Playing as a part of story time

Playing as a part of story time - dodgeball

One of the big challenges of telling stories with young kids is keeping the class concentrated on the story. Sitting still, listening attentivly might be challenging for young kids or kids with a certain temperament (or both). This is why I like to include active games as a part of a story time. Studies found that breaks of physical activity promote academic achievement, in this case, help kids to better concentrate on the stories they listen to, and to come with more stories of their own.

One of the rules of our class is: "story first, play next". To make sure that we manage to follow the rule, I've even set up a timer: 5 minutes of story. Then we'll play a variation of dodgeball.

In 5 minutes we've managed to quickly get through a short story by Terry Pratchett, and got to have the main course of today's session: dodgeball. Mom of one of the new students had joined us today, so we were two adults versus ten-something kids.

It was an awesome activity on so many levels. All the kids were in the same team, so they worked together and helped each other. It's a physical activity, but not too demanding. The kids (and we the adults as well) had to think strategically to win the game. And most importantly, it was really fun!

I'd love to conclude that after the game we got back to Pratchett, but since it was too much fun, we just played it until the end of the lesson. Pratchett's story will have to wait until the next time.

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