We had a number of activities to encourage the children to retell the story thinking about the repeated refrains or even telling the story in their own words. In our Story Box, the children had puppets and a river to act out the story; we also had large animal masks for the children to take on a role in their play and use their imagination to tell the story together. Role play is a brilliant way to immerse children in a story as they begin to make believe by pretending to be different characters and it encourages them to use the language from the story too.
Creating our very own river race in class was a big hit with both the children and the adults! We made a giant river out of a large roll of paper and paint to put across the classroom along with pictures of all the animals from the story. The children took it in turns to use a large card fan to waft the animals down the river to see who wins! This was a great opportunity for speaking and listening as the children were describing what was happening during their race and they were also able to talk about who won and if it was the same animal as in the story.
On top of all this, the children have been exploring different media and materials and working together to create collages of the different animals so we can put up a class display of the Chinese New Year story. We have been practicing our fine motor skills through cutting, using glue sticks, painting and making marks with felt tips.
A very busy and creative week in Pre-Nursery!
By Sarah Leavers