As a teaching team we are constantly listening to and observing the children within the studio. These observations are what help form our curriculum.
Before the winter break we were busy working on creating our sculpture inspired by our visits to the museum. To add more dimension to the sculpture we set up a table to allow the children to bead so they could embellish it with ornaments. This was also in parallel to much talk about decorating Christmas trees at home. Although the children were excited about beading they were more interested in wrapping the beaded strings up and creating written notes for these presents to go home. The anticipation of the upcoming holidays and all the preparations at home had infiltrated the studio. To this end we decided to capitalize on this enthusiasm around writing and interest in letters and convert our back room into a letter/writing exploration space. Knowing the love of our story time one of the tools we added to this space were blank books for the children to create their own stories.
For some children a blank book was inspiring. The children created the stories in different ways.
(Synopses of stories below)
Alex had a definite story in his head prior to starting and set about illustrating the book accordingly and then asking an adult to write the words.
Kyla drew inspiration for her story from the different pictures she had drawn on the pages. Once all the illustrations were done she then asked for words to be added.
Tessa worked on her story page by page. She drew a picture then narrated a storyline. Taking inspiration from that page she drew her next one trying to link a story together.
Eva inspired by her family drew her book. She added her own words only asking for written help on one page.
