Today’s play-of-the-day is about one of my favorite activities: story telling. In the United States it’s Presidents’ Day, in some parts of Canada it’s Family Day. Story telling is great for both places and everywhere else in the world.
A famous story about George Washington is the one about cutting down the cherry tree. It’s often told to children to encourage them to be honest.
Abraham Lincoln was renowned as a story-teller, one of the best in the nation. His stories often poked fun at himself and he used the power of stories and humor to great advantage.
In both cases, stories are effective and enduring. In a quote from Psychology Today “Telling stories is the best way to teach, persuade, and even understand ourselves.” Stories link us to each other and to history.
To celebrate the day, no matter where on the planet your family is, enjoy some story time together. You do not need to look for a book, you can make up a story. In case your imagination needs a little help, randomly find any two objects that are at hand. They might be two things on the table, such as a spoon and piece of paper. Using the familiar pattern of a problem to solve, maybe the spoon wants to say something and is trying to write but the words don’t show up. The paper tells the spoon it needs to be a pen because pens have ink. The spoon uses some juice for ink and writes Hello. Anything can be used in a story.
Kids love to think of stories and will sort of use the structure of a beginning, a middle, and an end. Their stories may have a problem and solution. Sometimes the stories are so elaborate that the beginning doesn’t connect to the end, but the parts are there. Imagination makes use of dinosaurs or fairies, talking animals or super heroes.
What stories can you and your child tell today?