Question
Q – “I have a interview for an Early Years Teaching Assistant at a school, they have asked me to prepare a 20 minute activity for 15 YR children based around a story. I have a few ideas but was looking for some more? Thank you”
Answers
A – “I did ‘Alien’s love underpants’ went down a treat with mine and then after I read it I had some cut out laminated underpants from the story for children to stick shapes on and decorate. once they had put them on we took it in turns to talk about what shapes we used and then pegged them on the line. This went down really well and I got the job too”
A – “Handa’s surprise is good for healthy eating, understanding the world, British values, could even introduce ” dramatic irony” ( which is where the reader knows something the character does not. Handa doesn’t know what happened to her fruit).”
A – “We have recently done ‘supertato’. Pop onto Pinterest and there’s some fab ideas. We made our own supertatos with cocktail sticks and veg, did a supertato numicon activity, pincers and peas fine motor activity and painting with different veg! The children love the book too”
A – “Always good to have props when telling a story in early years! Characters from the book, or something that relates to the story, picture cards of emotions, etc”
A – “The lighthouse keepers lunch is a good one followed by an activity where the children can draw and label what they would like in their picnic basket. Could link in unhealthy/healthy choices. Outside activity…can they create a pulley system to get a basket from A to B. Good luck”
A – “Ive done an activity based on the story goldilocks and the 3 bears, using 3 different sized bowls, 3 different sized beds, 3 different sized spoons, porridge oats and the characters. The children lived it and kept a high interest in it, you get a lot of early maths out of it, they get to feel the texture of porridge and enjoy being involved”
A – “Going on a bear hunt, Grufallo, Dear Zoo all have loads of ideas on line. I also love a book called Fran’s Flower, loads to talk about on growing etc but you’d have to think up some other activities”
A – “Hansel and Gretall, read the story talk about it then let them decorate a gingerbread house! Did this with our reception kids today they loved it”
A – “What about chatty bat and you can introduce phase one for letters and sounds or the very cranky bear and you can also link it to letters and sounds”
A – “A bear hunt maybe? Or hungry caterpillar look ok twinkl and sparkle box for resources to support stories”
A – “Where the wild things are. Then get them to story sequence using only main parts of the story”
A – “Any traditional tale always has some good ideas. Billy goats gruff, red riding hood etc”
A – “I did rainbow fish, made fishes out of paper plates then got the child to stick pretty bits of paper on”
A – “Hungry caterpillar any traditional tales always good”