Li’l Stories is a flexible framework that is easy to integrate and adapt to students’ needs. There are four ways teachers can bring Li’l Stories into their classroom:
Integrate Li’l Stories into your Daily Activities
Use the Li’l Stories storyboard and mini activities to integrate the Li’l Stories framework as a way of thinking and organizing ideas.
Teach a Li’l Stories Project Plan
Use one of Li’l Stories’ complete storytelling units and lesson plans for all grade levels and subject areas—you can browse a variety of ready-made project plans below.
CREATE YOUR OWN LI’L STORIES LESSON, ACTIVITY, OR UNIT
Use Li’l Stories tools and templates to build your own storytelling lesson or unit. Our free Li’l Stories Toolkit for Educators includes tutorials, templates, and materials.
Host a Li’l Stories Storytelling Lab
If you are in New York City, invite the Li’l Stories team to your classroom to facilitate a week-long customized storytelling lab with your students.
Note: Currently not offered
Li’l Stories Framework and Toolkit
Get started by downloading our Introduction to Li’l Stories, an overview of the Li’l Stories framework and approach to learning, and the Li’l Stories Toolkit for Educators. The toolkit includes everything you need to bring Li’l Stories to your classroom and inspire creative thinking, cooperative learning, and digital literacy.
Introduction to Li’l Stories
This overview introduces you to Li’l Stories, a student-centered framework for the elementary classroom that leverages the power of storytelling to foster learning. It describes the Li’l Stories framework and our approach to learning.
FREE
Toolkit for Educators
The Li’l Stories Toolkit for Educators includes everything you need to get started: Teacher’s guide, strategy guides, storyboards, story cubes, and a unit planning tool. All you need is a printer, 11” by 17” sheets of paper, and markers.
$1.99
Li’l Stories App (in Beta)
Capture and share! Students take a picture of their storyboard (or artwork) and record themselves telling their stories using the Li’l Stories App.
FREE
Li’l Stories Mini-Activities and Storyboards
If you are looking to integrate Li’l Stories strategies more regularly, the Li’l Stories Mini-Activities and Storyboards may be right for you. These short activities can be completed in 10-20 minutes, making them perfect for daily routines, learning center activities, or for keeping the momentum going in between Li’l Stories’ units.
Li’l Stories Mini-Activities: Grades K-2
This early childhood set includes Li’l Stories Toolkit for Educators and the following activities:
- Visual Note-Taking & Brainstorming: Students will use a storyboard to develop initial story ideas.
- Weekend News: Students will sequence and retell the main events from their weekend.
- Word Practice: Students will demonstrate mastery of new vocabulary through story integration.
- Story Jam: Students will collaborate with a partner to create original stories.
$3.99
Li’l Stories Mini-Activities: Grades 3-5
This elementary set includes Li’l Stories Toolkit for Educators and the following activities:
- Visual Note-Taking & Brainstorming: Students will use a storyboard to develop initial ideas for story development or to solve a problem.
- How-To Stories: Students will use a storyboard to outline the sequence for a how-to story.
- Content-Specific Vocabulary Stories: Students will practice content-specific vocabulary through story integration.
- Story Jam: Students will collaborate with a partner to create original stories.
- Finding Multiple Solutions: Students will assess multiple solutions to a problem by outlining ideas on a custom Li’l Stories storyboard.
$3.99
Li’l Stories Storyboards for Educators
This set includes Li’l Stories Storyboards and our Strategy Guide: Storyboarding.
The visual nature of the Li’l Stories storyboard makes it a great tool for organizing ideas. Even if you are not teaching a Li’l Stories lesson or unit, the storyboard can help students organize and sequence ideas for a variety of purposes: writing essays or narratives; studying cause and effect; writing science lab reports, etc. This form of visual thinking can be used as a strategy throughout the year and is particularly useful for engaging visual and kinesthetic learners.
FREE
Li’l Stories Project Plans
One of the easiest ways to launch Li’l Stories in your classroom is by using one of our ready-made downloadable units. These storytelling units include 4-6 hours of Common Core-aligned content, which we recommend spreading across one week. While the subject matter varies, each unit guides students through storyboarding and storytelling activities, as well as at least one extension activity, culminating in a final story product. All storytelling units include a project outline with detailed lesson plans, materials, and a project-specific assessment rubric.
Li’l Stories Project Plans: Kindergarten
The Kindergarten set includes Li’l Stories Toolkit for Educators and the following project plans:
- Fiction: Caterpillar Stories The project introduces the basic insect life-cycle through the lens of Eric Carle’s The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Students will retell the major stages of caterpillar growth and construct new original stories using the main character from the text.
- Science: Elephant Stories The project will allow students to learn about African elephants through a series of research activities and then to use their newfound knowledge to create original stories about A Day in the Life of an African Elephant.
