StorySacks

ella26uk

Hi I'm looking for some help
Some parents and teachers have got together at my child's nursery school, to start up a storysack library. We received a grant of £700, and are buying in official Storysacks. Storysacks range from £30-£80 (majority being £50), so we can only really afford to buy 10 as we need some money left for shelving, stationary, etc.
Does anyone know anywhere which sell storysacks or story sack contents cheaper than this? I've included a link to the official storysack webpage if you are wondering what a storysack is!
Thanks
http://www.storysack.com/index_files/Page512.htm

Maysie

why not the odd unofficial ones there are quite a few really good looking ones on ebay i just looked at
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/RUMBLE-IN-THE-JUNGLE-STORY-TEACHING-RESOURCE-SACK-BIG_W0QQitemZ180077091405QQihZ008QQcategoryZ11736QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem this one

SamMoffatt28

my mil is a family skills / skills for life tutor and she makes story sacks with the parents on her course. At the end of the course they donate the storysacks to school. I could get you some info from her if that would be helpful. It would be much cheaper to make them than to buy them in ready made!

ella26uk

thanks for your reply's
We are (hopefully) going to start making our own storysacks, but because this is all new to us all at the nursery, we are buying the official ones to get us started. I will keep looking about to see if we can source the products cheaper!

Mimosa_Miminski

I think the official ones are pretty rubbish. The toys are often small, and there is often a silly jigsaw which the bits get lots. The only one that I've liked is "Mrs Honeys Hat". Certainly the official goldilocks and 3 bears one is awful and you could easily make a much better one yourself.

Why not try your local WI or townswomens guild. They are great a making things, and like to do charitable works. I've always thought that the book the "Quangle Wangles Hat" would make a fantastic story sack.

You need to decide what you want to use your storysack for.

Is it for one person to read a story to a group e.g. a performance story sack) in which case it needs a supersize book and a small amount of larger story items (It's hard to read a story when you've got to keep rummaging in a sack every 3 seconds - so less is more!),

or it is for parents to take home to read to children on a one to one basis? If so you can get away with a smaller book and more storysack items (which are also smaller, but not easily lost).

veruccasalt

At our school, the nursery teachers decided on the themes, then we requested books, toys, puzzles, story tapes etc on the themes from all of our parents.

Then other volunteers sewed 45 story sacks for us with donated material which has resulted in 45 glorious story sacks full to bursting with interesting things.

Perhaps you could try this route?

jap200

My children came home with a letter from school last year with a list of things that they were looking for to go into their 'home-made' story sacks. They ended up with everything on the list - and more - all donated. They also asked for (and got) help in sewing the sacks and making up some finger and hand puppets too. They were happy to take 'used' items in good condition or new items if available.

They ended up with some really fantastic story sacks - virtually free. The one they made for 'The Very Hungry Catterpiller' story is amazing - one Mum even made a hollow catterpiller with elastic around the mouth that can 'eat' all the food items!

As a parent I am always happy to contribute to this kind of thing in whatever way I can.

mikki2d

I have made these with a number of groups and the home made ones really are better. We used plain coloured curtains gathered from charity shops for fabric and got the Home Economics dept of a local school to run them up for us. Parents were asked to hand in items for the story and some were bought at car boots. The children absolutely love them.

CougarJo

The women in our church made a lot of them for one of our local schools. We must have made about a dozen. We then donated them to the school who were over the moon with them! Our church is always looking for service projects. Wonder where you live..........

joanne

babybimbles

SamMoffatt28 wrote:

my mil is a family skills / skills for life tutor and she makes story sacks with the parents on her course. At the end of the course they donate the storysacks to school. I could get you some info from her if that would be helpful. It would be much cheaper to make them than to buy them in ready made!

Hi Sam

I'm part of a parent and child group and we would love some ideas if your mil could share them?

care to pm me?

tia x

MINCER_2

http://www.lfcdespatchline.co.uk/products.aspx?zone=1&cat=1&next=2

Slightly cheaper - might get you 11 instead of 10.