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“Strive to make everyday the best day of your life, because there is no good reason not to.” Hal Elrod

Little Red Hen

Sep 10, 2020

The Little Red Hen

My nursery and reception children used to love learning this story of the Little Red Hen.

Following recommendations from Pie Corbett we would read the story to begin with a few times. Then we would start to put some repetitive actions to the different parts of the story to help the language stick and made these into a map. This map was also sent home to families and put up around our learning spaces.

We then created a small world version of the farm for the children to use in their play and added into the area the mapped story.

We provided children with the sensory opportunities of making their own bread and visiting a farm. It was a fantastic way to help children’s language development and story telling skills. We then explored changing a few parts of the story like the characters or how it ended.

What are your favourite stories to tell?

Sam Goldsworthy: Story Telling!

Apr 24, 2020

Story telling/ small world play and nature

As a setting we are always outside exploring the outdoors whether it be the beach, woods, National Trust places or simply our garden. We feel being outdoors is as important as introducing books and rhymes into the children’s every day life so why not combine the two. We do this regularly and will pack props and story books based on the themes and childrens interests into our daily bag and take them out with us.

We find that by using props out and about grasps the children’s attention a lot more than sitting and listening on a rug. The children want to be involved, they want to take turns to hold the props - they will also use the props to retell and re enact the story later on in their play. Recently we visited a local National Trust place and explored the mud kitchen - we took Tiger who came to Tea story with us as it is a favourite and we felt that this would link in beautifully with the physical play around the mud kitchen. We read the s...

Story Telling

Jun 11, 2019

Telling stories always gives me that higgle feeling of joy and being cosy.

My book recommendations

How to Catch a Star
Four Seasons in One Day
The Snowman
Lost Words
I Am the Seed That Grew the Tree - A Nature Poem for Every Day of the Year: National Trust

Classic books

Not now Bernard
Where the wild things are
Hansel and Gretel
Goldilocks and the Three Bears
Gruffalo
Bear Hunt
Little Red Riding Hood
Dear Zoo
Mr Gumpys Outing
Whatever Next
Peace at Last

Ideas to support practice

Get outside to story tell
Listen to music and move to the story it creates (Four Seasons in One Day)
Tell a story with just props
Tell a story in the forest
Tell a story with a torch in the dark
Tell a story through movement (Going on a Bear Hunt)
Link your small world area to a story.
Hold a bedtime story night (Think Pjs, Hot chocolate, a roaring fire on the smartboard and a cosy atmosphere)
Use nature to make story