As a qualified teacher, I have spent over 30 years teaching people of all ages from babies to adults and everything in between. Now I choose to focus on early childhood education (0-6 years) because I feel that if we get it right at this age when the learning can be so profound for so many reasons, then we will not have as much of the self-esteem, social or learning difficulties in the primary or secondary levels and as children get older. Through my own learning and experience I’ve discovered how incredibly effective movement and music can be for this.
Because of my passion for learning through movement and music I have written all the stories with a movement focus so the children can actively get involved in the story telling or reading or that the story can initiate learning through movement as a follow up. I feel that if children can move with confidence and sing with joy and inhibition, that it will enhance their self-esteem and self-love, which will hopefully help them in the years to come.
All my stories have been written for a specific purpose and have a reason for the message in the story. As well as having a movement or music focus the stories also have a moral e.g. kindness to others, how to overcome exclusion, sharing, the environment, resilience, independence, choice making and so on.
There is also rhythm and rhyme in the choice of words and sentence structure of the stories. This enhances the concept of rhythm that is vital not only for singing and music appreciation but for reading.
Repetition of words or movements, paragraphs or sentences throughout the stories all enhance language development and the myelination of the brain for learning, retention of information, memory and awareness of sequence and order of words and movement.
The stories may be in the form of story-telling, story reading, play acting, the use of imagination and creating part of the story, the use of props, original story books, craft activities, songs, chants, pictures, visual cue cards, music activities or musical instruments. This in turn enhances variety, imagination, creativity and visualization.
Each story has accompanying teaching points, Early Years Learning Framework reference, lists the props and musical instruments required and any extension activities.
If all this learning is approached through fun and enjoyment the learning is easy!
This story is about the animals being individual and appreciating what qualities they each have. It is about not being competitive to be the better then the other animals, but to be happy that they are each the best because of who they are.
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