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!

As part of our winter topic, the children of Storytellers have been investigating ice, and this week’s weather has provided some fabulous natural learning opportunities. The children explored our outdoor area, discovered various frozen areas, and were delighted to find ways to smash the ice and tip out exciting frozen shapes. We used exciting vocabulary to describe how the ice looked and how the ice was changing throughout the day.  The children investigated freezing their little containers overnight with various shapes and toys dropped in the water and excitedly checked the results the following day. Describing the changes they had seen and thinking about why the ice was melting has offered some excellent opportunities to extend the children's language and bring the magic of science to life.

Merry Christmas from the Storytellers family. 

Storytellers and Twiglets had a very special visitor at their Christmas party today, Father Christmas popped in after parking the reindeer on the roof! The children excitedly asked him questions and spent time speaking to him about his reindeer and what his bells were for! The children were a delight to watch as it’s a magical time of year for them, and to be part of it is wonderful. We partied the afternoon away with games, dancing, and scrumptious food.

 

A huge thank you to our amazing Father Christmas and also to our extended Storytellers family, who all support us throughout the year. Have a magical Christmas with your fantastic little people 

Storytellers enjoyed a scrumptious Christmas lunch together today cooked by our fantastic cook, Sam! The children created very sparkly Christmas crowns and thoroughly enjoyed tucking into our delicious lunch; we had special lunch guests, Lily and Henry came along too, and Henry gave Sam extra cuddles as she looks after us all so well

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