Engaging children in reading

Some people have requested that I detail more about the Handa's Hens Story sack which is fantastic! I am really pleased that people have liked this post and that they feel inspired to make their own. I am very passionate about how we can get children more engaged in reading books and feel this works with my daughter. The reason why I chose this book is because it came recommended by a friend who mentioned that it is used a lot in early years setting.  As well as the book teaching children about different cultures it also cleverly embeds number recognition.

First of all I will detail what is in the sack many of the resources were from Twinkl.  You do have to pay a subscription to get some of the resources however this is very reasonable and there are loads of good resources on there.

Firstly contained in the sack (pillow case with a T-shirt transfer)

• The book Handa's Hen by Eileen Browne
• Sequencing cards
• Colouring sheets
• Handa and Akeyo face masks
• Pictures of the animals in the book for example two butterflies, 4 lizards, all cut out individually.
• word mat
• 10 Easter chicks and plastic eggs
• Jigsaw (picture printed from Google laminated then cut up)
• Handa and Akeyo stick puppets
• 3 toy mice

Then the fun began...

First we played with the main characters and saying their names.

As we went through the story little Boo decided that she wanted to count the cut up animals onto the page by placing them on top of the book.  This was something I did not even think of!

When we came to the end of the story I used 10 plastic eggs to put chicks in!

The sequencing cards were then used to recall the story and to practise counting.

Little Boo then wanted to match the pictures to the word mat .

Then do the jigsaw

Then it was time to pack up so one chick had to be counted into the egg and the correct colours matched together to close the egg.

I think it is important that children are allowed to explore the story how they want to. I have seen how Little Boo has started to explore more and more with this story sack as we have used it. She has even started to make up her own stories with Handa and Akeyo. Next story sack will be The Hungary Caterpillar.

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