Story Writing in the Early Years: Stepping Stones

The other day I sat down with a basket full of whiteboards, pens, and rubbers, and 5 children came to sit with me intrigued by this new resource. We had a small discussion about what we could do with the whiteboards. They liked that they could rub out their pictures if they weren't happy with it. The conversation turned to what they could draw on the boards and a story began to emerge.

There were a flurry of ideas about a dinosaur in a volcano, with a "coconut tree" nearby. The children discussed where this should all take place:

"The volcano is outside. It can't be inside."

"Dinosaurs lived a long time ago."

"There should be trees."

"A jungle!"

Unfortunately the dinosaur (later to be a Stegosaurus) got caught in the volcano and needed to be rescued. I said, "How will the dinosaur be rescued from the volcano?"

"Superheroes rescue people."

"Batman will help him."

"And Superman."

"Batman can go 'whoosh!' and pick up the dinosaur from the lava."

Me: "Where will they go?"

"They fly to a car to get away."

The children were engaged in their drawings as they talked about their story. The drawings evolved as their ideas became more complex and the story unfolded. The dinosaur couldn't fit in the car and Batman had to drive. Ropes were involved to attach the dinosaur to the roof of the car. And where did the car go?

Well, unfortunately even though the dinosaur was rescued from the perils of the volcanic heat, he was met with a rogue soldier who decided to take matters into his own hands. Batman and Stegosaurus didn't make it.

"The soldier comes and shoots them both. Bang! It wasn't real bullets. Just pretend."

One mum said it was video games, but she's glad her son was writing stories!

The kids were so engrossed in their story and they had very little input from me. The only stimulus they had were the whiteboards and their imaginations. This process could be developed further by providing props, pictures, or story books to inspire their ideas.

I was so proud of their story and we practiced telling it together, then headed into the "big school" to read it to our Depute Head. They were to thrilled to share their hard work and even got a wee sticker to reward their accomplishment.

Story writing in the Early Years doesn't have to be tricky. In fact, the children are story writing all the time in their role play. They imagine a certain environment, a particular scenario, and a variety of characters. They put themselves in the story and act it out with their friends or by themselves. Offering a role play stimulus, whether it's a kitchen, a doctor's surgery, Santa's Toy Shop, or simply offering open ended items, encourages story telling through drama - oral story telling if you will. Storytelling is a process for children and should be introduced as stepping stones. It may appear that the children are simply "playing," but they are in fact exploring roles, creating stories, honing social skills, and practicing vocabulary. These are important skills for children to learn in preparation for school. Then, perhaps they'll start drawing pictures of these stories or making marks to represent the writing in their story. Adults may scribe what they say to document their story. Eventually, in school the children will begin writing their stories. Stepping stones.

Happy story writing.

Sticks & Stones

Today I brought out a group of children to explore with sticks. To begin, I simply asked, "how do we play with sticks?" and I got some answers that I expected:

"No running"

"No fighting"

"No smacking faces"

So we got the "No's" covered, but we didn't answer the question: how do we play with sticks? The kids were at a loss. They knew what NOT to do with them, but were uncertain what TO do with them. So to start them out, I just let them choose one stick and I listened to their conversation:

"Mine is bigger than yours."

"Yours is the biggest."

"Mine is bumpy. It has bumps."

"A stick is a tree."

"I can hit mine on the table."

This is when a chorus of stick songs broke out. On their own, the children were able to figure out something they could do with the sticks. After the impromptu jam session, we went around the table to let each child "perform" a stick rhythm and we all tried to copy it.

Next, we decided that sticks were good for making pictures.

The kids took turns putting down one stick to make a picture on the table top.

After our guided play with the sticks, the children were eager to get their hands on more sticks and create on their own. Some of them created small structures on their own, while others worked together to build larger structures on the ground.

Others, however, preferred inspecting the little creatures living in the bag our sticks live in. I see mini-beast houses in our future!

