Come and join us for storytime at the Toddler Club. This story is all about going to the beach.
You don’t always need a book for storytime. You can make up your own adventure as you go.
In the film below, Gemma Atkinson and our families lay out their towels, put on sun cream, go for a swim and much more! Why not join in with them at home? Or make up your own adventure?
Should we all lay our towels out? Lay your towel out on the floor. Oh no. There's some sand on my towel. Don't want sand on it. Do we?
Oh, don't want sand on it yet. Do we? No, no, we want it nice and clean, don't we?
No sand.
Now I wonder what else we'll need. Cause it's quite sunny. Isn't it? And we don't want to burn, some?
Cream!
Yes, Some sun cream. Should we get it on? Mums and dads have got the cream, so let's put it on. Oh, and rub it all over you. Make sure we don't miss any bits and make sure you have a grownup with you to help.
Get your cheeks and your nose. Oh, now we should put our arm bands on. Yes. So we can go in the water. Let's put our arm bands on.
Yeah, You got yours on Chester? Yeah, have you got yours on is your daddy blowing them up for you? Yeah. You're blowing your arm bands up.
I have blown mine up. Look, I think we can walk into the water now.
Can't we, should we go in? Oh, it's cold. Oh, it's cold. That water. Oh Splash, splash, splash, splash.
I think we need to get out it's freezing in this water isn't it, we should go back to our towels. Oh, and put them around us. Oh, get warm.
Yeah nice and warm.
Can we go to the beach again?
The beach again? You want to go again? You can go back in the water if you want. Careful though it's cold it's cold oh no.
It is so cold. Should we try again?
Yeah
Here are some top tips for setting up your own sensory story, like Gemma, at home.
Teach resilience
Things don’t always go right in stories, and that makes them perfect for teaching your child about resilience and overcoming problems.
This doesn’t have to be anything serious. It could be as simple as getting sand on your towel.
But by identifying a problem and showing your child how to fix it, you are helping develop their problem-solving skills.
Groups of words
Sometimes words naturally come in sets, like body parts, numbers or types of fruit.
When you’re making up a story, you can try and focus on a set of words that you can repeat a lot.
During our beach story, Gemma tells all the toddlers to put on suncream, and she emphasises all the different parts of the body where it can go.
This is great because your toddler can link the word to the body part they are touching.
Learning opposites
Learning pairs of opposites is a great way to help your child build up their vocabulary, as they’re not just learning one word…but two!
Use actions and make the words a part of your story. This will increase your child’s understanding.
In Gemma’s adventure, the children go into some cold water and then wrap themselves up in a towel to get warm or hot.
Some other opposites that you could fit into your story could be: heavy and light, on and off, big and small, or open and shut.
Storytime is a great chance to practise imaginary play with your toddler. Check out speech and language therapist Francesca’s top tips for making the most of storytime.
Want more? You can watch the full series of The Toddler Club on 鶹Լ iPlayer right now!
