Big Sky Stories partners with playgroups to share a love of books with children, parents and caregivers

Big Sky Stories partners with playgroups to share a love of stories with children, parents and caregivers

Earlier this year we were successful in a funding application to build a language stimulating resource pack to share with local playgroups. We were able to establish wonderful partnerships with Central School Playgroup, Mission Australia’s Toddler Time and the CatholicCare Peer Support session. 

Jane was able to attend each group several times across the term and had special times reading stories to the children who attended. The books and puppets are also used by the parents and caregivers to create fun times of shared reading and talking together. The puppets are very popular and often the children look for the puppets to represent characters in the stories being read. This then leads to children creating their own imaginary worlds and stories. It is exciting to watch them work together to explore story characters and scenarios. 

During these playgroup sessions we are also encouraging parents and caregivers in their role as their children’s first-teachers. We hope to build their enjoyment and confidence in sharing stories and talking with their children about them.  We model what this looks like and have conversations about their child’s reading habits. We provide a take-home magnetic card with suggestions to enhance the reading experience at home.

Big Sky Stories supporting group leaders

At one playgroup we have been invited to lead the Storytime for the last part of the session to support the leaders of the group who feel less confident  leading this activity. Jane has been using a theme or book as the focus and adding songs, games and dramatic play activities to further engage the children during this focused reading time. She also explains the theme or focus, why this is important and how it helps children’s language development. We have seen an increase in child and carer participation in this part of the session over the term.

Big Sky Stories and Playgroups in 2023

The funding we received will allow us to continue these partnerships throughout Term 1 in 2023.  We will provide more opportunities for both carers and group leaders to learn more about engaging young children and families with story, music and imaginative play. One of the groups has already purchased very similar resources to the ones that we bring along to ensure rich resources are always on offer for the group.

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