Sharing A Shell Small World Play

A joyful thing has been happening here lately. My son has discovered the wonder of books. For those of you that know me, you’ll know how happy this makes me!

Don’t get me wrong, he’s always enjoyed his bedtime stories, and has had several books every night since he was just a few weeks old, but it’s like something has suddenly changed and he sees them differently now. They are now holding a fascination for him, and he’s reading a greater variety and asking for them in the daytime, too. This was something that his sister often did as a toddler, so it’s lovely to see him doing the same now.

A current favourite of his is Julia Donaldson’s Sharing A Shell. This was one of Boo’s that she has passed on, and she’s always enjoyed it, too.

I can recite it off the top of my head now, in fact, as I’m writing this, the rhyming words are circulating around my head! I thought it would be exciting for him if I brought the characters to life for him to play with, so we set up a small world tray last week.

This was so easy to do, it took me just five minutes to set up with a toddler excitedly interfering, and they were all items that I already had in the house.

For the Tray – I emptied out a plastic toy drawer, but a sturdy tray or tub would work well, too. I added sand, a little tub of water and shredded paper for interest and texture. We discussed that it would be seaweed. I’d also suggest that as this is a rock-pool you’re creating, pebbles would be good, but Little Man was adamant that he didn’t want any!

For Crab – We have a plastic crab from the kids water table

For Blob – I made a round ‘blob’ of Play Doh, added some googly eyes and cut up a pipe cleaner into a few smaller spikes for his tentacles

For Brush – I folded a yellow pipe cleaner up and glued on googly eyes

Favourite play activities were talking about the story, ‘washing’ Brush and Blob and creating a nest for them with the paper.

Little Man played with this on and off all day. He was very excited to tell Boo all about it when we collected her from school, and then they both came home and played with their little rock-pool together.

As well as this small world play, another activity that’s been fun is pretending to be the characters in the book. Crab walking is always funny and watching Little Man puff his cute cheeks up to be Blob is just adorable!

So we will make the most of this new fascination with books, and I’ll continue to try to think up ways of bringing Little Man’s favourites to life. We already use our tuff spot for activities, and I’m now a small world convert, too. It’s a lot of fun to do, and my toddler was delighted.

Do you know this story? Which books are your little ones loving at the moment?

You might also enjoy our What the Ladybird Heard Activities

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