I am a story by Dan Yaccarino

This story starts out around a campfire surrounded by cavemen, telling stories. It then follows the history of a 'story' from oral telling traditions around the world, to being written on papyrus and paper and finally into bound books. It even touches on book censorship and burning. The story survives and keeps getting told. It ends back around a campfire with a modern family telling stories. It is laid out in a very simple way but is really touching and demonstrates the power of story telling.
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​⚈​ 1 Play ideas  ⚈​ 2 Classroom Activities  ⚈​ 3 Links to more Resources
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Get your hands on this book here:​​
Story telling - Age 3+

You can't read a book all about story telling, without being inspired to tell some of your own! If you are using this book as part of a camping theme, gather kids around a fire (fake or real!) and pull out some story prompts. You can use story cubes, if you have them or any flash cards with images on them. Pull a card and start a story. Pull a new card every once in a while and try to work it into the story, using wording like, "Behind the tree they found..." or "Then they saw...". It is usually a good chuckle and can really help give a hesitant story teller a little creative boost.
Suggested resource - Age 2+

This is a game of charades aimed at children 4+. It comes with 4 (giant) piles of cards, split up into topics like 'outdoors' and 'animals'. The game itself is good fun, even for younger children. The best part is, you can use these cards for so many other things. You can use them to match with objects in books or hunt for certain colours. Kids can try to pair two together and explain what they have in common. They can be matched with letter sounds or sorted into piles based on anything (colour, size, living vs not, etc). The possibilities are endless. 
Writing hieroglyphs - Age 4+

Practising any type of writing is great for little hands and seeing picture hieroglyphs in this story is an invitation to write. You can easily find a basic translation of hieroglyphs that match our alphabet, on the internet. Get kids to try writing their name or go further and create secret messages to each other which they must decode. Get kids to try and guess what is written on the wall in the story itself. 
Sticker stories - Age 1+

If you happen to have stickers that fit a theme, try creating stories out of them. Peeling and sticking is a well known work out for little hands. Older siblings can try to create a story out of them after they have stuck them down. 
  • Research a time period shown from the book (it goes through quite a few
  • Link historical facts or other relevant events to each part of the story
  • Create a time line showing the points in the story
  • Link this story to a study of the rights and freedom of speech in your country
Publishers Harper Collins have a downloadable PDF with activities, found HERE.

YouTube trailer for the book:
Click below for other books and activities about camping/outdoors: