Ghost Story Box - Story Snug

Ghost Story Box: Create Your Own Spooky Tales by Ella Bailey

We love Story Box: Create Your Own Fairytales and Ghost Story Box: Create Your Own Spooky Tales is just as much fun. Making spooky (or not so spooky!) stories using the large jigsaw pieces from The Ghost Story Box would be a fun activity for a Halloween party. We spent a long time discussing which characters we wanted to use and rearranging the pieces to make different stories.

The Ghost Story Box is sturdy and contains 20 double sided, interchangeable puzzle pieces. An initialย piece shows a man, a woman, a young girl and a dog in a car and can be used to stimulate initial questions about how to start a story – Is this a family? Where are they driving to? What time of year is it? Or you can turn the piece over and start with a ghost peering out of the window of a very ordinary looking house – What or who is s/he looking at? How is s/he feeling? Why is there a crack across the window?

Ghost Story Box: Create Your Own Spooky Tales - Story Snug

The consecutive pieces show various characters engaged in different activities – as well as the โ€˜familyโ€™ there’s a little boy, two workmen, two adult ghosts, a magician and lots of little ghosts. The leaf colours on the pieces are autumnal and settings include the ghosts’ house, a fairground, a forest and a busy city. We love the inclusion of characters reading, writing letters and drawing together as well as the smartphones so that characters can communicate with each other.

The large jigsaw pieces can be arranged and rearranged to tell a multitude of stories and we love the way that every story is different. You can get wildly creative with the 20 pieces and create a spooky or not so spooky story which can lead to one of six different endings. Ella Bailey’s illustrations are full of details that can interlink many of the pieces together which results in a multitude of combinations. Just turning the puzzle piece over can take your story into a completely new direction, it took us a long time to arrange the pieces for the story that we wanted and there were a lot of ‘what ifs’? and discussions throughout the process. I also challenged my daughter to make a short story using just 5 pieces!

Ghost Story Box story - Story Snug

I have used The Story Box with groups of children and my daughter has also taken it into school. It’s a fabulous classroom resource for all ages and there are so many ways that it could be used. Not only does it encourage children to use their imaginations and think creatively but it can also be used to develop speaking and writing skills. It’s also a great resource to use in any language as you provide all the words! Ideas that I came up with for using The Ghost Story Box include;

  • Children create their own stories and scenarios while playing with the pieces.
  • The child creates a story and the parent / teacher writes it out. If somebody else writes the story the child has the opportunity to use their imagination without being distracted by the mechanics of writing. The child could make their story into a book or illustrate it and the story can be used later for reading practice.
  • Each player in a small group is given several puzzle pieces. When it’s the player’s turn they can choose a piece that they think will fit to move the story forward. This is a fun activity to develop storytelling / speaking skills.
  • A teacher, adult or another child writes a story using the puzzle pieces. Children can look for the corresponding puzzle piece and put the story together as the story is read aloud.
  • Children can write out and illustrate the stories that they have created for a class book or a classroom wall display.

Illustrator: Ella Bailey

Thank you to publisher Laurence King for sending us a Ghost Story Box. It’s a wonderful storytelling resource for this time of year!


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20 responses to “Ghost Story Box: Create Your Own Spooky Tales by Ella Bailey”


  1. Jayne @ Sticky Mud and Belly Laughs avatar

    I love the practicality of this story box. It sure makes it a lot easier for little ones to be able to express themselves.

    Thanks so much for sharing with #MMBC x


    1. Catherine avatar

      It’s really fun and depending on a child’s age and / or ability you can give them all or some of the story cards to make a story with ๐Ÿ™‚


  2. Kate Fever avatar

    Love this idea. We have never had a story box before, but it’s definitely something I will look in to! Thanks for linking up with #TriedTested


    1. Catherine avatar

      Story boxes are great for all ages, adults too!


  3. Colette avatar

    Ah we’ve had one of these boxes before – I didn’t realise there was a whole range of them! I think they’re fantastic for developing storytelling.
    Thanks for sharing your review on #TriedTested this week x


    1. Catherine avatar

      I think that there are just two at the moment. I don’t know of any others. Maybe there are more planned ๐Ÿ™‚


  4. Christy avatar

    That is such an interesting and unique way of telling stories. I love encouraging creative thought. #TriedTested


    1. Catherine avatar

      It’s lovely for children who need a bit of a a prompt to start their own stories too ๐Ÿ™‚


  5. Heidi Brown avatar

    This looks really ace, I think my little boy would really like this, he loves spooky stuff!


    1. Catherine avatar

      The nice thing about this box is that the stories don’t have to be scary spooky!


  6. mummyhereandthere avatar
    mummyhereandthere

    This looks such an interesting product and a great way to test communication and imagination X #triedtested


    1. Catherine avatar

      It’s a great way to get children talking and when they’re in small groups the discussions can get quite heated!


  7. Kim Carberry avatar

    This is such a great idea! A fab way to get little ones to use their imaginations.
    #TriedTested


    1. Catherine avatar

      It’s a really fun way to encourage young children to tell their own stories ๐Ÿ™‚


  8. Coombemill avatar

    I love your ideas for how to use this handy Ghost Story Box. #MMBC


    1. Catherine avatar

      It’s really versatile and you can change the stories over and over. At the weekend we combined it with The Fairytale Box to make ghostly fairytale stories!


  9. Cheryl | Time To Craft avatar

    I love anything that encourages storytelling. Such a wonderful skill to acquire. I can imagine that a different story each time with this set, means hours of fun for children. #MMBC


    1. Catherine avatar

      We’ve made lots of different stories and there are so many details on the pictures that I can imagine we’ll make lots more. This is really brilliant for sequencing a story and learning that stories have a beginning, a middle and an end!


  10. Debbie avatar

    Hi Catherine, what a wonderful way to get children using their imaginations. Not all children are good at telling a story, my son was terrible at it and no matter what I did to encourage him to use a little imagination, he tended to copy what someone else said (we now know he’s autistic). I think a fun visual aid like this would have helped him no end.

    Thank you for linking up with the #MMBC.

    xx


    1. Catherine avatar

      Storytelling does come more naturally to some children than others and often visual prompts can be really helpful. Our ‘problem’ with this box is that there are so many wonderful combinations that it took a while to create a story, we had lots of false starts as we decided which characters to use!