Sharing Children's Learning I - Zig-zag books

I wanted to share an old idea of mine from a few years ago which we have started using again recently.  For special occasions or wow moments or brilliant bits of learning that the children are involved in, we make them a special zig-zag book to take home and share with their family

And here's how we did it...

A while ago I did a Story Cafe where the children and families all made a folded book called All About Me with a photo on the front and on the inside pages pictures or photos of their favourite stories or things to do.

Then a while later, we took some children on a short bus trip, we took loads of photos and noted down what the children were saying and what they were interested in or excited about.  Then later, we made them each a zig-zag book of their experience - a photo on each page and a very short sentence with each photo.  They took them home and the photos prompted them to talk about their experience and what they had remembered with their family. Parents loved it.

We did this recently after a trip to Forest School too.

So, a zig-zag book is a piece of rectangular card or thick paper folded in half and in half again to make a zig-zag shape.  Just choose which side is the front cover and start from there.  Here's what ours looked like...

So why am I writing about this on It's All About Stories?  Because each child makes their own stories every day which they can take home and share with their families.  And we can help them to do this through the use of photographs - it could be one photo stuck nicely to a piece of coloured paper with a short sentence written underneath - it's still a story for the child to tell about their day or their experience.  We're encouraging talk and encouraging children to share what they have been doing at home - essential in the development of communication and language and in personal, social and emotional development.

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Enjoy!