Painted Rock Story Cubes

August 21, 2019

Story Cubes

Story Cubes are a versatile and creative way for language teachers to get vocabulary into daily activities. Story Cubes are used by rolling the dice to produce a specific set of images. Students then turn those images into a story. This activity is beneficial because it allows for spontaneous communication.

How to Use

There are a variety of ways to use these story cubes in the language classroom.

Project the images and allow students to take turns telling a story until all the images have been mentioned. This works in small groups and whole class. This is like a chain story.
Students pair up and tell each other a story. The partner has to understand and remember the story in order to tell it to another classmate.
The teacher uses the cubes to tell a story that would lead into the lesson for the day. For example, if you are talking about travel or states/countries, you might use Rory’s Voyages Cubes to tell about your vacation and what you did. You can preselect cubes to include words you want students to know.
Tell a story using the cubes and ask students to answer questions about what was said.
Roll the dice and show the 9 images to the class. Have students create a story on their own and record the information.
Use the cubes as a station rotation activity.
Roll the dice and have students use DCLs to describe the images or objects on the cubes.
Download the Rory’s Story Cube App and try using some of these activities going digital.
Have students draw a 9 square grid then roll the dice. Have students place the dice in each of the grids. Then tell the students to tell a story using the images in the order they placed them on their grid.
Use the cubes for a teacher-told story then have the students retell the story to their partner.

Making Your Own Story Cubes

Purchasing a lot of Story Cubes can get expensive. It is a good idea to keep 1 – 3 on hand for group work or station activities. But there are free options for you to use that will have the same effect on activities mentioned above.

There are many cube templates you can use online. Copy these for students and have them create their own story cubes. They can tell stories using their own or swap with someone in the class to tell a story. You can even add these gramamr cubes to help the story along.

You can also use rocks for a more durable, long-lasting canvas. The rocks won’t have the multiple sides but you can pull the images from a bag and use those to tell stories from.

Students can paint their own images or signs (use as an art project) and use them with the activities above by pulling 9 images out of a bag instead of rolling the dice. Using paint pens to create the images are a quick and make for easy clean up.