How To S-T-R-E-T-C-H Your Story Stretchers

I previously touched upon how to whip up a quick story stretcher (or even a longer one) when you're short on time in this post, but what if you want to stretch those activities across the span of a week or longer? Well, this is the post for you! Our play at home camp this summer is taking us beyond several of our favorite children's books with themes, authors and stories that my older son is particularly fond of. When you look at this blog, it may appear that we are engaged all day in play and learning activities and this is simply not true. Particularly during the summer, I like to move at a slower pace and make plenty of time for outdoor play and park visits, family time and free/independent play. Fall will be here before we know it and S will begin preschool. I'd love to continue story stretcher activities with him as a way to continue our play at home adventures and even connect the school to home gap, but I will follow his lead with this. For now, we are enjoying the summer swing of things and with some thoughtful planning, it's easy to stretch your own extension activities and themes across the span of several days, a week, or whatever feels right to you!

We kicked off our Story Stretchers Play at Home Camp by decorating a book bag!

Here are a few things to keep in mind:

You don't need to reinvent the wheel! I may post a variety of extension activities for each of our story stretcher themes, but I don't whip them all out on the same day. When it comes to more structured play and learning activities, I go with the flow. On days we have a lot of time, I can spend more time engaged in structured activity with my toddler--that is if he is interested in it! If he doesn't seem enthusiastic about a particular activity or is showing signs of wanting to do something else altogether, I go with it. I put away the activity and we try it again later. There is no reason to battle over something that is meant to be fun and to connect us. When I sense frustration or disconnect, it's definitely time to move on and try again later. On the other hand, if S wants to spend longer with an activity or repeat it, I do that, too! I prepare a selection of my activities in advance in such a way that I can have one (or a few) sessions of working on it with S and then he can access it and do it again on his own as desired. Repetition is the essence of learning and S loves to repeat favorite activities. I may present one or two novel activities on most days, but throughout the week we play more freely and revisit our favorites as desired. That more "structured" time is sometimes as short as half an hour or spread over a few chunks throughout the day.

On the first day of our Everybody Needs a Rock story stretcher week, I formally introduced and read the book and we painted a special box for a special rock. S chose a rock from our collection at home that he thought he wanted to keep inside...by the next day, he'd picked a different special rock! I have a feeling his little box will be home to many special rocks along the way...

He wanted to tuck his rock into bed. We found a little washcloth and used it for a blanket.

Let your little ones take the lead. As noted above, I try to follow my toddler's cues as much as possible. I also must balance my infant's needs and our other household obligations. Even during our "school year" I was careful not to push beyond S's interest or attention span. Particularly when it comes to story stretchers and reading together, I want S to have as much control and autonomy as possible. I'd rather put a book away or take a picture walk on a day he doesn't feel like hearing a story than have unpleasant experiences around reading together. Building an early love of literacy is a delicate process and while I do have a toddler who loves to be read to, not all children feel this way and no children feel this way all of the time. Additionally, when I prepare an activity to be done in one way, S often has his own ways of doing things. I reserve "no" for when I really need it. Imagine being told "no" by your boss or your spouse repeatedly again and again and again. You'd probably lose your interest in doing whatever task you were doing if not lose your cool altogether. When S decides to add materials to an activity or use the ones I've set out in a different way than I'd envisioned, unless it is truly unsafe or will be harmful to the materials, I allow it and even build on it with him.

On our second morning, I set out our invitation to draw on rocks with chalk. S loved it and wanted me to draw on the rocks as well. He asked me to draw a robot (one of his other favorite things right now) and then became quite attached to the robot rock. Since I knew the chalk would eventually rub off, I suggested we find a lighter colored rock and I could draw a robot with permanent marker for him. He came back with another rock and then I drew the robot...next he found some robot stickers and wanted to add one of those! I love that he felt inspired to take our chalk activity all the way to decorating his own pet robot rock and beyond!

The robot rock now has a happy home in his special rock box. 

So what about the story? If you read your target story on the first day, then what? Do you read it again? I often set out the target book on our little table for S to see so he will remember what we've been playing about. Sometimes he will ask to read it again. I also set out other theme related books. S will frequently bring one over to read or sometimes I will pull one out to show him. He's been particularly fond of a nonfiction book we checked out of the library called Can You Find These Rocks? by Carmen Bredeson and Lindsey Cousins. He was particularly excited to find that we actually had many of the rocks in the book now in our little museum collection, thanks to my mother's special donation!

We are having a rockin' time exploring rocks this week! I am following S's lead and we are moving at a comfortable pace. My hope for S (and for Y as well, as he grows) is that a love of literature will follow and inspire them into avid readers all in due time. That said, I am in no rush for them to read or reach particular academic milestones. I want them to carry with them a love of literature, a fond memory of our activities and time together, and maybe a few rocks in their pockets!

Wishing you all a comfortable pace of reading, learning and, of course, playing!