Weekly Activity

Our activities section suggests things for you to do with your children. Most of these will have educational value, which we'll point out. However, the main idea is just to have fun with them. We'll also suggest ways you can extend them.

Making Stories From Comic Strips

Many children who don't actually much like writing really love telling stories.

Here's an idea to encourage them to do that without getting too bogged down in putting lots of words on paper. Later on, as they get better at actual writing, some of the skills and concepts - such as sequencing events, understanding cause and effect, and seeing things from someone else's point of view - they learn doing this activity will be of real use to them.

The idea is to use existing comic strips to spark off ideas for new stories. You'll need to prepare the comic strips before you get your child involved.

What You Need:

  • Comic strips cut from newspapers (stick them onto card to make them more durable - if you really want them to last, cover them with tacky-back plastic).

  • White-out fluid, such as Tippex.

What To Do:

White out the speech and word balloons, and the captions, in some of the comic strips. For the more advanced version of this game, you might want to cut the comics up into individual frames.

Get your child to choose a picture, or sequence of pictures. Talk about what's going on in it.

Here are some questions you could ask:

  • What are the people doing?

  • What are they saying?

  • What are they thinking about?

  • What's going to happen next?

  • Why do you think that?

  • Is that the end of the story?

As you work out what's happening in the story, lay down more cards. You might want to go through the story more than once - you'll find it changes each time. Some details will probably be lost, and others added.

It's a good idea to ask your child why they think their ideas are right. However, too much probing can slow down the story-telling and make it boring. It may also start to make it feel like the activity is a piece of school work, instead of fun. Remember, the idea is to enjoy yourselves!

Here are some ways you could extend this idea:

  • Record the story on cassette. You could even make sound effects.

  • Number the frames (so you know which order they go in) and photocopy them. Stick them down on paper, so you have a permanent record of the story. Your child might like to colour them in.

  • Write the story down. Your child can do this themselves, or you could act as their scribe. You could combine this idea with the previous one, to make a picture book.

  • Make a card game from the pictures. Shuffle and deal the 'cards'. Each person takes turns to put a card down, and has to carry the story on, including what happens. A commercial version of this game - aimed at adults (but simple enough to be played by children), and in various genres such as science fiction, fantasy and detective - is available from the Magellanica Company.

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