What happens when a story becomes something Learners can hold, build, explore, and retell?
This year, Early Learning and Land and Language are excited to introduce a collection of playful storytelling kits designed to support Learners in exploring Yukon First Nation stories through hands-on, multisensory experiences.
Co-created by Juniper Tree Learning, the kits offer loose parts and materials that invite Learners to listen, play, create, and revisit stories in different ways. The kits reflect a philosophy that places Learners at the heart of learning while recognizing stories are connected to people, places, language, culture, and relationships.
The Stories
Ch’idingwat’an | Gray Jay: Ch’idingwat’an is part of a series of Gwich’in story books developed for the Gwich’in Direct Acquisition Language Program and beginner Gwich’in learners. The text is based on a traditional Gwich’in story as told by Elder Lydia Thomas, modified by Sophia Flather.
Nits’oo Shoh Vichi’ Gwan Goodlit | How Bear Got a Short Tail: Nits’oo Shoh Vichi’ Gwan Goodlit is part of a series of Gwich’in story books developed for the Gwich’in Direct Acquisition Language Program and beginner Gwich’in learners. The text is based on a traditional Gwich’in story as told by Annie Lord, modified by Sophia Flather.
Yéil k̲a Ḵei.á | Crow Gets Daylight was narrated by Angela Sidney, and the story was later published in My Old People’s Stories: A Legacy for Yukon First Nations, Part II: Tagish Narrators, by Catharine McClellan, edited with additions by Julie Cruikshank.
Yéil Du Waag̱í Ḵut Akakawulsóosi | Old Crow Loses His Eye is a traditional Inland Tlingit story shared by Lilyan Rudolf (Usher) of Teslin, Yukon. Lilyan wrote this story in 1951 while completing her final year of school, recording a story that had been told to her by her mother, Mabel Johnson. With the permission of Lilyan’s family, the story was later published in My Old People’s Stories: A Legacy for Yukon First Nations, Part III: Inland Tlingit Narrators, by Catharine McClellan, edited with additions by Julie Cruikshank.
Learning Through Relationship
Early Learning Educators share the Yukon First Nation stories with Learners, bringing local worldviews, languages, and connections to land into the learning environment. Stories can be revisited with the people who hold and share that knowledge. An Elder, Knowledge Keeper, or Land and Language Connector may bring their own voice, language, perspective, and relationship to the story. This reminds us that stories are not simply classroom resources. They are connected to people, places, languages, cultures, and relationships.
For Educators, this offers an invitation to slow down, listen, and notice:
What does the Learner already know?
What connections are Learners making?
What happens when we make space for the story to be revisited again and again?
What are Learners communicating through their play?
Stories Come to Life
Carefully selected loose parts allow Learners to interact with and revisit the story. The kits invite Learners to touch, move, arrange, build, imagine, and create.
Rather than simply listening to a story once, Learners can return to it through play. A Learner might use the materials to represent what happens next, build a setting for the story, act out a character's actions, or create their own interpretation.
These hands-on, multisensory experiences provide opportunities for Learners to make meaning in different ways and to revisit ideas through movement, language, imagination, and play.
From Story to Play, and Play to Learning
When Learners retell or explore a story with loose parts, they are doing much more than remembering what happened. They are making decisions, communicating, negotiating roles with peers, and experimenting with sequence, setting, and character. They are using language to explain their thinking, listening to one another, and building on each other's ideas. They may also bring their own experiences, knowledge, and connections to the story.
Educators can move intentionally along the Play Continuum—sometimes telling and modelling, sometimes joining Learners' play, and sometimes stepping back to observe what emerges.
The goal is not for play to look a particular way. The goal is to create conditions where Learners can build relationships, explore identity, communicate, imagine, and make meaning together.
Making Learning Visible
Storytelling kits also offer rich opportunities for pedagogical narration. A photograph of Learners working together to recreate part of a story, a Learner explaining why they placed a particular loose part somewhere, or a short conversation between two Learners can make learning visible.
Educators might notice and document Learners' language, such as:
“I think this goes here because…”
“You be the… and I'll be…”
“Wait! That's not what happened. First…”
These moments can provide a glimpse into Learners' growing language, communication, collaboration, story knowledge, and understanding.
Documentation can also help Educators pause and reflect:
What is the Learner showing us?
What are they communicating?
What might they be wondering?
Where might we go next?
An Invitation to Play
As you encounter one of these kits in your classroom, think of it not as a finished lesson or a resource with one prescribed purpose, but as an invitation.
An invitation to tell.
An invitation to listen.
An invitation to play.
An invitation to move, imagine, and make meaning together.
An invitation to build relationships—with stories, with one another, with language, and with the places and communities that surround us.
If you would like to borrow a storytelling kit, please connect with Erica Thompson (Erica.Thompson@fnsb.ca ).