Magical ways fairy tales can help in your little one’s development
From heading to the local library to find the best story books to playing fancy dress in a comforting space, fairy tales, and the impact they can have on your little ones, are worth their weight in gold. This year, for National Tell a Fairy Tale Day, we wanted to share with you the wonderful ways fairy tales, and the world of make-believe, can help your child’s development.
Spellbinding social skills
Did you know that reading to your child can increase their willingness to express themselves and communicate their thoughts and feelings? The earlier you start looking at books together with your little one, the better as it will help them excel in their future learning, whilst providing you with precious time to improve your special bond with each other. You can also add in an element of dress-up to further aid their emotional development, as we do at Bloom with a different dress-up theme each week! Whilst fairy tales are wonderful by themselves, adding the excitement of dressing up as certain characters allows your child to learn about themselves, whilst developing their cooperative playing skills by interacting with others in a group.
Curiouser and curiouser
Storytelling also encourages children to be creative and use their imagination. In picturing the characters, setting, and the events in the story as it unfolds, your little one relies on their own sense of curiosity. Instead of being given imagery to the words, such as on a tablet or TV screen, they are able to build the fairy tale world in their own mind. To add an extra layer of fun and creativity, why not help your child design the outfit this character might wear through dress-up? This not only enables the story to really come to life, but dressing up will help them to explore elements of a new identity and develop their sense of self as they decide what they like and what they don’t like.
Bringing stories to life
Role-play or dress-up can really support children in developing their motor skills. Navigating the physical world around them, especially in fancy dress, helps to improve your little one’s gross motor skills as they learn how to crawl with a pair of fairy wings on, or how to sit when dressed in a cowboy costume. Additionally, providing your child with baby-friendly props helps to develop their fine motor skills as they grasp anything from magical wands to magnifying glasses. In bringing fairy tales to life through dress-up, your little one will encounter lots of opportunities to practise these skills which they won’t even notice – they’ll be too busy having fun in fantasy lands!
For more top tips, or to find out more about our specialist baby development sessions, contact us at enquiries@bloombabyclasses.com or call us on 0800 4647960.