Materials
Small toy people (at least as many as the number of children plus teacher) twice as many pieces of toy furniture, animals, or any other small toys
Instructions
1. Gather the children in a circle.
2. Lay out all the people, furniture, animals, and so on in the center of the circle.
3. Ask each child to pick one toy person and two of any of the other objects. The children keep their items in front of them.
4. Say, "I will start our story, and I need everyone to take a turn and help out." Start by taking your toy person and making up one or two sentences about it. Then place it in the middle of the circle.
5. Ask the child next to you to tell something about her toy person, and then add it to the middle of the circle.
6. Go around the circle letting each child take a turn.
7. After everyone has a turn, choose one of your other objects and start a story about it as you add it to the middle of the circle. For example, "Once upon a time, there was a group of people sitting together when suddenly, a small dog (add this to the circle) ran up and sat down right in the middle of everyone."8. Then ask the child sitting next to you what happened next. Ask her to add one of her pieces and tell a couple more sentences.
9. Continue going around the circle until all the objects are in the middle. Then say, "The end!"
