Story Time @ Home: Fantastic Fairy Tales!

Who doesn’t love a good fairytale!  Not only are fairytales a great way to capture your child’s imagination, they are an excellent platform on which to begin teaching those early reading skills.

Read – Have fun reading your child’s favorite fairy tales together.  Here are some great suggestions for classic fairy tales, opens a new window!  When you are done reading, try having your child “read” the story to you.  Having them turn the pages and tell you what is happening is a great way to build those print awareness skills, as well as exercising their sequencing skills.  Help them out by asking what happened first, second, and third in the story.

Sing – Try singing or chanting nursery rhymes with your child.  Nursery rhymes help teach all sorts of skills.  “Hickory Dickory Dock” helps little ones count to twelve.  “The Itsy-Bitsy Spider” builds fine motor skills as your child moves their fingers like the spider.  “Old Macdonald Had a Farm” reviews animal noises.

Play – Acting out stories is an excellent way for children to work on their comprehension, sequencing, and of course large and fine motor skills.  Try using puppets, dolls, or costumes to help your child act out their favorite fairy tales.  Here are some fairy tale cut-outs that make great popsicle stick puppets, opens a new window!

Talk – Fairy tales have all sorts of things that you and your child can count.  Practice counting the number of pigs in The Three Little Pigs.  Have them count the bowls, chairs, and beds in Goldilocks and the Three Bears.  How many horses and how many men come to save Humpty Dumpty? Illustrations are great places to find things to count. 

Write – There are all sorts of great coloring pages that feature favorite fairy tale characters and scenes.  Encourage your child to color.  Coloring exercises their fine motor skills and builds the small muscles in the hand and wrist needed for writing and drawing.  Try this coloring page from our Activities at Home website, opens a new window.