Use simple storytelling props to act out a favourite traditional tale of Little Red Riding Hood in imaginative play! There are so many opportunities for early literacy development in this type of exciting dramatic play and it is developmentally appropriate for young children.
Welcome to a brand new series called Playful Storytelling that we are co-hosting with Ness who writes over at the gorgeous One Perfect Day. We are very excited to share a whole range of wonderful ideas for celebrating books and stories with our children in a completely playful, hands on way.We will be bringing you a wide range of activities from puppet making, oral storytelling, dramatic play, book making, creating story props, designing masks, making story boxes and small world story scenes to name but a few! We have been busy planning many genres and themes that we will be working through over the next few months and we very much hope you will follow us as we do so.
Keeping early literacy fun and playful is essential. Too much pressure to read and write can be intimidating and plenty of young kids get turned off learning way too early in life because they’re forced into it too soon. The foundations of good literacy skills dwell in comprehension and language skills, which are fostered best through listening to stories and retelling them in a fun way. This series will address this incredibly important way of learning and will be packed full of ideas for parent and educators to use with 0-7 year olds (and beyond!)
Our first series of ideas are all based in Nursery Rhymes and Traditional well-loved tales, the ones that we all know and love from our own childhoods and that don’t even need a book to accompany them. My girls love all of these so we are having lots of fun at the moment retelling them together!
We gathered some very simple props for dressing up and story telling from the story of Little Red Riding Hood. I found a red scarf of mine that could fit over their heads to become a little hood. Then we found some fabric flowers, a wolf puppet and a basket with some wooden food. Cakie got our copy of Little Red Riding Hood and we read it again together to refresh their understanding of the main events of the story. Then we divided up the parts and acted it out!
Cakie was able to tell the story herself as the narrator, with me filling in the parts as tshe directed. She wanted to be Little Red and Pop was instructed to be Grandma. First she walked through the woods and gathered some flowers to add to her basket for Grandma. Then she met a wolf who was decidedly up to no good! And hurried on to Grandma’s house to find a wolf-shaped Granny tucked up in bed.
Together we retold the familiar words and Pop joined in too. If she forgot any of the details I added them in as a narrator and she picked up the thread again herself. After she got gobbled up, I came along as the woodcutter and chopped open that naughty wold to free them both! They celebrated together with “yay, the big bad wolf is dead!”
The end of our story finished with “and they all lived happily ever after”. There was a lot of emphasis on using storybook language and keeping the main events in the right order throughout. This whole set up took all of 4 minutes to gets ready and was decidedly unprepared and natural, rather than spending ages creating the perfect costume or fashioning props, we just went with improvisation and had lots of fun. In that way it was achievable and something we could do again as a quick play idea at any time of day, which is important for busy parents!
What they are learning as they play:
literacy: oral storytelling, sequencing events in the right over, using storybook language, narration, opening and closing stories, simple story structuring, developing story book characters, remaining in role during dramatic play
phse: working together to perform a story retelling, organising each other during play
Now check out the gorgeous Hey Diddle Diddle Storytelling Sticks at One Perfect Day!
Follow our brand new Playful Storytelling Pinterest board!
Search for more playful literacy ideas here, there are hundreds in our archives!
Here are some other Traditional Tales Ideas:
Goldilocks and the Three Bears dramatic play
oh Anna, that is adorable 🙂
Anna this is adorable and so simple to put together. That last photo of Cakie and Pop hugging is gorgeous!
This is just adorable! I love the “hood” and the wolf puppet! What a brilliant way to bringing a story to life.
This is a BRILLIANT idea and that picture of your two girls at the end is just beyond adorable.
Wow, this piece of writing is fastidious, my sister is analyzing these things,
therefore I am going to convey her.