I have said many times in the past that I am no expert in parenting. I just try to do what it is that I think is best for my children and I like to find fun ways to try and help my children to master needed skills, but that is just the same thing that every parent does. When the lovely ladies at Sell It Baby sent me some of Rory's Story Cubes to play with I was really excited. These Story Cubes are a new way to inspire creative thinking in well anyone that uses them! There are nine cubes which each have a different image printed on each side, so there are 54 images in total. Some clever so and so has worked out that means that there are over 10 million possible combinations to be used in each story which just confuses me so I am not going to think about that!
When they arrived in the post, Baby Boy was excited as ever. I swear one day when Baby Boy has a house of his own and he gets nothing but bills he is going to really be confused! We opened the box and before I could even read any of the information that came with it Baby Boy was looking at the pictures on the cubes. I explained to him that the pictures were to help him to tell me a story about what he could see in the pictures. I know that they are meant for children aged 6+ but I figured as I was sitting with him it would be okay!
"Once upon a time" Baby Boy started "there was a Pizza Man who had a key..." I am not sure where the Pizza Man came from, but he had seen the key on one of the squares. He went on explaining his story to me and I was actually really impressed with his imagination and story telling skills! It was my turn next and I told a story weaving in the images that we were looking at. Baby Boy was an attentive audience and we both had a great time working out stories together, taking turns and using as many of the images as possible.
When Top Ender got a chance to play with them she told me how that they were just the sort of things that she would like her teachers to use because it would help her write better stories because she would be able to see the beginning and middle and the end. We have played with them several times now and I have been asking Top Ender to use the cubes herself and to write stories down in her Mummy Homework Book (to try and help her to improve her handwriting and spelling without resorting to sitting and writing lines) and so far the stories that she is coming up with are fantastic!
The cubes I think are a fantastic buy, not just because of the creative skills that they are going to develop but also because of the amount of fun that we have all had playing with them. Daddy and I have had an evening playing with the cubes, coming up with silly stories that have made us both laugh and I think that there are a lot more games that we could come up with given some time!
