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If you haven’t seen these yet, prepare to be amazed! I’ve used them for years in a variety of settings. They are a great hands-on tool that help students learn creativity while practice other important language skills.

Here are some ideas for using them in your classroom!

Game Ideas:

1. Charades – Use the single die roll to determine a charade item.
2. Stories With Friends – Form a circle. Roll the Story Dice (any number, 1-10). Create a sentence including all of the items from the dice. Pass to the next person and repeat, adding onto the story each time.
3. Song Challenge – Roll a single story die. Come up with a song that includes that item in the lyrics.
4. Poems With Friends – Same as Stories With Friends above, using only 1-2 dice, and create rhyming lines.
5. Drama Club – Roll dice (any number). Form a character using these items, then create an improv skit with friends as your characters!

Education Applications:

Story Dice is primarily useful in higher order activities under Bloom’s Taxonomy, particularly Synthesis, where you create, invent, compose, predict, plan, construct, design, imagine, propose, devise, and/or formulate. You can devise less and more challenging activities, as in the following example.

Sample Journal Activity “My Perfect Day” using Bloom’s Taxonomy

Student/Short Version: Student will create a character using Story Dice, then describe/write/dramatize their own “perfect day” from their character’s perspective.

Teacher Version: Student will create a unique character using the Story Dice for seed ideas. After writing a short character sketch, student will compose a Journal Entry called “My Perfect Day” writing from their new character’s perspective. The Creating step is the highest order activity and is a self-grading option.. Finally, a fun bonus option in a classroom or small workgroup setting is to have students perform their journal entries as monologues, in character, possibly interacting with each other, adding a drama element.

1. Remembering: Roll five or more Story Dice. Identify and describe the pictures on dice.
2. Understanding: Paraphrase the task (Journal Activity “My Perfect Day”) in which you will use the dice.
3. Applying: Prepare a chart with five categories: name, age, job, pets, hobbies. Place each dice image within a category. Imagine that you are this character and write a short paragraph describing yourself in detail.
4. Analyzing: Examine each feature of your character and determine what makes them special.
5. Evaluating: Decide what worked and what didn’t in your journal entry. Were you successful at combining the dice pictures in a believable way?
6. Creating: Compose a journal entry called “My Perfect Day” from the character’s perspective.

BONUS Activities: Perform journal entry as a monologue and interact with other students. Stay in character!