Co-creating Story Pictures

Mama bird is flying home to feed her babies. She has lots of babies and is really tired! She does not like the clouds and the wind. She is flying from the apple tree where she found worms to her nesting tree.

R. age 3.8

This week I have been working with prekindergarten children on creating stories. I wondered what would happen if we co-created the materials for a picture story together: would it include richer details? We were building on their recent interest in birds and bird families and after lots of read alouds, discussions and plenty of time using loose parts I wanted to try this approach for storytelling. 
Materials:glue stickscissorspaint colour sampleswhite paper
Method:1:1 with a eductor The chid is sharing story ideas, with the educator scaffolding the child. The child is making all of the decisions, adding the glue and placing the details onto the paper. The only requirement is that the child include at least one bird in the story.
Steps:Using paint colour samples cut out elements for their story such as a bird or bird family and then continue to develop the story adding interesting details as per the child's request, such as a tree, house, flower, nest or bird house.
As the children created the story they glued the pictures onto the paper. They continued to co-create with me until the story ended. Many of the children have returned to the "story table" to create a new bird story the next day. It has been a lot of fun and I continue to be amazed by their imagination and how articulate they are.