If the story of Hattie Peck, chicken extraordinaire, isn’t on your radar yet, you need to run (don’t walk!) and grab yourself a copy asap. Hattie Peck is a beautiful story of a mama hen who simply wants a family of her own to love. Putting together a Hattie Peck story basket is a great way to revisit story lines, explore characters and experiment with thoughts, feelings and behaviour. Through stories children learn so much about people and the world around them. Story baskets take that to another level and are a whole lot of fun along the way!

Have a look at the details below.

What’s in the Hattie Peck Story Basket?

When I set up story baskets, what goes in greatly depends on what I can get my hands on at the time. So your story basket may look completely different from mine.

Another idea is to let the children collect things they think should go in the story basket. That’s always a lot of fun.

Here’s what we put in ours:

• the book of course!
• wooden mountain, trees and a boat from My Big World Playscapes on Etsy (have a quick look at Melanie’s genius creations on Instagram!)
• cars, street signs and houses from our wooden train set
• random items from around the house like our dish cloth which we pretend is the sea and a doily from the play kitchen
• all kinds of animals that hatch from an egg (or suit the story)
• Playmobil suitcase

Everything and anything is possible!

Book Based Play for the Win

Have I mentioned how much I love story baskets? The benefits for children’s development is huge (you can read more about that here) and changing the way we play (or read books) once in a while is always a good strategy to keep those little minds challenged and entertained.

There are a gazillion ways in which you can get creative with books. I collected of 60 book based projects in this popular article “12 Ways to Tell a Story”, I’m sure there will be something for everyone.

Some of our own favourites are these:

• Goodnight Gorilla Story Basket
• Old MacDonald had a Farm Small World
• We’re Going on a Bear Hunt Sensory Small World
• Little Yellow Digger Sensory Bin

If you have any “all time faves” to add or suggest, do get in touch!

Ann*

Want to pin this post? You can do that here.