Friday, May 10, 2013

Tell Tale---Review of a Fun Story-Telling Game



Heidi Kay over at PediaStaff asked me to review a couple of games by Blue Orange Games.  Of course, I said yes---if you look at my therapy room, it looks like the game aisle in a toy store.  I love games, and my kids do too!  Even with the current iPad craze, most of my students will choose a game in a box to play when the time is right.


The game we played today was Tell Tale--the game comes with 60 double-sided cards. Kids pick several cards and tell their best stories using the pictures.  Some of the stories can get a little funny since the cards lend to humor!  Check out the video at the end of this post for specific directions but it's not complicated.


From the website: Discover the art of storytelling with Tell Tale. Be guided through your own unique tale with cards illustrated with a variety of characters, settings, objects and emotions. If a picture is worth a thousand words, imagine the possibilities with 120 inspiring images! Create your own storyboard or improvise a tale together; there are four ways to play! In this creative storytelling game, everybody is a winner.

  The ages suggested were 5 to adult, with 1-8 players playing for 20 minutes. 

I used this game with two types of students.  One was a first grade boy with a fluency disorder.  His language skills were great, and he was easily able to create stories using a set of cards.  This was a very nice way to work on fluency in connected speech.

The second group were five 4th graders in a special education classroom.  These students needed more structure to create stories.  In addition, their goals were to create stories with characters, a setting, and a plot, so they used a graphic organizer when telling their stories.  I created a simple one which you can see in the picture, but there are many types out there.  Here is the link to the organizer in the picture.  For the top space, I asked the kids to think of a title to their story.

Overall, the students enjoyed the game.  The students with more limited language skills needed more structure such as using a graphic organizer. This was a nice way to motivate students to tell stories, and we never played this in a competitive manner.  Thank you, Heidi, for letting me try it out.



1 comment:

  1. Hi,

    I love Blue Orange games too and my room also looks like a toy shop :) I love how you were able to adapt this game for many different types of students. Would you mind uploading that graphic organizer? It looks like it is laid out very clearly. Thanks for the great review!

    ReplyDelete

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.