How to help your child build their imagination through animal storytelling

Children are natural storytellers. When they watch animals, they love to imagine what they'll do next.

Storytelling encourages children to use their creativity and imagination.

In Hamza Love Animals, wildlife expert Hamza meets a whole host of exotic creatures in Africa, including lions, elephants and monkeys.

Watch our exclusive film with Hamza below, to gain ideas for how to encourage your child’s imagination.

Watching CBeebies shows together

Watching CBeebies shows together like Hamza Loves Animals is a great way to start conversations and games with your child.

Just like in the film above, you could pause the show and chat about the different animals you've seen together and what your favourites were.

You can use moments from the series to talk with your child about how animals might feel about things that happen and each other.

Three ideas to help create the perfect animal story

1. Play pretend animals

One easy way to use Hamza Loves Animals for imaginative play is to watch a clip and then encourage your little one to play at being different animals.

Within the series, there are so many amazing animals who can help to spark your child's storytelling skills.

For example, elephants, giraffes, zebras, rhinos, hippos, lions, warthogs, antelopes, and buffalo are all animals in the series that you can include in your story.

You could:

• Ask your child to make the noises and actions that match the animals you name, inspired by the series

• For example, they could roar like a lion, stride like a giraffe, grunt like a wart-hog or stomp like an elephant

• You could ask them to make the noises and actions that match the animals you name. Or switch it up and try and guess which animal they are trying to be

• Get creative! If you choose an elephant, for example, you could use cushions as grass, and blankets as water! Encourage your child and keep describing what they're doing and asking them questions to further their play

• Let your child lead in the activity and help them explore their imagination.

Here's more advice for playing at pretend animals.

2. Play a fun storytelling game

Making up stories is a great way to start imaginative conversations with your child.

At the end of an episode, play a fun storytelling game to give one or more animals a life of their own, using your child's imagination.

You could follow these steps:

• Your child chooses one of the animals from the series and says who they are (eg. 'I'm an elephant')

• Then they choose a place where it would go (e.g. 'I'm going to go to the forest')

• And you could both decide the ending of the story (i.e. what happens when the elephant gets to the forest? For example, it could graze on the grass.)

You could make it even more fun by using silly voices and simple props from around the home to bring the story to life.

3. Play 'What happens next?'

You could phrase the story in terms of 'What happens next?'

Why not watch a clip from the series of a favourite animal, and follow these steps:

• Play the clip showing the animal to your child (it might help you to watch it first)
• Pause the video just before an action is about to take place
• Ask your child "What happens next?"
• Wait a few seconds for them to respond. If they don't use words yet, they might use gestures, point at pictures, or make sounds
• Respond encouragingly to their idea, and then help them to complete the story by playing the rest of the clip.

Important skills for your child to practise if storytelling with others are sharing and taking turns.

Here's more advice and inspiration for parents about imaginative play.

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