A New Way To Tell Bedtime Stories

For years we struggled with a chaotic (at best) bedtime situation here, but over the last year or two I have worked to get a bedtime routine established that has finally helped me not hate the end of each day! One of my children (my kindergartener) loves for me to sing Old MacDonald Had a Farm with him while tucking him in. It helps that I do pretty good animal noises. I always leave it up to the child to fill in the blank of what animal we are singing about, and sometimes they even come up with non-animal things like cars, tractors, drinks, and so forth. Standard favorites include Old Mac had a MOM, and MOM gives a kiss-kiss here and a kiss-kiss there. We also use their names and I tickled them and sing that they giggle-giggle here, giggle-giggle there. My last verse is usually that Old Mac had a bed, with a (snore sound) here and a (sigh sound) there, while laying my head over onto my hands like a pillow. They love it.

Now my 4 year old has started asking for a story after we sing, but he wants me to make up a story, not read one. I have started doing a story that includes his input and he really loves it so I thought I would share about it here to help spark other ideas. What I do is pause at certain parts and let him tell the next bit, and build on whatever he throws in. Here's how last night's story went:



Me: Once upon a time there was a person named....

Doodles: Mom!

Me: And she had a child named....

Doodles: Doodle!

Me: And he had beautiful smiley eyes and loved to cuddle. One day they went to a.....

Doodles: Grocery store!

Me: So that they could....

Doodles: Buy groceries!

Me: So first Mom asked Doodles, "Would you like to sit in the cart or walk next to me?" and he said.....

Doodles: Sit in the cart!

Me: So he sat in the cart right up close to his mom.

And it just kind of continues like that, a really dull little story about us going through the store, what we got, and ends with us going through the check out and buying some M&Ms for him to eat on the way home (which he was so thrilled about that you would have thought it really happened!). His off-the-wall answers give the stories a real Mad Libs feel. I always end the story with a storybookish "The End" because he seems to really like that.

I have never thought of myself as very good at making up stories, but this technique has been very fun for both me and my little guy. Try it!