Fun with Narrative-Early Years (Team Licence)

Our Fun with Narrative-early years pack focuses on developing the essential skills of listening, understanding, story structure, vocabulary and reasoning with a familiar story to enable children to then extend these skills to other areas of the curriculum. Familiarity with the text enriches children’s understanding of the language of the story and its content. Understanding story structure also plays an important part.

It is envisaged that the narrative sessions, as a whole or in part, will be presented when the children are familiar with the particular story chosen as a focus.

The texts are:

• We’re Going on a Bear Hunt
• Billy’s Beetle
• The Smartest Giant in Town
• The Gruffalo
• Little Polar Bear
• Peace at Last
• The Tiger Who Came to Tea
• Farmer Duck

Examples from Narrative-early years sessions include:

• We are going to pretend to go on a long walk. Who shall we take with us?’ Using colourful pictures to represent the characters, let each child in the group hold a who and pretend to be that character.
• Using the set of pictures that correspond with the wheres in the book, go through the book page by page, taking time to discuss all of the different places. Where possible expand associated vocabulary. It may be useful to attach the corresponding pictures to a story string to reinforce the sequence of events in the story.
• Develop questioning skills by getting the ‘characters’ to interact with the animals they might see as they pass through each place.
• Each child could be given a musical instrument that symbolically represents the various places in the book, for example, a rain-maker for the river; sandpaper for the long, wavy grass, and so on.
• Using P.E. equipment make an obstacle course in the hall for the children to go under, over and through.

Eight separate sessions with full instructions for the activities at the Foundation level. KS1 adaptations and ideas for additional extension activities are included. The pack also includes

Narrative cue cards
Story cue cards
Colourful pictures
Concept worksheets
Sequence pictures

Aim: To enable teachers to extend Narrative skills into the classroom setting via familiar texts.

Age Level: Foundation Stage – KS 1, 4 years – 7 years.

Format: PDF file, 56 pages of colour pictures & B&W duplicates, 21 pages of instructions.