Sam Goldsworthy: Story Telling!

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 story with the wooden animals they then used the animals to further their understanding of the story a little later on in the mud retelling the main theme and creating their own ‘tea’ for the tiger using the pots, pans and the mud.

 We do not always use the actual book - we create our own stories using interactive storytelling which I have recently introduced into our setting which was inspired by the lovely Vikkie over at Little Acorns Childminding Banbury.

 We can use this type of storytelling anywhere and at any time as no set up is needed - we have even done this at the dinner table when the children were eating lunch!

Recently we used the woods and created a story together including the children’s ideas and own words into the story which they love - they soon take ownership of the story and they then get more involved and excited - a great way of including a childs voice.

We started off with a couple of lines about a dragon who flew into a tree and knocked down the fairies homes - the children chose a name for the dragon and how many fairies there were etc. We used a tree that had blown down in the storm as the main space to create the story. We talked about what we could do to help the dragon to not feel so sad and what we could do about the fairies who had lost their home. The children set about using the natural treasures around them to re build the fairies homes - they used leaves, sticks and twine to make some beautiful creations for the fairies to live in. We felt as they were involved and took ownership that they learnt many new skills and this showed in their play later on in the day as they continued the story in the setting.

 Go ahead and try some interactive storytelling and don’t forget to tag us on Instagram - Sam Goldsworthy Childminding