T is for Tiger Tea Party Story Retell activity involves bringing the story alive through sensory play. We created a sensory tub using various items that represented the characters and objects in the story The Tiger Who Came to Tea by Judith Kerr. We love to take a gorgeous story book and retell it in a playful and hands on way, trying to keep early literacy fun.
This story is absolutely gorgeous and is also perfect for introducing children to the letter t and oral language development.
The purpose of T is for Tiger Tea Party Sensory Tub is create an opportunity for children to retell (act out) the story and exploring the letter T in a multi-sensory way and encourage lots of talking for oral language development.
What you will need?
You will need the story The Tiger Who Came for Tea by Judith Kerr, a plastic tub, 2 cups warm water, tea set with tea pot, tiger figurine, small water proof doll (character Sophie) and tea bags.
The orange and black transparent tokens are optional, we added this to our sensory tub to see how they would be integrated into the story retell. The tokens represented food in our story.
Let’s Play
Begin the activity by reading and sharing the story The Tiger Who Came for Tea. Talk about the characters, pictures and events. Ask questions such as what will happen next (predicting) or do you think the tiger is mean (why/why not)?
Some Ideas:
- Introduce the sensory tub. We are going to act out the story The Tiger Who Came for Tea using all the materials in the tub. Talk about what is inside the tub. Talk about the letter t and what sound it makes.
- Add the 2 cups of warm water to the tub. Adding the water is like making the tea with the tea bags included.
The picture is showing the tiger drinking some tea, role playing an event in the story.
More Ideas:
- Join in the fun and take on one of the character roles, role play the story and events that happened in the story. After that, provide an opportunity for them to play with the items on their own.
- Ask questions such as, what happened next and what else did the tiger do?
Exploring the curiosity of the tea bags. What are they? Why are they changing the colour of the water? What is inside the bag? What is the bag made of? Lots of questions to be explored and answers to be discovered. It is also important to allow the opportunity to play freely and explore the items in the sensory tub. The torn open tea bags and tea leaves play a role in our story retell.
Let’s Learn
The foundations of good literacy skills dwell in comprehension and language skills, which are fostered best through listening to stories and retelling them in a fun way. When children retell stories in a comprehensive manner, they reflect on the text and make distinctions between the actual words on the page and the meaning behind them.
Learning Opportunities
- Sensory exploration of the materials – mostly through sight, touch and smell (tea bags)
- Story sequencing
- Reading/listening comprehension
- Language and conversation skills
- Fine motor skills
You may like to make a Tiger Craft as a follow on or extension of this activity.
