Games as Therapy-- Rory's Story Cubes

Games as Therapy-- Rory's Story Cubes

Objective:

Get our son, TsukiMoon  to increase the number of spoken words he uses.  Also to be able to activate the creative part of himself-- logic we got.

Theory:

Story telling will loosen Boo's rigidity.  Make-believe stories that are built through turn taking, cause TsukiMoon to stretch his ability to think outside-the-box.  He will also create sentences and story building strength in that area.  

He can easily tell you about the recent facts he's learned.  The goal is to help him grow the areas that; use words freely and fluently and stretch is ability to be flexible and creative.  The fiction stories we create as a family might create comprehension of complexity and abstraction of a story, which can then be translated to cognition of others.  A tall order for little cubes.

On The Ground:

I heard long ago that creating stories helped young children learn language.  Starting around 2 or 3 I would make up stories and encouraged TsukiMoon to add to the adventure.  For awhile he like Bear Grylls, all the yarns where based on the character of "Adventure Man."  TsukiMoon never took over the storytelling, always wanting me to do it.  If the epic took at turn he didn't like he would steer me in the direction that he wanted to go, he would never add to the story on his own.

To help teach music theory I would tell Adventure Man stories to the backdrop of classical music.  It became difficult to dream up a new cliffhanger so I would set at feature to the highs and lows set by the music.  It was great way to illustrate the emotion of music to a young child, teach anticipation, and crescendo in music. TsukiMoon would never add or create his own stories, eventually it became exhausting.  He loved it but the well had run dry.

Enter Rory's Story Cubes.

The dice can be used in several ways.  We divide up the dice, on each turn a person throws one dice and adds to the story using the picture on the face of the die as inspiration.  TsukiMoon is older now and can add to a stories.  He is reluctant to start a story and he can be inflexible to the altering interpretations of the pictogram on the faces of the dice.  It is a process

Another way we play is just throw all the dice out on the table at dinner and then pick out one die at a time to wax the story.  There are many benefits to a small family but sometimes the three of us run out of things to talk about around storytelling is a great savior.  It makes it fun to be around the table, telling jokes, and coming up with the next goofy thing the main character does. They are also great when ever waiting for something is involved; food at restaurants, planes, appointments, whatever.

Now will these experiences help TsukiMoon be more open to people?  I don't know.  It can't hurt him and in the meantime we are having fun as a family, and that is worth a lot.