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Teaching topic: Early childhood education: Puppets, puzzles, story sacks etc.

This guide pulls together resources that could be used to support early childhood teaching

Introduction

Non-book materials in our Teaching Collection are great for encouraging engagement in the classroom! 

Percussion sets

8 percussion sets are available to borrow for 3 week loan

Puppets

We hold 3 giant storytelling puppet sets. Choose from Goldilocks and the three bears, The three little pigs (includes the big bad wolf!) and The three billy goats gruff. 

Games as Gaeilge

A very generous donation from publishers Glor na nGael means you can borrow some very fun games as Gaeilge for up to 3 weeks. Monopoly as Gaeilge anyone?!

Story Sacks

The concept of a story sack was conceived by Neil Griffiths and typically consists of a story book with props presented in a large cloth bag.

The purpose of a story sack is to stimulate reading activities and make shared reading a memorable and fun experience.

A story sack might include:

  • A non-fiction book on a theme from the story
  • Puppets / soft toys
  • Real materials
  • An audio recording of the story
  • A language-based game
  • A small group time activity
  • A drama activity
  • A short guide containing questions to ask / words to consider
  • Other ways to extend the reading activity

[All Dr. Geraldine French, 2010]

The Library holds 8 story sacks: Farmer Duck, The journey home from Grandpa's, Owl babies, The journey, Animal boogie, Mama Panya's pancakes, Fatou fetch the water and The train ride. Think about gathering materials around a story and create your own story sack.

Classroom Set

2 classroom sets (boxed) containing 30 copies each of Farid's rickshaw ride by Rowan Oberman and the Trócaire / Centre for Human Rights and Citizenship Education initiative: Education for a Just World are available to borrow - thanks to the Centre for Human Rights and Citizenship Education.

Puzzles for literacy and numeracy

We also hold a number of puzzles for numeracy and literacy that could be used in small group time in early childhood classes or E.A.L.

  • Rory's story cubes max
  • Rory's story cubes - enchanted
  • Rory's story cubes - actions 
  • My first number snap
  • Syllable snap
  • M is for mouse

Multi-sensory book

The Library holds one multi-sensory book called The little seed; it's aimed at students with profound and multiple learning disabilities. Have a look to plan how you might make your own multi-sensory book!

List of suppliers

We bought our puppets, puzzles, percussion sets, story sacks and multi-sensory book from the following suppliers: Puppets, plays and story days, Puppets by post, Cogs the brainshop, Waltons Music, Storysack.com (Demco Europe), BagBooks.org thanks to generous funding from The Quality Promotion Office, DCU.

And we acknowledge kind donations from: Centre for Human Rights and Citizenship Education, DCU and Glor na nGael