EYFS - Da Vinci Class
Da Vinci Class have been working with the transdisciplinary theme ‘How we Express Ourselves’. We have been exploring different concepts throughout the past six weeks such as; What does a story involve? How do you know a story is being told? Why do we listen to stories? and, Why are stories told?
We have been looking at the 1970's/80's Ladybird Read it Yourself Series and have shared the following stories (as well as many others); The Magic Paintbrush, Rapunzel, The Pied Piper of Hamlin, The Magic Stone, Puss in Boots, The Magic Porridge Pot, Heidi, Dick Whittington and his Cat, Hansel and Gretel, The Musicians of Bremen and, Town Mouse and Country Mouse. The conversations surrounding these stories have been wonderfully rich in language and expression and the children have demonstrated amazing critical thinking skills as they have shared their thoughts.
The children have really enjoyed learning some new vocabulary and there have been some interesting discussions about why the traits of characters are so similar across a range of stories, i.e. Princesses are typically pretty, kind, gentle etc. and Princes are typically brave, charming and bold. Many of the children have realised that these character traits should not always be limited to one gender. It is just wonderful to be a part of their conversations, their reasoning and their viewpoints.
We watched the Royal Ballet performances of some of the Beatrix Potter character stories. The children particularly enjoyed Jeremy Fisher and were keen to set up their own interpretation and perform to invited staff members from across the school. We understood that the character's movements, along with the music, told us a story without words and we talked about how the performances made us feel. It was quite warming to hear their thoughts and feelings.
We also explored how a single painting/picture can tell us a story and the children have created their own story versions of the same painting, interpreting what they see and creating the before and after using the correct story structure.
Over the course of this theme, the children have been exposed to a wide range of stories and storytelling formats. The opportunities to enhance and extend their vocabulary have been extensive and each and every one of the children have discovered that they are all storytellers!
Miss Brown - EYFS Class Teacher
