Storytellers had a wonderful morning visit to the Hugs Foundation. We have been learning how the charity supports animals that have been neglected or abandoned and how they do this. The children explored the area and met some fantastic characters along the way. The pigs were very popular, and helping to throw the food in was great fun, as well as watching the pigs forage around in the mud. Meeting the cheeky goats and giving them a fantastic scratch ensured they enjoyed walking with the children. The children investigated various foods that the animals enjoyed and looked at some wonderful treasures, from horses' teeth to antlers. Meeting the ponies and learning how and why they were rescued was a definite highlight. Thanks to Hazel for showing the children around, providing many learning opportunities and fantastic enrichment for our class topic.

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Why do we send home Reading Pets? It goes without saying that reading to your young child on a regular basis can help you forge a stronger relationship with them. When it comes to children, one of the most important things you can do to influence their development positively is to spend time with them. Reading to your child provides a great opportunity to set up a regular, shared event where you can look forward to spending time together. With shared reading, your child will trust and expect you to be there for them. The importance of trust to small children cannot be overstated.

Reading a favourite book to your child helps you bond with them and gives them a sense of intimacy and well-being. This feeling of intimacy helps your child feel close to you, and the feelings of love and attention encourage positive growth and development.

Reading aloud together and having a shared activity gives you and your child something to talk about, which supports the development of reading and writing skills. A children’s book can provide springboards to meaningful discussions about many different topics, which can further develop a child’s critical thinking skills.

At its core, literature is one of the best ways to help children understand something without necessarily having to experience it for themselves. Reading to your child helps to expose them to all types of subjects and concepts, building our children’s understanding of humanity and the world around them.

If you read just one book daily to your child, they will have read 1825 books by their 5^th birthday! 

As we do every day, we have been sharing much-loved stories with the children. For World Book Day this year, we read ‘Elmer and Wilbur’ and created some beautiful pictures depicting a very colourful Elmer. Elmer the Elephant teaches us that everyone is unique and has something that sets them apart and that there's no point in trying to hide or disguise this. We should embrace our differences and always be true to who we are.

Learning to love books, listen to stories, and share ideas is a fantastic way to develop your child’s imagination. Reading to children is an essential part of their education.

We know how many books you have at home – read until they fall apart, maybe, and others that have been read and enjoyed are now collecting dust.

We want our children to share their love of books by swapping one or more with their friends.

We encourage our children to bring the books they no longer want and put them in the “book swap cupboard" outside the nursery. The children can then swap or choose a different book to take home and enjoy. 

 We had a Cornish-themed day in Storytellers on the 5th of March in honour of St Piran’s Day. Children arrived dressed in black and white clothes to start the day. We explored Cornish tales such as the Mermaid of Zennor and talked about the story of St Piran. Great fun was had dancing to some beautiful Cornish songs. The children thoroughly enjoyed baking some delicious scones for their Cornish high tea in the afternoon, complete with their handmade Cornish-themed decorations and bunting. Don’t worry—we ensured Jam went on first!

‘Twas proper! 

Who was Saint Piran?

According to the Cornwall Heritage Trust, St. Piran was “the merriest, hardest drinking, hardest living holy man Cornwall ever knew.” However, legend has it that he wasn’t Cornish.

He was Irish and was an advisor to King Aengus of Munster.

When the King wanted to leave his wife for a younger woman, Piran said it was his duty to forbid it.

Aengus bound him to a millstone and threw him off the highest cliff in Munster. However, the stone floated, and it filled ashore on the north coast of Cornwall.

He built a church, St Piran’s Oratory, or praying place, which is the oldest Christian church in Britain. To this day, it still exists near Perranporth.

Piran was very popular, especially after discovering how to smelt tin. He became known as the Tinner’s Saint, and that’s why the flag of Cornwall is a white cross on a black background.

It shows the light of God in a dark world and the white tin metal against the black rock.

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Pancake Day is a chance to incorporate cultural celebrations into the curriculum, promoting inclusivity and diversity. To celebrate Shrove Tuesday (yes, we know it’s a week late), children in Storytellers made and explored the ingredients and cooking process for pancakes, flour, milk and eggs. They learned lots of new vocabulary such as ‘whisk’, ‘frying pan’, ‘batter’ ‘liquid’ and ‘spatula’. We investigated the ingredients and possible toppings and planned our pancakes with fabulous pictures!

Teaching Storytellers the history of Pancake Day in the UK was made engaging and age-appropriate through various activities and approaches. Physical and sensory activities are a great way to get all children involved. Our wonderful mud kitchen area offers abundant natural, open-ended activities; it provides an ideal space for the children to explore, create, and learn. These activities offer sensory-rich experiences that enhance fine and gross motor skills, language development, and social interaction. Integrating Pancake Day celebrations into the mud kitchen activities makes learning truly immersive and enjoyable!

After all the fun of the mud kitchen, everyone had a hearty appetite and was ready to cook!  Once everyone had given their hands a good scrub, we enjoyed cooking pancakes outside and trying out various toppings to choose our favourite! Maple syrup and strawberries seemed to be a popular one!

February 10th, 2024, marked the first day of the Lunar New Year, also known as the Spring Festival.

The Lunar New Year is an international holiday celebrated in many countries throughout Asia and around the world. The holiday goes by different names depending on where you are celebrating, and it symbolises a hopeful transition from the cold winter to the season of renewal.

As we say goodbye to the Year of the Rabbit, we welcome the Year of the Dragon. The dragon is one of the luckiest and most powerful animals in the Chinese zodiac.

We made colourful dragon pictures; the children created a dragon dance together and took turns leading. We have looked at different traditions surrounding this special time of year and explored mark-making techniques as we created our own Chinese table decoration; our decorations were in red to bring us good luck. Lots of fun was had as we improved our fine motor skills and perseverance, using chopsticks to eat at the special banquet that we prepared together. Everyone enjoyed sampling different vegetables and a very exciting-looking dragon fruit, which we discovered had bright pink skin and a spotty inside and tasted yummy!

 Happy Lunar New Year to all who celebrate!

 This week, we have been talking about love and people that are important to us; this threads through Personal Social and Emotional Development (PSED), which supports children to have a positive sense of themselves, respect for others, social skills, emotional well-being and a positive disposition to learning. These are all crucial for school readiness. PSED is about children developing confidence and independence. Positive social and emotional development in the early years provides a critical foundation for lifelong development and learning. Social development refers to a child's ability to create and sustain meaningful relationships with adults and other children. Emotional development in early childhood is just as crucial to a child's overall well-being as physical milestones like crawling and walking, as they shape how a child perceives the world, interacts with others, and responds to challenging situations. The children thoroughly enjoyed talking about their families and were wonderful at giving examples of how we care for each other and show kindness, after making cards and mixing love potions with fairy dust the week ended with baking some rather wonderful chocolate dipped biscuits to take home and share with their special people.

Our children learn through play, observation, and exploration; they gain so much through guided and free exploration of the world around them.
Supporting the children through interactive games and bringing learning to life through books and adventures is always fun. One of the best and most fun ways of helping children develop essential life skills, such as problem-solving, reading, building teamwork, and getting some good exercise for both the mind and body, is through a treasure hunt. We brought our story to life and went off on our own treasure hunt through the woods, the children followed clues and supported each other along the way. Finding the hidden treasure was a rather exciting discovery!