By Anna Blackman, Owner of Mimosa Montessori, a home-based setting for children aged 16 months +

How can props and objects spark children’s creative response to stories?

Last year, during our exploration of Lunar New Year we placed into the environment a set of small hand puppets, stones and a playmat connected to The Great Race – a story of the Chinese Zodiac. We explored this together with a small group of children, the adult reading the story and the children moving the animal puppets across the river, stepping over stones and helping other animals as outlined in the story. The children really enjoyed the telling of The Great Race and asked to repeat the story again, swapping props with friends to try out a new character. By the next day the children were independently playing with the puppets and re-telling the story themselves, using small parts of the story but most importantly adding in their own interpretations, creating new narratives and using the props in new ways. Do we think the props supported a richer creative response to the story and what else could we learn from using objects in this way? Are there further steps we can take to encourage the child’s creative process?