What’s Your Story?

What’s Your Story?

Friday, May 7th, 2021

Storytelling helps children become active listeners, develop empathy, and create a strong foundation for cultural awareness. Kindergarten teacher, Jennifer Tonges, was excited to teach these skills in her Springville classroom using a hands-on approach, but quickly realized she needed additional supplies to ensure classroom opportunities were equitable, engaging, and safe for her students.

Filled with a wide range of fun materials, storytelling boxes help students create and share any story they can imagine. Tiny food, model buildings, and miniature animal figurines can be reused each day to create a new story or continue adding details to their latest adventure.

In a year that has been focused on learning through screens, the bins offer a unique opportunity for hands-on play and storytelling, helping students completely immerse themselves in magical worlds of their own creation.

A perfect candidate for BEF’s Hybrid Instruction Support, Jennifer received funds during the Foundation’s first round of awards to create enough storytelling bins to engage students and adhere to COVID protocols. 

After using the storytelling supplies, the class was eager to create even more stories, “Students were asking as we left today if they could use the bins tomorrow,” said Jennifer, adding, “That’s a win in my book!”

BEF is honored we could help Springville kindergarteners begin to discover who they are and explore their creativity through hands-on play. Explore the other great classroom projects today on Beaverton’s Choice.