National Storytelling Week: 5 EYFS stories you can bring to life

Storytelling is something that teachers do on a daily basis. Stories help capture the imagination of children and help them learn. National Storytelling Week, organised every year by the brilliantly named Society of Storytelling, is celebrated in schools across Britain by adults and children of all ages, from EYFS to KS2 and beyond.

With now>press>play’s immersive Experiences, you can explore traditional tales like never before. Here are five beloved stories that you can bring to life in your EYFS class this National Storytelling Week.

1. Three Little Pigs

When Mummy Pig sends you and your siblings out into the world, you build your own houses out of different materials. But it’s not long before the Big Bad Wolf turns up and threatens to blow your house down!

In this Experience, your class will:

  • Meet and become the main characters, including the pigs and the Big Bad Wolf
  • Take part in the main events, including building the pigs’ houses and huffing, puffing and blowing them down as the wolf
  • Learn about the different types of materials used by the pigs: straw, sticks and bricks

2. Little Red Riding Hood

Your Granny’s sick, so you decide to make her some cupcakes — but on the way to deliver them, you meet a wolf in the forest! When you get to Granny’s house, she’s got rather bigger teeth than usual…

In this Experience, your class will learn about:

  • The main characters: Red Riding Hood, Granny, the wolf and the woodcutter
  • The main events: making cakes for Granny, meeting the wolf in the forest, the wolf posing as Granny, the woodcutter scaring off the wolf

3. Jack and the Beanstalk

You’re Jack, a young boy who lives on a farm. Your Mum says that you have to sell Daisy the cow. On the way to market, you meet a man who gives you five magic beans for Daisy. Out of the beans grows a giant beanstalk, which you decide to climb. What will you find at the top?

In this Experience, your class can explore:

  • The main characters, including Jack, Mum, Daisy the cow and the fearsome giant
  • The main events: swapping Daisy for the beans, climbing the beanstalk, taking the gold and chopping down the beanstalk
  • How plants grow from seeds

4. Goldilocks

You are Baby Bear and you live with Mummy and Daddy Bear. When your porridge is too hot to eat, you go for a walk. You become Goldilocks, walking in the woods and hungry for some food. You happen across an empty cottage and decide to help yourself to some breakfast…

In this immersive story, EYFS learners can:

  • Embody the human and animal characters from the story
  • Explore the rooms of the three bears’ house (kitchen, living room and bedrooms) and their features
  • Live out the main events including trying porridge, chairs and beds, as well as scaring away Goldilocks
Picture of a small brown bear in a forest, from Now Press Play's Goldilocks Experience. Text reads: You are baby bear and you live with mummy bear and daddy bear.

5. The Gingerbread Man

When you and your Grandpa make a gingerbread man, things do not go as planned. The gingerbread man outruns everyone he meets, but will he be able to outwit the fox?

Full of music, dancing and more, in this Experience children will:

  • Meet the main characters including Grandpa, the frog, the hen, the fox and the Gingerbread Man himself
  • Learn the steps for making gingerbread: mixing and rolling dough, cutting shapes, adding facial features and baking

With now>press>play’s Experiences, you can teach through story, sound and movement across the whole curriculum. If you’re interested in trying now>press>play for your school, you can book a free trial through our website.

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