“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go” - Dr Seuss.

Recently we had our annual “Book Week” at Treetops, where we spent the entire week reading, exploring, and sharing our favourite books. Tamariki are encouraged to bring in their favourite books to share with their friends and kaiako (teachers).

 Kaiako also plan and create experiences around some of our favourite books and stories. This magical, fun week provides our tamariki with an opportunity to look a little deeper at some of the stories we read often, and explore some of the wonderful ways that we can use the stories and ideas in these books to have fun and explore!

Recently, our Kea Room (preschool) tamariki have been enjoying reading one of our favourite books, “Dear Zoo” by Rod Campbell. Many of our tamariki are interested in animals, and this book is all about some of the different animals that we can see at the zoo. Building on this interest in animals, our kaiako planned two different experiences relating to the animals in “Dear Zoo”.

The first involved our tamariki becoming the animals, pretending to be the different animals in the story, while the book was read to the tamariki. Everyone took turns being different animals in the story. We even made our own animal masks!

The second experience involved tamariki choosing their favourite animal from the book and painting a picture related to this animal. For this experience, the book was put on the table for the children to look at and draw inspiration from, and some plastic animals were also put on the table. From this experience, the tamariki could explore the animal itself, what it looks like, what colours it is, what shape it is, etc.

Alternatively, the tamariki could also explore situations and scenarios where they have seen this animal or where this animal might live. The possibilities for the tamariki to explore their chosen animal were open, providing tamariki with an opportunity to explore different ideas and theories that they have relating to their chosen animal.

Literature is an important part of children’s learning, and by taking a deeper look at some of the children’s favourite books, we can explore their ideas and working theories in relation to these books and stories in much greater detail. This deeper exploration is not only interesting and relevant for children, but it also allows children to explore, express and think about different aspects of the books and stories that they enjoy reading, listening to and looking at.