Our project for the Spring Term is ‘Traditional tales and fairy stories’.
Why do young children enjoy a traditional story so much?
Apart from giving you some close one-on-one time with your child, these stories often have a moral underlying the tale which you and your child can talk about together.
Ask questions about how the story made them feel, what did they think about the main characters and who they would most like to be in the tale. This gives your child great chances to express themselves which will help with their verbal development and communication skills.
Another thing with fairy tales that’s important, is the way they are passed down from generation to generation. It’s not just the process of reading a book, its storytelling, and one of the best ways of engaging children and sparking their imagination. Tradition helps fairy stories endure.
Children’s literature helps a young child make sense of what it is to be human and helps them understand the world around them. The fairy tale genre provides ways for children to receive important messages whilst entering a magical, but safe, realm of the story world.
This not only captivates the imagination of young minds, but also enhances their creativity and reasoning skills. A child learns a lot by simply listening, and studies show this brings significant positive results in the development of a young mind.
These stories often show worldly common truths regarding humans and the world around them, in a simple manner. When listening to fairy tales, children can be deeply affected by their contents and, at the same time, their imagination develops and takes on new shapes.
Fairy tales, fables and other traditional stories from around the world teach us about society, class, relationships, emotions, values and even good and evil.
Folktales were often employed to share a common history, to reinforce cultural values or highlight important traditions.
As part of this term’s project, we can incorporate some popular children’s classics such as:
- Goldilocks and the Three Bears
- Red Riding Hood
- The Three Little Pigs
- Jack and the Beanstalk
- The Three Billy Goats Gruff
- The Gingerbread Man
These are often stories that are already familiar to, and loved by, our children and offer ample opportunities to cover all areas of learning included in the Early Years curriculum.
Why we need to ask questions……
The benefits children get from having fairy stories read to them are hugely increased when we talk and ask questions about the story as well.
Simply asking them if they can remember what happened in the story or checking if they know what some of the more complicated words mean can really extend their understanding and vocabulary.
More complex ‘inference’ questions like, ‘why do you think this character did that?’ helps children to think about and understand other people’s motivations and develops a sense of empathy as children are encouraged to put themselves in the position of the story’s protagonist; to consider their actions and reactions and why they may have made them.
Focus and social skills…..
Through storytelling children are encouraged to listen to others, whether it be the storyteller or others listening to the story. They learn to be more patient and to let others speak; they begin to understand that others may not interpret things in the same way they do.
There are many different ways to encourage our young children to engage with these stories…..
- Role play and fancy dress, which children always love!
- Acting out the stories with props and hand puppets
- Small world imaginative play
- Arts and crafts and cookery activities
If you have any well-loved fairy stories at home that would make a good contribution to our project this term, please do let us know!
We would be extremely pleased to welcome any parents or family members into nursery to read to our children. Please speak to a teacher if this is something you’d like to do.
We’re looking forward to a magical story filled term ahead!
