Sand pirates, storytelling and an elf with no pants

This week our area is the sand tray. We had a piratical story yesterday, so today we used numbered treasure chests and buried 'coins' in the sand to get the children to practise counting and numeral recognition. But I have to confess that my favourite part of the activity was the pirate hats. I made them at the last minute out of newspaper, thinking that wearing a special 'pirate puzzle hat' might help the children to concentrate on problem-solving. I'm not sure how well that worked (they kept falling off into the sand!) but at least all the children wanted to do the activity because it entailed wearing a hat. And best of all, I got to be a pirate too! I even tried a pirate accent with some of the groups (but for some reason they just looked a bit bemused).

In the afternoon we had a visit from a storyteller. He came armed with very engaging home-made puppets and a repertoire of silly faces that made the children howl with laughter, and entertained us all with the tale of the Elves and the Shoemaker. As you probably know, the poor shoemaker (who is so poor that he can't even afford any food or firewood) only has enough leather left for one pair of shoes. He cuts them out, but his hands are so cold he can't thread the needle to sew them, so he leaves the leather on the bench. In the morning, he is astonished to find that the leather has become a beautifully-made pair of shoes, which he proceeds to sell at a great profit, allowing him to purchase food, firewood and leather for two more pairs of shoes. A similar thing happens the following night. The shoemaker decides to stay up and see how the shoes get made; to his great surprise, elves (or in this version, an elf) are covertly assisting him by night. But he looks very cold: he doesn't have any clothes on — "Not even any pants!" exclaims the storyteller. So in return for his help, the shoemaker sews some little clothes for the elf. And everyone pretty much lives happily ever after.

When we asked the children (who roared with laughter throughout, both when there was a joke to get and when there wasn't), "What was your favourite part of the story?", more than one replied, "I liked the bit where he didn't have any pants on!"

Let's just hope they also manage to learn that it's a good idea to help people...