Storytime can (and should!) happen in many different ways – not just when your child is sitting quietly in your lap listening to you read a book. This hands-on activity is a fun and interactive way to include your child in the storytelling experience.
Objectives
Increase vocabulary, language, and concept development.
Develop early math concepts such as counting, more/less, patterns, and one-to-one correspondence.
Scan for pictures from left to right using vision or touch.
Learn to anticipate “what happens next.”
Re-tell a familiar story using objects.
Take turns telling the story or create a new one.
Expanded Core Curriculum Areas Supported
Sensory Efficiency: Use senses to explore, understand and gain information, especially functional vision, touch, smell, and sound.
Social Skills: Bonding and communicating with caregiver during the activity; turn-taking.
Compensatory Skills: Concept development, tactile skills for learning and communication modes; sequencing of events in a story; using real and representative objects to introduce early math concepts.
Self-Determination: Following one- or two-step directions, imitation and learning to anticipate next step.
Recreation and Leisure: Discover leisure-time preferences – reading is fun!
Everyday Routines Supported
This activity supports the use of literacy activities in everyday play routines. Concepts in this poem also support overall development of play skills including on/off, rolling/running to get to toys and to engage in pretend play.
Suggested Next Steps to Use This Activity With Caregiver and Child
Discuss activity with caregiver to determine appropriateness and relevancy to family.
Forward the caregiver version of the activity to the caregiver.
Remind the primary caregiver one to two days before the home/virtual visit to gather the materials required.
Introduce the activity, discuss the objectives, and provide an overview of the possible steps.
Be prepared to break down activities into a smaller subset as the child and family may not have the time or tolerance to complete all activities.
After completing this activity, consider extension activities that may be appropriate and relevant to the family.