- Vocabulary: Sight Word Stories The project gives students the opportunity to acquire and practice sight words or high-frequency words in the context of story creation. Students will structure a visual story utilizing different sight words.
$4.99
Li’l Stories Project Plans: Grade 1
The grade 1 set includes Li’l Stories Toolkit for Educators and the following project plans:
- Fiction: Freckle Juice Students will use a storyboard to retell the chapters they have read in Judy Blume’s Freckle Juice and predict endings for the text.
- Fiction: Tiny Seed The project introduces the basic flower life-cycle through the lens of Eric Carle’s The Tiny Seed. Students will use a storyboard to retell the major stages of plant growth and create new original plant stories based on what they learned.
- Science: African Mammals Study The project gives students the opportunity to creatively express animal facts they have learned from informational texts. Students will use a storyboard to generate original animal adventure stories that integrate facts from an animal of their choosing.
$4.99
Li’l Stories Project Plans: Grade 2
The grade 2 set includes Li’l Stories Toolkit for Educators and the following project plans:
- Fiction: Charlotte’s Web Students will deepen their understanding of E.B. White’s Charlotte’s Web through retelling a major event from a specific character’s perspective. They will analyze a character and demonstrate their comprehension of core traits on a Li’l Stories Character Study chart. With this information, students will work in pairs to retell a major event in the book from one character’s perspective.
- Social Studies: Rural Communities Students will integrate what they have learned from their study of rural communities into an original fiction story. They will research and gather information in order to plan their stories using a Li’l Stories storyboard. Partners will record themselves telling their stories before producing a written narrative.
$4.99
Li’l Stories Project Plans: Grade 3
The grade 3 set includes Li’l Stories Toolkit for Educators and the following project plans:
- Fiction: Fairy Tales The project gives students the opportunity to write original fairy tales. Students will use a storyboard to construct a visual story together that follows a fairy tale story structure. They’ll engage in the collaborative process of brainstorming, as well as creating and sharing a narrative.
- Fiction: Pourquoi Tales The project gives students the opportunity to create Pourquoi tales inspired by the legends of Native American tribes. Students will retell a visual story about the legend of their choosing and develop their own original Pourquoi tales after gaining a deeper understanding of the structure. The project will culminate with students sharing their scripts with the class through a mini Readers’ Theater.
$4.99
Li’l Stories Project Plans: Grade 4
The grade 4 set includes Li’l Stories Toolkit for Educators and the following project plans:
- Non-Fiction: MLK Stories The project gives students the opportunity to write short biographical stories incorporating facts they have gathered from their research of a historical figure. Students will use a storyboard to create a visual story together that retells a major event in the life of Martin Luther King Jr.
- Social Studies: Immigration Stories Students will apply their overall understanding of New York City immigration history and create an original “ Journey to New York City ” story with accurate fact integration. They will plan their project using a Li’l Stories storyboard, record themselves telling their stories on the Li’l Stories App, and craft a mixed-media accordion-style collage book to depict their story.
$4.99
Li’l Stories Project Plans: Grade 5
The grade 5 set includes Li’l Stories Toolkit for Educators and the following project plans:
- Fiction: Wonder Students will use central themes from R.J. Palacio’s Wonder to produce their own original stories that explore the meaning of a specific moral precept included in the book. They will work in pairs and collaborate to illustrate their story on a Li’l Stories storyboard, then tell their stories aloud, capturing images and audio of their storyboard with the iMovie app, resulting in a video that they can share.
- Social Studies: Immigration Stories Students will apply their overall understanding of New York City immigration history and create an original “ A Day in the Life ” story with accurate fact integration. The project includes a book-making session for groups to construct mixed-media collage scenes of their story pages.
$4.99
Case Studies and Webinars
Learn more about Li’l Stories: Watch teachers using Li’l Stories in their classroom in our case study videos, read one of our blog posts where we share learnings from our storytelling workshops in elementary school classrooms, or check out our introductory webinar.
Case Study: Pourquoi Tales
Magnus, a P.S. 3 teacher used Li’l Stories for a unit on Pourquoi Tales. The 2nd/3rd grade class told Native American Pourquoi Tales inspired by the legends of Eastern tribes. In this case study, we follow Izzy and Arpi as they create their Fish are Swimming story.
Elephants Live in African Savanna
A story created in the Li’l Stories Lab: Animal Study for 2nd graders. Students created fictional animal stories while incorporating real facts they had gathered from books they read together. For additional stories, check out our Stories section.
Li’l Stories Blog
Check out the Li’l Stories blog, where we share learnings from our labs. You can read how we used the bifurcated storyboard in Choose your own adventure: exploring cause & effect in 5th grade with Nikki Grimes’ Jazmin’s Notebook or introduce students to book collages in Creativity in everyday classroom life.
Li’l Stories Webinar
Coming soon: a recording of our introductory webinar.