Creative Writing in the Reception Class
‘The Three Little Pigs’
Back in September at the Letters and Sounds Workshop, many parents uttered their disbelief when I said that before long, their children would be using phonemes to build and spell not only simple words but more complex words too. At that time the children were only just getting to grips with holding a pencil, recognising initial letter sounds and learning correct formations. As I explained the process of spelling and writing, the parents thought that the idea of our four and five year old children doing creative writing seemed far fetched.
Well, here we are in April and the children are indeed indpendently writing their own little stories.
A particular favourite story of all children through generations is The Three Little Pigs. Using the senses helps the story to become deeply embedded in children’s minds, and adds to their store of language and sentence patterns. Children love the repeated refrain, “I will huff and I will puff and I will blow your house down”.
In the classroom we also used puppets to act out the text which made the story become three dimensional. Useful as a STEM learning activity, in Science, we looked at house construction learning about stability of structures, understanding that materials have different properties. Outside during a PE lesson, the children squealed with delight during the game, “What’s the time Mr Wolf?” This also consolidated the maths topic of telling the time.
At Norfolk House School we believe that being able to read is one of the most important skills children will attain during their early schooling having far-reaching implications for lifelong learning. We have enjoyed reading the book at school empowering the children through reading and writing. Being resilient and not giving up is one of the key factors in succeeding at school, and by praising the children’s efforts over the last few months, we have encouraged them to keep persevering with this new skill. All the words may not be accurately spelt but they are mostly phonetically correct. As the children write they are also learning conventions such as moving from left to right on the page, and from top to bottom. Reading their stories, one can also see evidence of emergent use of capital letters and puntuation.
One story and so much learning!
Reporter: Mrs R. Hifle
Head of Lower School
