Game on: story cubes

Hello again.  It’s been a while. Building work, junior player being ill rather a lot, family celebrations and even a trip abroad to add to the mix. Lots of living – less writing.

Those of you who’ve read the blog in the past know that there’s a seasonal shift around this time of year.  Autumn evenings: words start to flow.  Spring days: more interest in getting out and doing.

This time round, I’m planning to keep going on the writing. Because even if I’ve not been writing, others have. I’ve still been reading other people’s blogs, and gaining things from them.

But the main reason I write is for myself. I write to think clearly.  I write to enjoy words.  I write to remember things – or work out how I feel about them – or both. And even if the season is changing, these things are still the same.

The game

So: back to some games for now. Our trip abroad included the chance to join some other junior players and try out other games, some familiar, some new.

Here’s something new, that we bought on the plane on the way home: story cubes.

Imagine a small box which has 9 dice inside.  Instead of numbers on the dice, there are little pictures – or pictograms, if you will. 9 dice, 6 sides each = 54 different pictures.

The notion behind story cubes is that they make it easy to tell stories. (And in good travelling tradition, they are easy to pack, and to put away.) So it’s a game, if you will, but also a chance to talk, to imagine, and to tell stories.

The way it works

The pictures are great: imagine snakes, ray guns, toadstools, beans, large and tiny figures together, submarines and so on. The notion is that, with 54 different pictures, you can come up with very varied stories.

Junior player has been reading (or more accurately being read to) a series of stories about a boy spy, solving problems in lots of different countries.  The story cubes worked really well for him to retell bits of those stories that he remembered and liked – as well as new ones he came up with.

The impact

The fun thing is the creative element.  You can refer to the picture on a dice really quickly in your story – or spend a long time on it.  You can take it in turns to add in a new picture – or do all 9 pictures into one story by yourself.

Interestingly, junior player was keen to use the dice once we got home, in place of a bedtime story.  Keen too to get them out to show grandparents, and involve them in telling a story. So hopefully this one will run and run, in the best of game traditions.

My inner English teacher is very happy – particularly as this ties in with a book I bought recently on creative/crafting activities to support kids’ storytelling.  But it might just work well for serving up a little writing practice for the blogger in the family.

Practicalities

The dice are normal weight, and the box seems fairly sturdy, so this is a game that looks like it will last well.

You may also want to know that the lid of the box has a useful magnetic clasp, so it’s easy to get the dice in and out, but the box stays shut when you want it to.

You should know that too much shaking of dice, on a plane, could mean they disappear, so you may want to keep an eye on who’s shaking them.  But you should also know that you can fit the 9 dice quite nicely into the cup indent of a plane tray table, so everyone can see them.

I anticipate this should work well on train journeys too – as long as you are not in the quiet coach.  (Or if you are, maybe you’ll just have to whisper.)

Extension activities

The set we got is Voyages – sold as part of the selection on the plane, though no doubt available elsewhere.  There’s an intro set, and an actions set.  You can combine sets of dice to tell more and more stories.

As far as I can tell, the sets are colour coded, including the outline of the pictures on the dice (our set is in green), so you should be able to tell them apart and get them back into the correct box at the end.

I gather you can also use the website for the company to submit stories you’ve come up with, and share them, which might be good for the future.

If you’re looking to find a set for yourself, they’re called Rory’s Story Cubes.  And if you happen to be on a plane journey soon, and looking for a little something to bring home for your own junior player(s), it may well hit the spot.