Editor’s Note:   We recently have been asking some of our favorite bloggers to v review a couple of games by Blue Orange Games.   Thank You Ruth Morgan, of Chapel Hill Snippets for her second review — of Tell Tale!

The game we played today was Tell Tale–the game comes with 60 double-sided cards. Kids pick several cards and tell their best stories using the pictures.  Some of the stories can get a little funny since the cards lend to humor!  Check out the video at the end of this post for specific directions but it’s not complicated.

From the website: Discover the art of storytelling with Tell Tale. Be guided through your own unique tale with cards illustrated with a variety of characters, settings, objects and emotions. If a picture is worth a thousand words, imagine the possibilities with 120 inspiring images! Create your own storyboard or improvise a tale together; there are four ways to play! In this creative storytelling game, everybody is a winner.

The ages suggested were 5 to adult, with 1-8 players playing for 20 minutes.

I used this game with two types of students.  One was a first grade boy with a fluency disorder.  His language skills were great, and he was easily able to create stories using a set of cards.  This was a very nice way to work on fluency in connected speech.

The second group were five 4th graders in a special education classroom.  These students needed more structure to create stories.  In addition, their goals were to create stories with characters, a setting, and a plot, so they used a graphic organizer when telling their stories.  I created a simple one which you can see in the picture, but there are many types out there.

Overall, the students enjoyed the game.  The students with more limited language skills needed more structure such as using a graphic organizer such as this one.  (https://docs.google.com/a/pediastaff.com/file/d/0B7VIEBl_mWo5ZHV1dVRxU252YVk/edit) This was a nice way to motivate students to tell stories, and we never played this in a competitive manner.  Thank you, Heidi, for letting me try it out.