Houses: A Collaborative Project

This project all started from this one inspiration at the Duplo on Monday. A few children were building houses and I asked them what their houses were like and this attracted a lot of attention and interest. I also asked about different rooms in their houses, but I quickly realised that this was met with some confusion and lack of understanding. Rooms? I got answers like "teddy bear," and "I have a doll." Hmmm. Guess we don't really understand the concept of a room. When I said words like "kitchen" and "bedroom," the children began to understand a bit better. The next day, we put out a resource that the children could play with to explore different rooms in their homes. I don't have a photo of it, but it's essentially like a doll's house, but separate boxes to act as rooms, and the children set up the furniture and characters appropriately.

Next, we looked at photographs of different types of homes in their community. There was a lot of interest as they recognised buildings and houses like their own, and we discussed things like the shapes, colours, and what they're made of. From there, we began our project of making a house.

One child drew a big square after discussing what shape the house should be. Next, several children helped cut along the lines.

This was a great way for me to assess some of the children's scissor skills. I also made sure that children had appropriate scissors for their developmental level. You'll notice that some of them have spring scissors while others have regular children's scissors where they operate them by opening and closing.

Next, we had a discussion about how we should colour the house. Most children agreed that we should use paint. I asked them what we should use to paint it because a house wall isn't always smooth. There was some confusion, so to help them understand we went outside to look at and feel the texture of the wall on the outside of the school.

Some children said, "bumpy," "rough, "ouch!" and "spiky." When we went back inside, we looked at some of the things we could use to make the house look like those words. We found gloves that have textured materials attached to them and we all agreed that they would make our house look bumpy.

When our house dried, we talked about what elements it should have. They all agreed that we needed windows and a door, so we got to work. Again, this was a great opportunity to see some scissor skills in action. Throughout this project, I had children dropping in and out, so I always had different helpers.

Next, we painted the door blue. We used rollers because that's what "house painters" use.

Throughout this project, we had been looking at photographs of houses for reference. The children noticed that there was white trim around the windows and doors. We discussed what they might be called, but they didn't know, so they learned two new terms: "window frame" and "door frame." They used the rollers to add this to their house as well.

In some of the photographs, the children noticed a "fence" or the porch and they wanted to add that as well.

Finally, the children discussed their need for a triangle roof. They drew the shape, cut it out, and painted it red. One of the children said as they were rolling, "It feels like I'm painting a real house."

When everything was dry, two helpers attached the square house and triangle roof using sticky tape.

Sadly, I forgot to take a photo of the finished product up on the wall! I assure you, it looks fab because the children did it all by themselves with only verbal guidance and prompts from me. After we hung it on the wall, some of the kids made labels so that visitors will know what all the parts of a house are.

There are so many things we can do from this project, and I'm hoping it's not over yet. As you can see, this interest has already made its way into other areas of their learning:

And all from this one little model:

Down by the Station

Boys and their trains. My afternoon class is absolutely smitten with anything with wheels - trains in particular. One wee guy always comes into Nursery exclaiming "trains! trains!" Naturally, the planning has made a shift over to trains and other wheeled vehicles to cater to this current interest.

We have an outdoor train set which the children love to build with. We also have an indoor one that uses Duplo trains. More often than not, the trains are out, and I really don't mind. Some people may think that the children need a different resource out to expand their learning and experiences, but they seem to do that all on their own with the same train set. They work together, construct complex tracks, problem solve when faced with challenges, and add in other resources to extend their play (like wooden blocks). If they're getting all that from a train set, and they aren't bored yet, why put it away?

As a result of this interest, trains and other modes of transportation has been incorporated in other areas of the curriculum to get them exploring different learning experiences. Using their interests to get them to explore things they wouldn't normally explore is a great way to get them involved. Some of my boys rarely go to the mark-making station, but when I put some trains and paint on that table, they were all over it:

You may notice I only had blue paint out. This was a conscious decision, as we are focussing on colour recognition at the moment as well. A lot of my kids really struggle to connect colours with their colour name, and I find they get a little less confused if we only have one colour out to focus on. Our language throughout the activity is based on the movement of the trains, the colour of the paint, and their experiences on trains and where they went.

