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National Storytelling Week

This week is National Storytelling Week, an opportunity to share stories in a range of ways to engage and excited young learners into literacy. Storytelling has been around for generations, and there are plenty of ways to enjoy storytelling that does not always involve books. Storytelling activities is a way to spark a child's imagination while developing communication and literacy skills. It also reaches more than the Literacy area of learning but develops Understanding the World, Communication and Language and Personal and Social Development. 
In this blog, we explore some of the ways you can create National Storytelling activities in your setting. 

Share a story

It can be that simple! Sit down and tell a story to your little ones, perhaps a funny thing that happened to you at the weekend. Go around and let those who are willing to, share. Don't be afraid to stray away from reality too! What might have happened had a dragon appeared at the shop you were in on Saturday? Let the creativity and enjoyment of storytelling happen as you discuss and explore different ideas as a group. If you are caring for older children this can be extended to writing about them; create verbal stories and follow them up with a short write up or story board. If you have confident writers then why not enter them into the 500 words comptetion. 

Read and recreate

Read out a story that your children know and love, then ACT! Use as many different props and costumes as your children want, and let them lead. A wonderful way to do this is to become the narrator, opening the page and having them act out all the things that are happening in that part of the story. Do it together, and let them enjoy the exploration of being the characters. 

Immerse yourself

Go to visit a library or book store and allow children to see the different sort of books that are around. This is a wonderful chance to explore things like non-fiction and child-friendly magazines that still tell stories in different forms. If you are signed up to the library, then taking books home as a group can be a way of teaching them how libraries and borrowing books work. 

Think about the stories you love

Children listen and read stories all the time and are bound to have their favourites; like us all. Spend time talking about their favourite book, what they like and what they enjoy. If they can't talk or are not confident to, ask them to find their favourite book and point out the things they like. This can teach children about how others feel and respond to things while introducing them to new stories. 

Read, read, read!

If there's a quiet moment before nap time, or once they are all tucking into their lunches; take the opportunity to read to the children. Reading aloud is a wonderful way of improving a child's concentration. For older children, you can begin to explore longer books that are fiction or non-fiction and use this opportunity to play around with poems or rhymes. 
For further resources on literacy, make sure you look at our Literacy practice guide
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