2-3: The Discovery Hub

This week we have been exploring storytelling through familiar stories and props. The children have engaged lovely with stories across the week including Three Little Pigs, We’re Going on a Bear Hunt and Dear Zoo.

Playing and Exploring

As we have explored the stories the children have engaged in various experiences. We explored creating the houses from the Three Little Pigs as the children glued materials onto their house. In the garden, we explored using boxes and straw to create a “house” and then tried blowing them down. It was a little windy as we explored with the straw and we noticed it blowing away in the wind.

As we have been exploring the Three Little Pigs we used repeated phrases such as “I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow your house down” while exploring. Throughout our play the children have been making links to the story with blowing as they explore blowing bubbles. The children listened to the adult and they waited in anticipation to blow the bubbles until he heard the word “blow”.

By the end of the week, the children very becoming very familiar with the story of the Three Little Pigs and explored retelling the story themselves. We offered the resources of lolly sticks, bricks and straw along with the figures of the characters and the children used these to retell the story independently. It has been amazing listening to the children act out the story and exploring with the resources. The children have used language such as

“wolf hiding in piggy window”

“wolf going down to water”

“it blow down…again”

”I huff I puff”

Active Learning

During group times, we have been exploring Dear Zoo story with props. The children have shown concentration with listening to the story and predicting which animal would be next. They have shown a great understanding with the book and have helped staff to tell the story without the book. We used our log slices with the images on to find the animal by listening to clues. Emma gave a description of “it is too big…it is grey and has a trunk” which the children were able to identify the elephant. The children were also listening to the clues of the crate the animal was in “can you find the pink box?”.

Communication and Language

The children have enjoyed exploring We’re Going on a Bear Hunt during story time and within play explorations. While on a walk around the garden, we repeated phrases and the children commented “oh no” and pointed to the gate. We then followed with “we can’t go over it, we can’t go under it…oh no” and the children joined in with “go through it!” and used their hands to gesture ‘through’. As we explored the book, we looked carefully at the images on the front and back cover. We looked at the detail of the family members and how the “baby” was “sitting on dads shoulders”. Throughout the book, we looked at the images and discussed what we could see. The children noticed small details such as “no shoes” while walking through the water as they “get wet”.

Parents as Partners

Our book this week has been Three Little Pigs. Our Song of the week has been Wind the Bobbin. Storytelling is an important part of children’s development. We have explored watching the video story of the Three Little Pigs – https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/watch/something-special-tumble-tales-three-little-pigs. In nursery we have explored pausing the video to ask the children questions such as “which house is next?”, “will the pig let the wolf in?” and “where will the wolf go?”.

On Saturday 7th February at the Glasshouse in Gateshead, National Literacy Trust are having a free event for families. The fun, free event will take place between 11am and 1pm and will involve making some musical rain-makers and using these to participate in an interactive story-telling session. Each child will be provided with a free book to take home. No booking required, can just show up on the day!

Have a lovely weekend!

The Nursery Team