…which is just the Early version of the experience and outcome given to us in the TDT. I would highly recommend that anyone who is involved in education make a story sack because they are an absolutely fantastic resource to have in your cupboard. Furthermore, the children engage so well with activities after reading the story and if there is a main character can engage well with the character making learning fun. You have to be careful that you make the activities educational so that the children are learning from this.

At the same time story sacks are not perfect. Not every child wants to follow up each book they are read with an activity. Younger children like story time to be a calm down activity to relax before they have a nap and older children just don’t always appreciate the storybooks so don’t engage with them. Educators can also become reliant on story sacks for example rather than reading a book and going on to another topic a different story sack comes out everyday and the children will just simply be bored. Children with English as an additional language may also have problems fully engaging with a story sack. They can also be time consuming and expensive to create (although charity shops and the works are a good idea if you are strapped for cash!).

A story sack is something I am always adding to like with this one I’ve added paddington shaped cookie cutters and paddington napkins so the children could do some baking. I would never be able to finish a story sack. However, going on the basis that this is what I have, I have included a picture of what my final lesson plan for a P1 class would be for 1 hour and 15 minutes (maybe an afternoon?). I would sit the class down and read them the story carefully looking at the front cover and who the author is. Once read the children would be asked to go into 4 groups. The first table would be asked to look at the train book and do shape activities for numeracy. The second table would be asked to make a luggage tag with their name and this would help me as a teacher to evaluate not only the childrens writing skills but also if they are able to write their name. The third table would be a session where there would be a computer animated interactive Paddington bear asking the children to find out where Peru is and what is in Peru? This would mainly cover geography but would also be a good starter onto a topic about South America for example? Lastly, on the final table I would ask the children to do an activity about trains. They would have to answer questions like “How do trains run?” and “Where is Paddington station?”. After the final group had finished I would ask them to tidy up and make marmalade sandwiches as a group – being careful about dietary requirements and being careful about this. There are an awful lot of children who at 5 cannot yet properly spread and use a knife so this would come under health and wellbeing. Once they had eaten them as a group they would make a chart for the wall as to who liked them and who didn’t. This would be numeracy because it is about statistics.

These are all my own ideas, some of which have actually been carried out in a classroom. I’m happy for anyone to ask me any questions about how I carried out my story sack and how I would adapt this in the classroom further – just comment below. I hope by reading about my experiences with this story sack, I will encourage anyone reading this to find out more about them and even create one of their own.