It's all about stories!: Stories and Schemas

I love observing children transporting, they are always so engrossed in their play. We see lots of this at Forest School where the children can play with buckets, jugs, saucepans, wheelbarrows, water and mud. And it's often surprising how many children fill a toy buggy with everything except a doll and push it around, or a play shopping trolley filled with ALL of the bricks from the construction area. Some of these things can be annoying to us as adults but if we can understand the learning behind the actions it certainly helps, so we watch, observe, comment and question, rather than expecting everything to be put back in it's "right place".

Stories to go alongside the transporting schema -

Handa's Surprise by Eileen Browne - Handa fills her basket with fruits to take to her friend Akeyo. This is an amazing story for the children to join in with physically - baskets, real or play fruits, a bit of space to walk up and down...

Dig Dig Digging by Margaret Mayo and Alex Ayliffe - I love these books; rhyming text and repeated refrains to join in with. Perfect.

Tip Tip Gig Dig by Emma Garcia - another favourite. I do this one with lots of props. And we tie it in with toy diggers in the tuff spot with some gravel or small duplo bricks for transporting.

Beach from Usborne books - I like the idea of this to go along with talking about going to the beach, making sandcastles and collecting things like shells and pebbles in buckets.