Fostering Early Years Literacy Through Stories, Singing & Play 📚🎶

This week at Fun Box, we’ve had so much fun fostering early years literacy through stories and music. From caterpillars to colour monsters, autumn leaves to bubbles, our children have been busy exploring language, stories and sounds in creative and playful ways.

Stories Come Alive

Bethan, our lovely lunchtime helper, surprised us with some knitted caterpillars 🐛 she made in her free time. These instantly became a favourite and inspired the older children to re-enact The Very Hungry Caterpillar. It was wonderful to see them retelling the story, remembering the sequence, and even counting along.

Lauren also set up an exciting sensory tray linked to The Colour Monster. At first, the children’s curiosity was piqued when she placed cotton pads into the tray. Then, using pipettes and coloured water, they coloured in the monster while listening to the story. Linking emotions to colours through play gave the children such a memorable way to explore feelings and words.

Of course, many children also enjoyed choosing books independently 📖 — carefully turning pages, pointing at pictures, and sharing their favourites with friends.

Our youngest ones were especially taken with the That’s Not My… series, which is perfect for little hands and early language.

Autumn Leaves & Singing Together

With autumn now truly here 🍂. Last week the children collected colourful leaves from our garden. This sparked a new (and slightly old!) song, All the leaves are falling down. We sang together while hand printing a beautiful autumn tree, mixing shades of red, brown and yellow. Singing combined with art gave us plenty of new seasonal words and a lot of fun.

Music, Puppets & the Language Box

Music and singing always bring the room alive. The children explored a variety of instruments both indoors and outdoors — experimenting with rhythm, sound and turn-taking. This isn’t just noisy fun; it lays the foundation for phonological awareness, an essential part of early literacy in the EYFS.

Caroline’s Language Box activity remains a big hit 🎭. For those who may not know, the Language Box is a resource developed by Hampshire Services for Young Children Inclusion Team. It’s filled with puppets, each representing a familiar song. The children love choosing a puppet and then leading us all in singing its song. It’s a brilliant way to foster language, listening and attention while encouraging turn-taking and confidence.

Building, Balancing & Talking Together

Out in the garden, the children created their own obstacle course. The older ones showed real care for the younger ones, helping them to balance on beams and guiding them through. Alongside the physical play came plenty of language: “over,” “under,” “through” and “your turn!” — showing how physical play and early literacy go hand in hand.

Why These Activities Matter

Every one of these experiences supports early literacy:

• Songs and rhymes help children notice sounds and rhythm in words.

• Retelling stories strengthens memory, sequencing and narrative skills.

• Choosing and handling books builds independence and early reading habits.

• Puppets and props like the Language Box give children multiple ways to engage with words and meaning.

These are all part of the Communication & Language and Literacy goals in the EYFS, which encourage children to enjoy stories, build vocabulary, and give meaning to marks and sounds.

It really was a rich, learning-filled week at Fun Box — and a joyful one too. Seeing the children’s faces light up during stories, songs and play reminds us why these small daily moments are so important in fostering early years literacy through stories. We can’t wait to see where their curiosity leads us next week! 🌟