As part of his bedtime routine, my four year old insists on hearing a story. As you can imagine, a person quickly runs out of stories. However, I find the easiest way to generate an appropriate bedtime story is to incorporate something from his world into a familiar story.
For example, tonight’s prebedtime activity was trampoline bouncing. So, tonight’s story was a thrilling tale about a very selective trampoline school that had contests among their students to determine who the best trampoline jumper was. There were several students vying for trampoline dominance, including: Ice Man, Maverick, and a funny little guy named Goose.
Unfortunately for our hero, Maverick, he failed to win the trampoline school’s competition when he deviated from an established bouncing routine and unfortunately broke Goose’s leg. However, our hero learned so much from his mistake that his first post school competition against the Russian trampoline team ended in an unequivocal success.
“Daddy, you tell better stories than mommy.”
“I know son. I know.”
Tomorrow he’s getting the story of a rebellious young preschooler who ends up in a small town where they don’t allow dancing or loud music. Eventually he wins the hearts of the town’s elders and the preschoolers get the dance they’ve always wanted.