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Storytelling with children

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Story telling with children
Put down your books! You don’t often hear me actively encouraging children not to read but have you ever tried oral story telling with your children and having them make the story up? Children most often have stories told to them, so let them be the story teller for a change.

Help them stretch their imaginations, practise using words in different ways, and build their confidence to find their voice and speak up. You might also get a real insight into what’s going on in their minds and they could surprise you with what happens in their story.

Telling stories aloud is fully mobile: whether you’re cosy on the sofa on a rainy day, walking to school or waiting for an appointment in the doctor’s surgery, you can tell each other stories.

There are no rules really – take it in turns to tell the story, following on from each other, or pick one person to be the story teller this time.

Use a familiar tale and give it a twist, or make up something completely new.

If there’s pause and the children need a prompt, try asking ‘what happened next?’, ‘why did that happen?’ rather than steering the story yourself.

Try these story starters as a springboard and see where your imaginations take you:

  • Once up on a time B and L went for a walk in a forest. They walked and they walked and they walked until at last they found a ….
  • When I woke up this morning , you’ll never believe what I found in my bedroom. It was a great big…
  • Once upon a time a witch lived in a little cottage in the middle of a wood. One day she woke up and said to herself…

happily shared with New For Us Friday and  For the Kids Friday and  ABCand123 and We Play and Tot School and  Pre-School Corner

 

Christmas beetle drive

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Christmas beetle drive Do you know how to play beetle? It’s a simple children’s game using a dice, great for practising turn taking, following instructions and fair play, and for number recognition too. Here’s a Christmas version: perfect for cold snowy days when you’re stuck inside or for those days between Christmas and New Year when you need a quick idea to have some fun.

You need just one dice, and a piece of paper and a pencil for each player.

How to play beetle The object of the game is to take turns rolling the dice and get the numbers you need to complete a picture of Father Christmas. Each number of the dice corresponds to a different part of Father Christmas’s face:

1 means you can draw his face

2 means you can draw his hat

3 means you can draw his eyes

4 means you can draw his beard

5 means you can draw his nose

6 means you can draw his mouth

However you have to start off with his face, so each player has to wait until they roll a 1 before they can start drawing their picture.

If you roll a number you’ve already used in your picture, you have to miss a go.

If you’re playing with pre-schoolers you can make it bit easier by pre-drawing and cutting out the pieces of the face they will need. Older children can simply draw their own Father Christmas using their paper and pencil.

The winner is the first person to complete Santa. I’m sure you can think of a good prize!

A variation to make it harder

You can make things a little harder, and play a longer game, if you use a reindeer as your picture.

1 means you can draw a body

2 means you can draw a head

3 means you can draw an antler (so you need to throw 3 twice to get both antlers)

4 means you can draw a leg (se you need to throw 4 four times to get all the legs)

5 means you can draw a tail

6 means you can draw a red nose

You have to have a body to start and you need a head before you can draw antlers or a nose.

Have you got any other Christmas versions of easy games? Please feel free to add a link in the comments.

happily shared with We Play

Marshmallow science

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toasting marshmallows

There are opportunities for scientific learning everywhere. When your children are tired and it’s cold and dark outside, you may think hot chocolate and toasted marshmallows are just for comfort – but no! Science in action! Let them discover a little about heat and solids. Pop a marshmallow onto a skewer, light a candle and get experimenting. How does a match light? What’s happening to the wax in the candle? Talk about the best place to hold the marshmallow and discover that heat rises. What’s happening to the surface of the marshmallow as it toasts? What happens to the inside of the marshmallow? Children are natural scientists, so take some time to observe and chat and see what discussions come up. Just don’t eat too many marshmallows.

happily shared with We Play and ABCand123 and Science Sunday

Pine cone crafts

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pine cone birds

I love putting out some goodies for the girls to pounce on when they come home from school and then seeing what they come up with. Last week  they had a selection of wool, pine cones, ribbons and feathers – and they decided to make some birds. They used craft glue to stick their materials to the pine cone and here are their creations.

We tied B’s bird to the end of our number line, which happens to hang over the radiator in the kitchen – the perfect place for our cat to sit and make swipes at the pine cone bird. L, ever since she started imaginative play, has always centred it around families so I wasn’t surprised she made a nest full of birds.

I like to see how they both take the same materials but add their own spin to what they make. It’s also great to see that 4 year old L is starting to conceive an idea and is now able, all by herself, to put together the bits and pieces she needs to bring her design to life.

What have you got lying around the house and garden that your children could make with?

And don’t forget it’s the Messy Play Carnival here on Friday – come and link a post!

happily shared with We Play at Childhood 101 and ABCand123 and Upcycled Awesome

how to make a 3-D picture frame

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I’m always looking for ways to display children’s art. This week we decided to turn a cereal box into a 3-D picture frame to display our favourite pictures and also to be a treasure box to store an archive of our favourites.

I love to see the development of children’s drawings over time and I think it shows how they’re changing in their passions and what they observe about the world. The depth of this frame means lots of pictures can be slotted in front of oneanother so you can vary the display and file away the older pictures behind. And it’s all made by re-purposing the goodies in your making box.

Make a 3-D picture frame 

1. Take a cereal box and carefully open it out flat.

2. On the inside of the box, on one of the larger panels, use a ruler and pencil to draw out a rectangle. This will be where your picture shows through so leave a border wide enough to make a suitable frame.

3. Cut out the rectangle using a ruler and craft knife. Take care!

4. Now decorate all over the inside of your box. We used glue to stick on tissue paper, wrapping paper and silver star cutouts. Some pages from your favourite comic would be good too.

5. Once it’s all dry, re-fold your box with your design on the outside and fasten it up using glue or sticky tape. Leave one end open so you can insert your art works. We cut off the flaps at the open end to make it look neater when on display but you might like to leave them on so you can fasten up your frame and keep it as a treasure box when it’s full.

6. Adding a small blob of bluetac (or play dough) inside the bottom of the frame helps to stabilise it, so it doesn’t wobble over – and you can move the bluetac to the other side if you want to vary your frame between a portrait or landscape format.

7. Then fill with your favourite pictures and stand back and admire your masterpiece.

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