Story Dice

Have I mentioned how much my son loves Star Wars? These days he seems to be nothing short of obsessed. To capitalize on his newfound interest, I decided to help him write his own Star Wars adventures. To make this less like a writing exercise and more like a game, I took cues from Education.com’s Fairy Tale Dice activity.

I used Styrofoam cubes purchased from a local craft store, covered them in construction paper, and added stickers from a Star Wars Lego sticker book. While I made a total of six dice, fewer would work just as well. You want to have at least three though:

1.      One with six different characters.

2.      One with six verbs (e.g., fights, rescues, captures, escapes, flies, and helps).

3.      Others can have enemies, places, or adjectives.

I color-coded my blocks (good guys and ships are white, bad guys and their vehicles are brown, and verbs are green). Once your dice are made, print some handwriting paper (I like the printable handwriting papers on DonnaYoung.com).

Now it’s time for your son/daughter to get rolling (forgive the corny pun). As your child rolls the dice, help them weave together the characters, verbs, and places into a story.

I was amazed the first time I ‘played’ this with my son! I wrote on the top of his first page, “In a galaxy far far away.” He kept wanting to roll more and soon had written “Han Solo and a Ewok rescued a rebel trooper from a battle droid.” That is quite possibly the longest sentence I have EVER gotten him to write at home. It was such a beautiful moment I swear I could hear a choir singing “Hallelujah.” Now each time we get out the Star Wars Story Dice, we add one new sentence to his story.

Tip: To make it seem more like a real book, put the pages into a 3-pronged folder.