How to make stories lively and interesting for children

Have you tried everything to get your child interested in reading? Is your child, like mine, more interested in doing, rather than seeing or listening? Take heart, here an idea you can try yet. Have you tried turning your story time into activity time?

Story Time as Activity Time

Books, when combined with activities, go much beyond being a book – the stories actually come alive for your child, making the characters seem real and exciting. Activities inspired by books help your child connect to the stories. Children who love books will of course enjoy the excitement and creativity this brings. More importantly, this is an excellent way to engage children not yet bitten by the book bug. Once your child is hooked, you can slip in the story as part of your play.

The best part about story-inspired activities? These are simple common sense ideas that you can try at home with whatever resources you find handy around the house. The idea is not to create an intricate piece of art or use expensive materials and props. Rather, it is to have fun and bond with your child while you get them interested in the world of books. What’s more, since you’re thinking them up for yourself, you can tailor the activities to fit your child’s interests and skills.

Consider the simple yet brilliant idea in the picture above. A mother reads aloud Brown Bear, Brown Bear, and What Do You See? To her toddler as a large brown bear looks on. The excitement and curiosity on the child’s face is unmistakable!

Ideas for Story time Activities

If you find thinking up your own activities a challenge, just search and you’ll find lots of ideas online. Here are a few to get you started.

1. Use your child’s toys to recreate story characters and settings. A house can be made from Lego, dolls and stuffed animals can double up as story characters.

2. If you have more time on hand, create simple puppets for characters in the book. Children will enjoy working on the craft and you can reuse it later for storytelling or role-play. Draw or print characters from the book. Attach them to ice-cream sticks to make stick puppets or to envelopes to make hand puppets. In the picture above, we’ve attached paper cut-outs to building blocks to make them stand on their own. Children in our sessions had great fun narrating the story using these figures.

4. Bake your own cake or biscuits as you read ‘The Gingerbread Man’ or any other story about baking.

The ideas are limitless. All you need is to make the time and be patient. Your child will take to stories eventually.

Also read more about: Activities and books for a growing infant, A list of books and activities for a growing toddler, Top 5 Books To Read At Bedtime, Children’s Books For 6 Months + Child, Mom star Neha’s Fab Toddler Book & Music Picks

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