story starters

I have a confession.  Most of the time, I hate playing pretend with my kids.
I know.  I'm terrible.  I can hear their little imaginations being crushed as I type these words.

Here's the thing.  No one ever wants to do my ideas!!  About 20 times every day Eloise says, "Okay, guys what do you want to play, sing, or do?"  No matter what I suggest we always end up with a variation on roughly 5 different scenarios created by Eloise.  The scenarios have changed throughout the years but not before they are done to death.

My ideas are always something like, "Let's pretend Mommy has fallen into a deep, deep sleep on the couch and there is only one secret word that will wake her up--what is it?"  Or maybe, "Mommy is at the doctor's office in a deep, deep sleep and the doctor is trying to figure out what is wrong with her."  Or even, "We are all in a contest called the 'Deep, Deep Sleep Contest'--do you think you can beat Mommy?"

A couple of years ago my friend sent me a post she had come across on another blog.  I loved the idea and thought the day would come when it would be perfect for Eloise and even Harriet.  The author was in a similar pretend play rut so she came up with oodles of ideas to start different stories.  She printed them all out and and made a cute little game out of them.  You take turns drawing a story starter and let your imaginations run wild acting it out however you choose.

We did the same thing over the weekend and it was a huge success.  It is fun to pretend again!

You can make up your own ideas to suit your family's interests or genders and ages, but check out these downloadable ones courtesy of Penny Carnival.  Just reading them is kind of entertaining.  I'm sure we'll need to replenish ideas after a bit, but for now the creative juices are definitely flowing.

cutting out the story starters

getting ready to play

"one of you is a monkey the other is a 

giraffe.  you live at the zoo.  the zookeeper

drops his keys in your cage so 

now you can get out!"

"you are two dogs locked in a cage

at the animal shelter, waiting to 

be adopted"

"you look up in the sky and realize the rainbow

has lost all of it's colors.  how will you help the

 rainbow get it's colors back?"

I'm actually not sure which one they are doing here 

so I'll just say, 

"you are two girls taking a pretend nap on a gnarly

princess blanket.  your mom is yelling at you to 

hurry up because you are going to be late

for school.  you are both wearing tap shoes"