Member Question: Do you have a list of story props for the stories in the preschool and kindergarten curriculum?
Answer from Kristie Burns: We encourage creativity with the props and don’t want to limit parents or teachers to certain props they would then be required to purchase. We also find that each teacher/parent remembers the story in a different way so the props that would be helpful to one person would not be helpful to another.
In addition you could use just one prop for your story (I had a wonderful parent-child teacher who used to use one ball of wool for each story and just shape it a bit as the story changed), or many (some parents/teachers LOVE to set up elaborate sets and the kids love to help).
Story Prop Ideas
For example I usually follow these rules:
1. Prop for each main character
2. Prop for each location
3. Prop for any specific item listed in the story that is important like a hive, a belt, a drum, etc…
Some people use one prop or just 2-3 for their story but I find the props help me remember the story and going through the story once to “find” all the props is part of my memorization process.
Main Character Ideas
* Actual wooden figure of character (farmer, girl, boy, man, woman, soldier, king, queen are standards I like to have)
* Actual wooden figure of character animal (chicken, rabbit, fox, bear, goat, dog, cat and cow are ones I like to have)
* Bits of wool to represent animals or birds
* Sticks or rocks to represent people (sometimes I would put hat or a felt cloak on them to make it more human)
* Dolls or stuffed animals you already have around the house
* Plastic figures (if wooden ones are unavailable)
* Pictures drawn on paper and attached to small sticks
Location Ideas
* Actual wooden figure of location like wooden or felt grass area, snow area, or brown dirt/sand area (those are my three standards)
* Locations roughly drawn on chalk board that is laying flat
* Scarves in different colors like blue for water, brown for mountains, etc…(also put something under the mountains to prop them up)
* Boxes to represent different locations
* Dishes or kitchen items to represent locations. For example, a flat pot with water is a nice “lake”
* Pictures drawn on paper
* Things from the nature table
* Watercolor pictures from your student’s collection
Specific Item Ideas
* Actual wooden figure of item like small wooden farm vegetables, tiny doll house style items like bowls/pots
* Small kitchen tools from your own kitchen
* Shells, acorns, rocks or sticks to represent items in the story (kids LOVE this imagination method)
* Bits of wool to form into different items (like a small bit of wool for an apple)
* Actual item – like nuts, small flowers, grapes, etc…
* Food to represent items – like Cheerioes, Maccaroni, Spaghetti (makes good hay), etc…
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