For our Love Theme this month, I created a sensory story box for the book, Mole's in Love by David Bedford. It's the story of Morris, the mole, who goes looking for love and has some trouble finding it.
Items in Sensory Box
-Characters in the story. I made the moles using thread spools, felt, paper, markers and a glue gun.
-leaves
-beans for mud
-strips of felt and a container for the molehill
-feathers
-play dough with toothpicks and leaves for a prickly bush
-miniature glasses for moles made out of wire
While we played together with the story sensory box, I encouraged discussion about how the animals could have been nicer to mole when he tried to show them love. We dialogued about better ways Morris, the mole, could have approached the other animals. We worked on changing the story line since Miss E doesn't like the parts in the story where mole and the other animals don't love each other. Her favorite elements in the box were the beans and Mini, the girl mole. Since she enjoys the beans a lot, I plan to fill the whole box with dried beans once I buy more.
Don't expect all the sensory items to stay in their plastic containers. By the end of her playtime, all the materials were mixed together, but they were still contained inside the large, plastic bin. She and I easily sorted the items back into their small containers when it was time to clean up.
This story sensory box encourages children to learn the elements of the story like characters, setting, problems, and solutions. It allows them to sequence events. It fosters higher order thinking skills by guiding the children to create different story lines, and to perceive how characters in the story may feel.
This post is linked up with the Weekly Kids Co-Op and Made with Love.
22 comments:
Love the idea of a sensory story box!
I have never heard of a sensory story box before, but it looks great. Can't wait to see what else you come up with! Pinning this! Vicky from Mess For Less
I love this idea! I have pinned it, and will certainly be making sensory story boxes in the near future. Thanks for sharing! :)
=)!!!
Vicky, I haven't heard of one before either, but not sure if I can claim to be the original inventor. ;) I plan on doing one story box a month related to each monthly theme. Thank you for pinning!
Thank you! You are so creative, so I bet you would make an awesome story box. Let me know when you do make one.
I like the idea of a story sensory box. We keep that massive cloud dough container in the kitchen. I wonder if I could find a way to do this using that? Of course, all the stories and storytellers would end up covered in flour. :) Great idea-
I did one for Groundhog's day and the children in my class loved it. A groundhog paper puppet on a popsicle stick, and a shadow cut out, beans and fuzzy fabric for dirt, cotton ball clouds, and a sun.
Creating a sensory box based on a story is great idea! I love it!
Thank you for linking to Read.Explore.Learn.
What fun! I wish I had known about these when my kiddos were younger.
those little moles are so cute! i love the idea behind story-based sensory boxes. we did one on the creation story awhile ago. have never heard of this book...we'll have to check it out!
Hello,
I am a new follower. Found you through the Read Explore Learn linky. Love this activity and look forward to seeing more!
Lori @ Cachey Mama’s Classroom
Cloud dough would be perfect for a sensory story box. We have used figurines when playing with cloud dough. You would need to make sure that the toys included didn't have holes because it can be hard to clean the cloud dough out of those. Also, anything made with paper or cloth would end up with grease spots bc of the oil in cloud dough. Other than those things, I think your kids would have a lot of fun with a cloud dough story sensory box.
Your groundhog day sensory box sounds like so much fun. If you have a picture of it, I would love for you to share it on my Facebook Page, The Golden Gleam.
Thank you!
The story sensory box reminds me of the shoebox story scenes I used to make when I was a kid for book reports. Except this is more interactive. How old are your kids?
Is your creation story sensory box on your blog, Andie? I'm glad you think the mole are cute. I don't consider myself very artistic, and I hoped they turned out okay.
Thank you for the follow! I am going to go check out your blog.
What a lovely idea - I haven't ever (bad mother alert) done any sensory tubs with J or much book related activities apart from outdoors as I love taking literacy outside. I really must start.
Thank you for linking up with Made with Love
Hi!!
Can I come and play too? Such a lovely post!!
Angelique, a 'Made with Love' girl
I have pinned it here Rebekah: http://pinterest.com/angeliquefelix/a-place-for-your-creations-that-are-made-with-love/
Angelique
Love the mole in glasses! I haven't read this story - does one of the characters have glasses on??? IF so, I will need to find this. My 5 year old has glasses and I like to have books that show glasses are part of life and can be cute too! Thanks for sharing with us and our readers!!! http://theeducatorsspinonit.blogspot.com/p/love-books.html
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