story telling

Mide is at the wonderful stage of learning to read. He has worked through his phonic sounds, learnt his words and this week got to have his first reading book from school (which he reads from cover to cover each day for homework). He is hugely interested in the mechanics of it all - how do you spell, what does this mean, why is that a capital letter- questions, questions all feeding that inquisitive mind. 

I'm not sure I remember the process of learning to read, but I do remember being read to. Books were an important part of my childhood, as were visits to the library. And books are a huge part of my boys' lives too. We are lucky to have lots of them at home and also have a friendly, well-stocked local library too.

But reading and being read to is only part of the magic. Telling stories is also great fun. Especially when you use a few props to help you along. The boys got some Rory's story cubes as Christmas gifts and last night after the supper dishes were cleared away we had an impromptu storytelling session lit by candles with special sound effects provided by older brothers...

Each box of story cubes comes with 9 cubes with a different picture on each face. You simply roll the cubes and make up a story using whatever pictures you have in front of you to guide you along. It was hilarious hearing the boys' stories, but it was also a really good lesson in turn-taking and patience and listening.