Child led books

I'm really keen to encourage a love of literature and telling stories with our children. Fortunately the kids are keen on this too!

When the lovely Cathy over at Nurturestore shared how she organises her play room, I knew The Fairy would be keen to adopt the idea of 'little books'. You provide your child with some blank books - ready to be filled with illustrations and stories. These make a great addition to a writing or creation station.

The set up is simple - some blank paper folded to make a book and pens/crayons.

Let the authors narrate.

One of my favourite things about this activity is how child led it is. I left a blank book next to where she keeps her paper, she found it and started creating (she did check with me first that it was OK to draw on it!) The when she was finished she came and told The Frog and I her story; then promptly asked for me to make her up a other blank book.

How do you encourage your child to tell and write stories?

How to create a Christmas writing area

This post should really be entitled 'how to make a writing area'  as I've not yet blogged about how we've made an 'all year' round mark making/ writing area yet. The reason for this is our area hasn't quite been finalised and is more 'a work in progress'! I know from working in different educational settings how important it is to give children free access to writing materials but I keep finding reason not to at home. We've had a few challenges the biggest one being it needs to be baby safe as The Frog wants to do everything his big sister does. We also live in a have a small flat so we don't have the space for a dedicated 'mark making table' with all items beautifully displayed. (I have spent far too much time on pintrest drooloing over researching other people's beautiful areas in their play rooms/ class rooms!)

Over the last couple of weeks I had noticed her interest in writing growing and wanted to provide opportunities to extend this. I came to the realisation that my desire for her to have a beautiful well organised area was stopping me get on and doing something. So I stopped dreaming and 'did'. I gathered all of the mark making stuff we normally play with and put it in one place and let her know the 'rules' for playing with it (i.e. what her brother was and wasn't allowed to touch). Having our equipment more organised and giving her freer access to it has meant an explosion in creations at home and has been great for her interdependence she is definitely asking to watch TV less which is fab!

To add festive cheer to our area we've taken our usual bits and upped the 'bling' by adding shiny, sparkly and christmasy versions into the mix. We went to a party of a very lovely friend at the weekend and many of the bits from the party bag (party favours) were perfect for adding in.

Punching holes

A letter with a stamp (this ones for a friend, but I'm sure there will be one for Father Christmas!)

More decorations for our tree

More decorations (I'm not sure where these are destined for yet!)

I love how all of these creations have been independent.