Audio Stories for Kids

Children’s stories have always been a major part of Off Grid Kids and our school Taos Earth Children, but the blog and website has mostly been geared toward adults with an interest in child development and natural wonder. As we begin to finalize our draft of How to Tell Stories to Children, we are exploring recorded children’s stories. Our first two are below.

We hope that these stories inspire you to become a storyteller. Our goal in posting these stories is not merely to entertain children, but to use them as examples of the method outlined in our forthcoming book. To that end, we give a little context on each story below.

Subma-Beard

One day, Joe shaved off his beard. The kids noticed, duh, and made comments throughout the morning. At lunch, the following story unfolded about the chickens that stole Joe’s beard, and the intrepid chipmunk that took it from them and turned it into a submarine adventure.

This is a retelling of the original story. It’s impossible to reproduce the energy and excitement of that original moment when alone in a room with a microphone. Storytelling is about the relationship between storyteller and listener. No matter how hard we try, we can’t as yet reproduce that energy in a recorded file. Give us a year. It’s gonna rock. This is us trying to figure it out. Not bad for firsties.

Forbidden Hill

It being winter time, the kids are frequently outside sledding and making snow forts. It’s a major part of our day. This story electrified the kids when first told because they could recall the moments just prior when they themselves were racing down the hill. A primary aspect of our storytelling method is to use concrete objects and activities from within the children’s days. That’s the real power of storytelling, and we encourage you to try it with your kids.