We have a growing collection of cardboard boxes in our outdoor area (always a great open-ended resource to have on hand!). Naturally, the boxes became a train one day.

The children lined up the boxes, climbed in, collected tickets, and they were on their way! Some great language was happening here: ordinal numbers (1st, 2nd, 3rd), who drives the train, prepositional language (in front, behind, forward, backward), and discussion about where to go. They all agreed to go to the train station. Very practical.

We've been singing a wee song that I remember from my childhood:

Down by the station,
Early in the morning,
See the little puffer trains
All in a row.

See the station master
Turn the little handle,
Puff, puff, toot toot
Off we go!

Do you know any other train songs we could use to expand our repertoire?

Play is the Work of Childhood

Something to keep in mind when you're making your weekly plan :)

Let the Children Jump

Jumping is such a simple and easy activity for children to do, and yet is offers so many benefits to their gross motor development, their health, and interacting with others (at least in the context my class were jumping in the other day).

Look at the line of children waiting for their turn to jump off the box. I had no involvement in this "rule" the children imposed on their play. They naturally came to the conclusion that the best way for everyone to get a shot at jumping without everyone clamoring in each others' way was to form a line and take turns. (Most) children have a natural inclination towards rules, right/wrong, and fairness. Watch them when they make up games independently of adult support. Rules are a natural addition to their play.

Jumping offers great gross motor development practice. The children experimented with different ways to jump off the box. Most chose to jump with both feet facing forward. Some adventurous types spun in the air, while others did the splits in the air! Some who were a little more hesitant, but wanted to join in the jumping fun, chose to simply step off the box onto the mat. Landing also offered great gross motor opportunities; keeping your balance after a big jump is quite a skill, and not all the children were able to master it yet. Fortunately, they loved doing a little roll on the mat as they landed.

Getting children away from the screens and moving around can be a challenge. Offering a stimulus for active play is often all it takes to get children moving. All I did was pop a few boxes outside with a mat and the children did the rest.

Happy jumping!

The Body: Child-Led Learning

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post about mark-making which showed different stages of drawing people. One of the examples depicted people with legs coming out of their necks, which is quite a common thing for children to do when drawing people.

As a result of this, I thought a good way to progress the children's understanding of the body would be to look at it a little closer and learn about all the different parts. First, we traced someone's body:

Then we made a mind map of what we know about the body. Unfortunately, I don't have a photo of the mind map right now, but essentially, it says "bodies" in the middle and the children drew pictures, shared ideas, and wrote words all about the body. One wee boy said that we all have a love heart in our bodies! Another boy prefers writing to drawing, so he wrote words like "feet," "chin," "back," "eye," "eye," (yes, twice, because we have two eyes) "body," and "nose." He wrote it all with minimal support!

Next, we took photos of different parts of our body. The children were in charge of deciding what body parts to photograph and they were in charge of actually taking the photo. The more responsibility the children have, the better.

After we printed the photos, some children helped to make labels for them and we stuck them up on the cut out body tracing on the wall.

Simultaneously, there was a body painting activity going on. The children chose what body part they wanted to print onto paper with paint:

The body painting was so popular, we had to bring the activity outside for some collaborative foot printing:

The paint trays got a little slippery, so there may have been some painty bottoms! If you do this activity with your class, make sure you have some tubs of warm, soapy water, towels, and chairs handy for the clean up!

Speaking of clean up, always get the children to be responsible for cleaning up their own messes. It's their classroom, so they should be responsible for it to have a sense of ownership.

Phew. All that from a drawing of legs coming out of a head! And we're not done yet! The children have shown an interest and knowledge about bones and the heart. I'm hoping to extend their learning experiences with this interest in mind.

Note, these activities did not all take place in the same day. These occurred over the course of a week or so, always adding and extending learning experiences based on things the children said, did, or asked about.