5 classroom activities you can develop from storytelling

Storytelling enhances learning by transforming abstract information into engaging, memorable narratives that boost retention.

Storytelling is considered one of the best educational methods to develop students metacognitive awareness, hence help them to learn faster, remember more effectively and improve overall personal wellbeing.

Here are 5 classroom activities you can develop from storytelling:

1 - Sequencing

Stories are perfect for sequencing activities. These can be used to organize information, actions and events in a logical way and help retain specific vocabulary.

Choose a book which presents a variety of characters belonging to the same category (e.g. farm animals - in The Very Busy Spider) or the steps of a process (e.g. Mr Wolf's Pancackes) and make students sequence them either orally (focus on speaking), in writing (focus on writing "word level") or by drawing.

2 - Picture dictation

Focus on the vocabulary you wish students to remember. Tell students you are going to say words relating to the story and they need to draw them. A good example of this activity could be offered by food vocabulary featured in The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. Picture dictations focus on listening for specific information and show students' understanding, as information (words) is transformed into visual form.

3 - Sorting

Sorting helps students organize information into meaningful groups. These can be lexical groups (e.g. adjectives), grammar groups (e.g. actions, as in From Head to Toe by Eric Carle) or cross-curricular groups (e.g. animal classifications as in The Mixed Up Chameleon by Eric Carle). The focus of a sorting activity is to remember or acquire vocabulary.

4 - Matching

If you wish to include some reading and writing into your lesson plan, matching is a perfect activity. It can be "words only" or "words and drawings", depending on the level of students literacy. The focus of a matching activity is to develop observation skills and understand meaning. Have a look at a sample matching activity we prepared in our The Very Busy Spider lesson plan!

5 - Class survey

Organizing a class survey focuses on speaking and listening and can be a great team work exercise. It is also a good opportunity to explain to children how voting works. You can prepare a ballot box and a voting station to provide a real context to this type of exercise. After votes are cast, students need to listen actively and note down the exact amount of votes received by each option. Then, they need to record the information on a chart. Older students can be organized in groups or pairs and work independently from the teacher.

You can run surveys on many different topics:

• who is the best character in the story (e.g. in Little Red Riding Hood)

• predicting the ending of the story

• cast a vote on a moral issue

Storytelling as a teaching method

Storytelling is a powerful, versatile teaching method which enhances engagement, boosts retention of information and creates an emotional connection with students. In a world dominated by technology, developing higher order cognitive skills is an advantage not to be overlooked.

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