4 Great Ideas For Getting The Most Out Of Your Story Books!

4 Great ideas for getting the most out of your story books!
Story Stones
I love story stones! The idea can be used in a few ways such as making your own characters and creating a story or creating stones with key words on where you can build your own story. But our favourite way is to recreate our favourite story by painting the characters on to stones. By creating story stones, children can use their imaginations to build the characters they love the most and the scenes that mean a lot to them.

Skills: Making story stones helps to strengthen a child’s memory skills. By recalling a favourite story, a child will be creating a memory map of emotions, words, sequences and consequences. They are also a fab way of teaching a child new words and of course new art skills!

Best suited for ages 3-11.
Materials:
Stones from the garden or the park J
Acrylic paints

Story Spoons
Pinterest is always full of cool story spoon ideas and they are so easy to make! In the same way that story stones help kids to recall and reproduce parts of their favourite books, story spoons help them to focus on their favourite characters. Kids can create story spoons on their own or with friends, making it such a great activity! I tried this activity along to the story ‘Paper Dolls’, creating each paper doll on to a spoon and it worked so well and made bedtime fun!

Skills: Trying to paint or draw on a spoon is no easy task (hence the recommended age range!) but it really does help to teach concentration and patience. Having children speak out loud, using their imagination is a skill that is rarely focused on – even in schools. Through ‘talking to learn’ children are active participants in developing understandings and making knowledge and skills their own. This is frequently through concrete experiences, practical experiments and investigations, problem-solving, creative thinking tasks, collaborative projects and discussions, both with their teachers and with peers. The ability to listen actively, speak clearly, communicate articulately and fluently, and to be able to engage in the to and fro of spoken interaction with others is seen as a vital, integral part of the process of children’s learning and development.
Best suited for ages 5+.
Materials:
Acrylic pain
Wooden spoons
Any added extras (sequins, buttons, etc.) and glue to stick them on!

Create A Sequel
I haven’t tried this game yet because I think that my daughter is too young to grasp the concept but I can’t wait to give it a go. Whatever your favourite book is, I’m sure that sometimes when you get to the end, you say ‘and what do you think happened next?’ I say this every time we get to the end of ‘Paper Dolls’.
With the Create a Sequel game, the idea is that you take a trip to the park, walk to the end of the road or walk to school; you collect items that you find and turn them in to a story. Whatever you find (and fancy bringing home!) your child has to use these items in the sequel of their story.  So you might find some flowers that become chairs for the paper dolls or stones that become food for George.

Skills: Supporting creativity and imagination in early years is really important and it is what we do all the time whenever we begin to play with our children. Create A Sequel game allows children to exercise choice and make decisions, what will they find? What will they include in their story? What direction will their sequel go? And of course, explore a fantasy world of their own creation!
Best suited for ages 5+.

Find My Book
I play this game quite a lot with my daughter, especially if I’m running out of ideas, it’s raining and I’m tired! So the idea is that you take a book and point out one object on a page and your child has to go and find it around the house. We love the book Marcel; the cute little Frenchie bulldog who lives in NYC with his human owner who he loves! The illustrations are amazing! So as we go through it page by page, Eden runs around the house looking for something blue, a coffee cup, a toy dog, something stripey… the game goes on!

Skills: Small world is an important aspect of children’s play, aiding many areas of development. Imaginative skills are supported allowing the child to express thoughts and experiences into their play, whilst exploring the world in which they live. This type of play offers the opportunity for children to build on their language skills, expanding their vocabulary and their understanding. It not only supports a range of areas for development, but also benefits the child’s independent play skills… and gives mummy a little rest!
Best suited for ages 18 months - 5.
Materials: Just a book!
We'd love to hear your ideas too!

Love Lucy x