Traditional Tales are so much fun to share with children. Not only do they love them but it brings back memories for us as children too. Its lovely to see children enjoying the tales that we loved growing up.
It's my daughters theme at school this term so we have been enjoying lots of related activities at home too! We have already played with and enjoy a Little Red Riding Hood Sensory Small World and making porridge for the 3 bears in the garden. Today I am sharing with you a Three Little Pigs Tray that links in with our National Reading Month too!
Instead of using a Tuff Tray inside the house I recently purchased a black planting tray from the garden centre. It is the perfect size for indoor play for up to 3 children I would say.
I managed to get my hands on some original ladybird tales. They've released many versions but I don't think you can beat the ones you enjoyed reading as children.
I cut out some house shapes utilising a cardboard box. I cut 4 houses out so we could discuss what my daughter would make her house from if she was a little pig in the story. I couldn't wait to hear her response and the reasons why she would choose that.
I had available some straw (thanks to Jo Doherty and her guinea pigs - who came to my rescue), sticks that my daughter had enjoyed collecting on her way home from school and long strips of sand paper - rough to represent the bricks.
I have some wonderful hand painted story spoons, made by Emma at The Story Spoon Company. I adore her creations and highly recommend popping over and having a look at everything she creates! You wont be able to click off her website without having the urge to order something!
I had the spoons painted of characters one side and their houses on the other side. This was a brilliant resource for retelling the story. They are such a great addition to story related activities or just simply having them on the side for children to pick up freely and retell or make up their own stories as they please.
Little N used the spoons as she selected the materials for the houses. We had a good talk about what the materials felt, looked and smelt like.
Some great questions to ask:
Why did the house fall down?
Have you ever seen a house made of straw/sticks?
What is your house made from?
Was straw/sticks a good choice? Why?
I had strips of sand paper. We had been outside and felt how rough the bricks were on the house and used sandpaper as it represented the feel of the bricks. I did pop some scissors on the table and she decided to use them to cut the strips into smaller bricks.
This led me to ask another question -
If you were a little pig what would you build a house out of?
I was really intrigued to hear/see what her choice would be.
Off she went to find her materials and she came back in with packets of sweets.
I must admit I did jump to the conclusion that she possibly hadn't quite understood the question. I thought I bet shes decided to pick sweets because she fancied eating them afterwards. I was wrong.
'Sweets is an interesting choice, why would you choose sweets for your house?'
She replied - 'because I could take the sweets off the house and throw them at the big bad wolf. He would eat the sweets and it would fill him up so I would be safe'.
I was really taken back by the thought process behind her choice and it was a great reminder that we should always give children the opportunity to make choices and express themselves. Their minds are working all the time and the way they view life is pretty amazing!
It wouldn't have been a Three Little Pigs activity without playing the role of the big bad wolf. This gave Little N a hands on experience of seeing which materials were strong. For the brick house we swapped the sand paper for a rock:
What a lovely fun activity! It was great being able to use the story spoons in our play! She is asking now if she can make a video for YouTube of the story so watch this space!
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