Story Circles

Lucy Moore

What is a story circle?

A way of involving children in acting out a story

How does it work?

• Sit the children in a circle.
• Say ‘This is the story circle. When I start telling the story, if you would like to act it out, you can put your hand up. If I choose you, you go into the circle and mime the story. If I wave my arms over the circle, this clears the circle and you sit back in your place. Then we need someone else to carry on acting out the story.’
• Start your story and invite volunteers to enter the story circle as you have explained. Keep clearing it so that the children know that they can all have a chance to act, and that clearing doesn’t mean they have failed in some way.
• Include lots of actions in your story – don’t say ‘He was happy’ – say ‘He grinned from ear to ear’
• Don’t force anyone to act. Some prefer to watch.

Give it a go!

Try reading out this short story based on Jesus’ parable of the treasure in the field. Where there is a

• , you might like to clear the space as above.

Gordon was walking home very early in the morning. He had been at a party all night. He rubbed his aching head and his aching legs. He wasn’t looking where he was going and all of a sudden he tripped up!

Gordon sat on the dewy ground rubbing his toes and frowning. But then he wondered what he’d tripped over. He stretched out his hand and felt around… until he found a sharp edge sticking up out of the grassy field.

He knelt down and scrabbled away with his hands, only pausing now and then to wipe his sweaty face. And he heaved and he tugged and he pulled until the shape popped out of the ground, knocking him over backwards. And what should it be, but an enormous treasure chest!

Gordon heaved open the massive lid and looked inside. He lifted out beautiful diamond necklaces… bags of gold coins… strings of pearls… and a horrible old mouldy sandwich that must have dropped in there by mistake. Gordon grinned from ear to ear – what a find!

But then he scratched his head. No-one except him knew it was there, but the treasure still belonged to the person who owned the field. He had an idea! Gordon put the treasure chest back in the hole, shovelled the earth back over it, and arranged it to look like a molehill.

Then he ran home, got out his wheelbarrow and put in it everything he owned. His computer, his bike, his TV. Then he wheeled it down to the second hand shop, sold everything, grabbed the money, went to the farmer, bought the field and ran back to dig up the treasure which was now his. Yippee!

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