Story prompts

[Eileen101]

Sorry that this isn't a proper book writing query, but it was the only place I thought was relevant... If not suitable, please let me know and I'll ask for it to be moved.

My DS loves books and being read to. I made a box of story prompts during lockdown - pictures of things he's interested in to make up our own stories. But they're getting a bit repetitive, please could you suggest and new ideas?

So far we have:
Settings - fairy tale woods, a village etc
Characters - the usual fairy tale ones - king, queen, maiden, wizard etc
Dinosaurs
Vehicles
Woodland things - leaves, branches
Woodland animals
Castle bits - drawbridge etc

I do a lot of reading myself (and to the children) but I'm not a natural story writer!

Any ideas to help me out please and make our make believe stories more interesting?

Could you go through a magazine together and cut out pictures of things that might make good prompts? Is he only interested in fairytale things?

You could also have a look online, this Pinterest board has some good ones that might spark up some creative ideas funny pictures for writing prompts

What age is your DS, OP? I might guess from the prompts but what are their favourite stories or reading level?
fairy tales - add dragons, treasure, spells, mirror
Pirates, treasure maps, ships, cannons, mermaids and merman and mer dogs, sea monsters, sharks, islands...s,

smells, dirt, mud, grime, slime the characters have to walk through.
weather - snow, storms, hurricanes, floods, ice, heatwaves,

Ah this is wonderful thank you both! He's just 3, but has excellent concentration and will sit for a long time being read to. He loves rhyming books - Julia Donaldson is a big hit. He loves the Thomas series, meg and mog, the farmyard tales books, the Beatrix potter series, postman pat series, absolutely loads. He recites the words half the time.

He's not reading yet, but I've started showing him some of the phonics sounds and blending together some short words like h-a-t as a start.

He really enjoys the story prompts and will choose what comes next to add to the story. I love the ideas above and will definitely add those ideas @Zilla1
Looking through magazines is a great idea thank you @Nowisthemonthofmaying - will definitely do this.

At that age they don't necessarily need to be interesting. Ds loved stories about his toys at that age. They were along the lines of:

Big Dog and teddy went to the park. Big Dog said he was scared because the slide was too high. Teddy went up and slid down. Whee! "What do you want to do?" he asked Big Dog.
Big Dog said he liked the swings so Teddy pushed him. They has an ice cream and went home.

They were totally boring, but he loved them.

Add lots of everyday items. A cotton reel, a spoon, maybe some money, that sort of thing. You can either use them as they were intended or perhaps switch things round to use them differently (a spoon makes a fantastic catapult with peas for example)

It's wonderful to hear you making such an effort, OP.

As Witched suggests, if your DS has toys with names, I'd include them in the cast.

Settings could include some mundane places like playgrounds, school, shops, university, on the bus. If you're confident, your cast could go outside their realms, as we walk down the bus, there's a pirate. And the pirate ship is following the bus. Oh dear.

The fairy tale and pirate characters can have more regular episodes that echo real life - if your DS is going to the dentist or the doctor at the end of the week, that week's story could be the fairy or pirate cast all waiting in the doctor's waiting room. The king has a sore hand. the queen a poorly tummy...

Good luck.

good luck.

My nanna made up stories for me all throughout my childhood. She totally entranced me and would save cereal tokens to get me new books. It's because of her that I have such a love of reading and writing and it's the biggest gift that I've ever been given. You should be proud of yourself for nurturing this in your little one.

Thanks everyone for your ideas.

Thanks as well for the vote of confidence. I started it up just as something different to occupy him while I was feeding DC2 in anticipation of the hours of cluster feeding.
He really loves it so it's just evolved.
My family all read a lot, DHs not so much, so I'm hoping to inspire a love of reading in my children too.

@zilla1 thanks, that's a brilliant idea too. He will be going into hospital for surgery soon so that's a great idea to start building that in.

Hope the surgery goes well, OP. Keep up the good work.