Library Reading Challenge

Just a little reminder that in libraries all over the UK children can take part in the summer reading challenge coordinated by The Reading Agency – this year the challenge is called Story Lab. The aim of the challenge is to get children to read six books from the library during the summer holidays, it’s free to join in and children get a certificate for completing the challenge (and if you are lucky all sorts other rewards along the journey).

The Summer Reading Challenge is for children of all ages and reading abilities and children can read any books they like – fiction, non-fiction, stories, poems, jokes, cartoons or picture books (even audio books count too!) so long as they are borrowed from the library, they can count.

Book Giving Day

Today 14th Feburary has been declared International Book Giving Day with Zoe who writes Playing by the Book and Amy who writes at Delightful Children’s Books encouraging readers, bloggers, authors and everyone who loves books to get involved by donating a book (or more) to a child (or more). It can be a new book, or a gently used one the important thing is giving a book to someone else.

If you want to join in here are some suggestions:

1. Give a book to a friend or relative
2. Sort a box of children’s books that your children have outgrown and pass them on to children who might not have books (your local Children’s Centre / school or nursery will probably know of families who could benefit)
3. Leave a book or two in a waiting room or family friendly café to wait for a child to find it – you could leave a little note encouraging it to be taken away and read.

I took the opporunity to raid my stash of pre-loved books to give to the Littlesheeps – I have a feeling they will like these two Yuck books picked up at a bargain price from a NCT nearly new sale as they seem to be full of ‘boy humour’ – the yuckier the better!

Later today I’m also going to have another bookcase sort out and box up some loved but outgrown books to donate to others.

Littlesheep Learning will give a copy of every book sold today to a local school, children’s centre or hospital (as appropriate) – so why not take a look at our range of books and buy one with the knowledge that your book will have helped others have books.

You can find more information about Book Giving Day on:
Twitter: @bookgivingday
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/BookGivingDay
Website http://bookgivingday.blogspot.com/

Put on a Puppet Pantomime

In case you have missed it – it’s panto season… what is your favourite? Cinderella? Sleeping Beauty? Jack and the Beanstalk?

Children love pantomimes and what better this Christmas than giving them the opportunity to perform their own. All you need is a lovely puppet pantomime cast, a script (for small children they could act it whilst an adult reads from a book, older children might want to write their own) and a theatre / stage – a large decorated cardboard box is idea. You could even sell tickets and make refreshments.

 

 

Three Stories…

If you didn’t like the gruesome rhyme for the number three – don’t forget three is a popular number in fairy tales with  Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Three Little Pigs and the Three Billy Goats Gruff – three stories with the number three!

So here are some ideas linked to those popular tales.

As we said in the Three Blind Mice post when looking at rhymes with three you can practice counting to three – take a look there for ideas about the number three – you can use any of those ideas !

Goldilocks and the Three Bears

• share the story of Golidilocks and the Three Bears
• make porridge
• investigate sizes – small, medium / middle sized and big – sort them and match them
• playing with Goldilocks and the Three Bears puppets to act out the story
• sing “When Goldilocks Went to The House of the Bears” (listen here)

The Three Little Pigs

• building with a variety of materials
• make a three houses collage, sticking on straw, sticks and printing bricks
• make pig masks using paper plates
• play with Three Little Pigs puppets and act out the story
• huff and puff like the big bad wolf and practice blowing games – blow football, blow painting or just blow whistles!
• sing “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf” (Frank Churchill and Ann Ronell)
• play the Three Little Pigs game

The Three Billy Goats Gruff

• share the story of the Three Billy Goats Gruff
• go for a walk and find a bridge to ‘trip trap’ over
• investigate sizes – small, medium / middle sized and big – sort them and match them
• play with Three Billy Goats Gruff and act out the story

Developing Story / Imagination Skills

I was reading a post on a parenting forum yesterday about encouraging children’s imaginative development and there were some great ideas so I thought I’d share some with you.

Make sure that you spend time reading and sharing a variety of different books, stories and rhymes because the more ideas your child comes into contact with the more ideas they have to build on when creating their own stories. Ask questions when sharing stories; for example, why do you think that happened? how did he feel? what do you think will happen next?

Try to think imaginatively yourself when showing you child stories, use story sacks to develop story ideas. Gather props relating to stories for example puppets and games and use these to enact the stories. Make props such as wooden spoon puppets, playdoh food and cardboard box houses to help you.

Make stories up cooperatively; depending on your child’s drawing / writing ability there are several ways you can do it. The most simple way is to do it orally, you start a story and then take it turn to say a sentence or part of a sentence and see how silly it can get and how much detail you can put into it. If your child likes drawing you can make a story board by drawing squares on paper (start with just a few squares and then build up to longer ones as your child gets more confident) and taking it in turns to draw the next picture in the story. If you child struggles with drawing you could ask them to tell you what to draw and draw if for them. Lastly you can create stories by writing ideas down, take a strip of paper each and write down a character, fold it over and swap and add a location, fold and swap again and add an activity, fold and swap etc building up ideas and then open them out to see what has happened.

Draw random shapes / lines on a piece of paper and see what your child can make them become, for example a square could become a house, a circle could be made into a pig and a triangle could become the sail of a boat or the top of a rocket a wavy line could become the sea or turned into a caterpillar. This a great game for children who need to practice their fine motor and drawing skills too.

The Gruffalo and other favourite books…

Yesterday we read that Julia Donaldson (yes The Gruffalo author) has been announced as Britain’s new Children’s Laureate and after explaining what exactly that meant they concluded it was a very good thing because her books are firm favourites in our house.

We love the books because they are brilliant to read aloud (in fact I think they are even better when read aloud than in your head), because have great rhymes and because even the littlest Littlesheep can ‘read’ the stories himself by remembering the words.

So in honour of Julia Donaldson’s appointment (after a lot of debate) our favourite Julia Donaldson books (which are all illustrated by Axel Scheffler – we must makes sure we do read some of her other 120 plus books)

1. The Gruffalo
2. Monkey Puzzle
3. The Smartest Giant in Town
4. Tiddler
5. Room on the Broom
6. The Snail and the Whale

Which of Julia Donaldson’s books is your favourite?