This is something that is so fun, combining both reading and play together. Anything that can help grow a child's love for stories and reading (at any age) is a great idea.
This activity is extremely flexible in terms of play ideas and can be adapted to suit things that your little one likes the most, while incorporating things you’d like them to try more.
This activity starts with you picking one of your children's favourite stories. You will then need to come up with some play ideas that come from your story. These can be messy, sensory or crafts. Anything you think your little one will enjoy.
For 'The Hungry Caterpillar'
Gather leaves, small branches and hide either butterfly or caterpillar print-outs or toys in the leaves for your little ones to find. You could even hide toy food amongst the leaves and have your little ones find them for the caterpillar.
You could also fill a sealable bag with rice and squeeze some non-toxic paint in with it. Seal the bag and mix so you end up with colourful rice. Place this in a tray once dry and add plastic toy food with pots, pans and spatulas. Little ones love pouring the rice from pot to pot.
This is a fantastic sensory activity that children just love to get stuck into.
If you're feeling very organised, you could also make some jelly and add in some of the fruits from the story. This is a fantastic way to get children interested in the new food. Can be done with just jelly for smaller ones as their senses love the feel, smell and taste of the jelly.
You can also add in a craft activity and cut out butterflies to paint or decorate with crepe paper.
The options for these activities are endless and you can set up as many or few as you like.
This is also great for rainy days as you can set up enough to keep your little one entertained for longer. We also find that a lot of children don't like getting their hands messy or in anything that's sticky or gloopy. Doing these sort of activities means you can get them used to touching new textures in a fun way and take it at a slow speed.
Maybe start with cereal in a tray with toy dinosaurs that you can stomp through, along with a 'Harry and the Dinosaurs' book, before building up to something messy that they'll use their hands for.
Posted on 16th May 2019
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