Story Starters

Teachers of writing often use one line sentences, like what I did on my summer vacation, to give children a jump-start to writing. This can also be helpful in visual art. I don't mean that you should have your child draw a picture of what they did on their summer vacation. I mean that you could give them a visual jump-start.

When I was teaching, I loved to use children's stories as motivators. My favorite book was one that I rescued from the library discarded books. It was called "The Line Sophie Drew". A very old book, probably out of print as I haven't been able to find a source or copy, the story was about a little girl who drew a line on a page and on each page someone is trying to guess what it is that she is going to draw from the line. It ends with the unanswered question. After reading this book and discussing the ideas, I would give children a piece of paper with a line on it and have them draw a picture from the line. The results were always very interesting and surprisingly different from each other. This works well with children around 4 or 5 or older.

Children also love stickers. Using stickers as a story starter for drawing is also a great idea.
This works best with stickers that are characters or objects. Have the child place one on a blank piece of paper. Ask them where the character is. When I used to ask my youngest child Zach this, he would answer "On the paper. " He was always very literal. I would then say in your imagination is the robot (We'll use this for clarity.) inside or outside. If he said outside. I would say is it sunny or rainy outside. How do I know? What does it look like where he is? Is he alone? I think you get the idea. Leave the questions open ended, letting the child decide what is the correct answer. Often after a couple of questions the child knows exactly what they want the picture to look like. These drawings often led to stories about the experiences of the character which I would write down as they told them.

Other ideas for story starters:

• A circle on a paper...What could it be?
• A rubber stamp that the child uses before putting crayon or marker to paper.
• A piece of torn paper glued on to a piece of paper. What does it look like?

These are just a few that I used. I'm sure that you can think of many more. If you try any of these or some of your own let me know. I would love to know how this idea works for you.

Quote for today: "Too often we give children answers to remember rather that problems to solve." - Roger Lewin