do this together. They were given their first Story Starter about a week before Valentine's Day. Then we all got together on Valentine's Day for the readings. I think the moms enjoyed hearing the stories more than the girls! They were all so good and so incredibly different.

Today we met at the park for a picnic lunch and the second reading. Once again the girls surprised us with their vivid imaginations and creative writing. Even my reluctant writer is beginning to get excited about writing these stories. I plan on keeping all of the stories and compiling a little book when they're finished. It's nice when learning can be so much fun-and even nicer when you can share it with friends.

2 comments:

Wren said...

We had such a great time also. We will have to come back once a month (at least) just to keep this up. Send me some of the pictures.
Samantha

Christina said...

How fun! You keep sharing these kind of stories and I might just have to move there! ;)