Fairy tales and bible stories for toddlers.

Gingham_Ribbon

By Christmas time, my son will be 3. I am looking for ideas for what to ask Santa for. I have some things I would like to do for his birthay too and am looking for advice, please.

He could do with some traditional fairy tales and I would like to make up some story sacks to use with them.

Can anyone recommend a good, traditional fairy tales book with several stories in OR particularly good versions of any of the stories individually?

Assuming we're talking the usual stories (Hansel and Gretal, Little Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel, Goldilocks etc etc) then can you think of ideas to put in the story sacks? (By story sacks I mean a small collection of prompts/toys to use when telling it eg doll, bed, porridge bowl, teddies for Goldilocks.)

He also needs a new bible as his baby one is too childish now and he's bored of it. Can anyone recommend a good bible for a bright 3 year old, please?

Thanks all. Obviously, quality is important as they're the kind of thing I would like to last, but price is a concern. I am not great at making things, but could have a go if anyone comes up with anything like that too!

superdog_3

Ladybird books are pretty good when it comes to traditional tales. Avoid Disney if you dont want a saccharine ending.
how about dolls house furniture and finger puppets for the story sacks?

plumpmouse

Usborne do good fairy tales and they have a lovely bible



We were bought one as a christening present

Tondella

I can recommend The Lion Bible for Children, which is not a bible! but a collection of bible stories, told well and illustrated beautifully. I think it is wonderful. Suitable for ages 8+ to read themselves but makes wonderful bed time reading until then.

http://www.lion-publishing.co.uk/index.asp?http://www.lion-publishing.co.uk/pages/data.asp?layout=article.htm&id=150

apples1

Marks & Spence do excellent fairy tale books. Each one comes with a CD that also tells the story but books are perfectly good without CD too. I got some for last Xmas when my daughter was three and they are great. They also have extra "learning to read" text so will get double use when your child is ready for that. She wasn't interested in CDs at the time but now loves listening to them in the car. They were on exellent offer in M&S this time last year so expect same again.

nickinoo

Ladybird books without a doubt.

cheap-n-cheerful

The Works often have good books at low prices so you could save some money for making up the story sack. I work in a Pre-school and our favourite story sack we made ourselves is The Very Hungry Catterpillar (felt catterpillar and butterfly, material cocoon, plastic play food, paper leaf with holes punched in). Another a parent made us was the Rainbow Fish not traditional but good story about learning to share. Ikea is good for puppets for a variety of stories. Easy to make storysacks for most books rather than pay the £60 plus from educational catalogues!!

Gingham_Ribbon

Some great ideas. Thanks everyone. I'll hopefully have a chance to have a look around on Saturday.

annie-c

Ikea has lovely children's baking utensils, dolls house bits and pieces and finger puppets all reasonably priced. If you are creative (or if you get bored when at beached-whale stage) then you could make peg dolls using those old fashioned dolly pegs.

Ladybird books are brilliant - I still remember the excitement of reading The Magic Porridge Pot and the Elves and the Shoemaker. As to a compendium of Fairy Stories - I have a complete Hans Christian Anderson, which cost £5 from a cheap bookshop ages ago which is fantastic. Be careful of the other more random books of fairy stories - they often look good but the stories can be weak and use obscure vocabulary. Best to go to the library and sit and browse and read for an hour or so (without the littl'un if you can) until something pulls at your heart strings and then buy the one you really want from Amazon.

katglasgow

My son is three and loves the ladybird books especially the Gingerbread Man! Our local library has a selection of story sacks we sometimes use (although cant take them out of the library). My favourite one is the hungry cateriller which has lots of giant food!

Gingham_Ribbon

annie-c wrote:

Be careful of the other more random books of fairy stories - they often look good but the stories can be weak and use obscure vocabulary. Best to go to the library and sit and browse and read for an hour or so (without the littl'un if you can) until something pulls at your heart strings and then buy the one you really want from Amazon.

I was worried about doing that as I was thinking I'd try to get them on ebay. That's a perfect idea and I'll do just that. Thank you.