Lost and Found

With my rucksack full of bobble hats and a mini suitcase in the shape of a penguin I headed to Glenbrae for another adventure.Having struggled to find a way to engage the Sunshine Room (2-3s) with the book the first week I decided i would try setting up a space which they could choose to enter or not. I had a few visitors in my den who listened to a bit of this weeks story ‘Lost and Found’ by Oliver Jeffers.

I love this book (and all his books) and really enjoyed finding ways of playing with the story. When I headed to the Butterfly Room (3-5s) we donned our Adventurers Hats and really explored the story.We practiced our penguin walk, found our very own lost penguin, built a boat to sail to the South Pole and made posters for and named the missing penguin we found.I’m learning a lot about the difference between 2-3 year olds and 3-5 year olds and enjoying getting to know the children at the centre.

I taught the Butterfly Room ’40 years on an Iceberg’ a song about a polar bear which ended in all of the children hugging staff member Marie.

As I left Glenbrae this week Ben turned to me and said:

“Bye, Geraldine the Adventurer”

I grinned from ear to ear and called back:

“Bye, Ben the Adventurer”

His smile matched mine.

Our First Adventure

Our first adventure ‘Augustus and His Smile’ a book about a tiger that has lost his smile by Catherine Rayner.

The illustrations in the book are beautiful and the simple story has lots of opportunity for questions and play with the children.

We practiced tiger roars, found some exotic beetles, listened to some noisy birds and eventually found lots of smiles.

 

Opening the Book…

The week before I started the Story Pages sessions I went for a visit to the Glenbrae Children’s Centre, to see the space and meet some of the staff and children.

After spending an afternoon chatting with Moira Gray, The Head Teacher, and being shown round the centre I was excited and slightly intimidated about starting the project. Glenbrae is such an excellent place I felt it was important that what I was bringing was something different for the staff and children. 

The staff of Glenbrae are enthusiastic, supportive and agreed they were happy to wear silly costumes and take part in what I was going to try out.

So I decided I was going to be “Geraldine the Adventurer” when I arrived at Glenbrae Children’s Centre a week later and that we would all go on an adventure together.

 “Is anyone up for helping me make 40 bobble hats?”

Welcome to Story Pages

Story Pages will explore how to use Books as a starting point for guided

interactive play with under 5s. Books provide a familiar access point for children, parents and staff. I will be working at Glenbrae Children’s Centre in Greenock for 10 weeks. I will use a new story book each week and hope to work with a some musicians and visual artists as the project develops.