Picture Book and Play – Goldilocks and the Three Bears

Picture Book And Play is a weekly post in which we look at a picture book (or books) Peapod’s been enjoying recently and some of the play we’ve had based on it.

I’ve talked about the Campbell First Stories range, illustrated by Natascha Rosenberg, before, most recently in our Three Little Pigs post here, but they really are great.

With simplified, rhyming versions of the text and moving pictures they’re so engaging and fun.

I also wanted this Peep Inside version by Anna Milbourne and Mar Ferrero, but it’s not out til next week! I’ve ordered it anyway as these are a great accompaniment/next step to the Campbell ones with peep through pages, flaps and a longer, fuller version of the tales.

Peapod has had his First Stories version for a while now and often takes it down to read, and then “play it?” (I love how he’s started asking to “play” his books!) Mostly this involves him being Goldilocks pretending to be asleep, me being Baby Bear pretebding to cry then him waking up and running away!

So we’ve done plenty of this but we’ve also taken it into his tuff tray with some oats, compare bears and different sized bowls and spoons.

As you know by now, I’m nothing if not honest with these posts so allow me to say now that some of you might find your little ones want to diligently sort by size or colour etc. However, it wasn’t long here before our tray play reverted back to its usual “there’s a road block”/”need tractor”/bury the bears!

But that’s fine. Peapod enjoyed the feel of the oats and the sensation of them falling over his hands and arms.

He did some Goldilocks play which saw him unintentionally categorising and ordering the bears and bowls, and (even once he’d reverted to his favourite games in there) it was great for mathematical language of size and comparison, and problem solving (“it’s going to take me ages to bury these bears with this tiny spoon”… “use the big one!”)

We were lucky enough to get some nice enough weather to take the tray outside this week too, so we did some porridge making!

Let me tell you – this was quick to set up but clean up was another matter 🙈🙈 You’ve been warned!

That said, it was totally worth it. Peapod has lots of fun mixing and scooping and pouring and filling and of course we acted out the story once his porridge making was complete too!

I also got this out – A Chair for Baby Bear by Kate Umansky and Chris Fisher – and Peapod’s been really taken with it.

It’s a great spin-off style story, as we rejoin the Bears as they go shopping to find Baby Bear a new chair. I really like how it mirrors features of the original tale with its “too scratchy/scary/grand” chairs and the way the chairs themselves refer back to Baby Bear’s pretend play on the walk to the shop.

Peapod likes joining in with the “too…” parts and the repeated “please, please, please!” as well as talking about all the different chairs in the shop and which we’d choose. His favourite part is definitely the end which is a lovely way of bringing the story back to the original tale.

Peapod asked to play this one too -“Play it? What need?” – so first we went through the book and found what we’d need. He wrote the things down as we thought of them til we had a full list of props. He also wrote a note for Baby Bear from Goldilocks just like at the end of the story!

Once gathered and set up we spent most of Saturday playing this and it was lovely!

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