No Or's, And's, or But's

Materials:

• Writing Supplies
• Word processor (optional)

Want to hear a great story? Then create one with your child, a word at a time. (As you'll see, this is also a neat activity to do with a word processor.)

Have your child say or write any word to begin the tale. Then you add a word, and your child adds another, until the first sentence is finished. This cooperative writing approach continues until the story comes to a conclusion. It may or may not be the ending you had envisioned, but that's the whole point: You never know what direction the tale will take when you and your child become co-authors.

Once you've gotten the hang of co-writing a story in this fashion, up the ante by introducing a new rule: No one can use the words "or," "and," or "but." That's a lot more difficult than it sounds. Take turns inventing new rules, too, just to keep each other on your toes.

Gee, that's going to be tough when you can only use words less than five letters long . . .

More on: Games for the Whole Family

Excerpted from:

© 2005 by Steve and Ruth Bennett. Excerpted from 365 Unplugged Family Fun Activities with permission of its publisher, Perseus Books Group, Inc. All rights reserved.

To order this book visit perseusbooksgroup.com.