There is something about winter that makes stories feel necessary.
Perhaps it is the quality of the light — that particular, cooler clarity of a Gregory Hills winter morning that makes the world look slightly more still, slightly more attentive. Perhaps it is the instinct, deep and old, to gather close and listen. Or perhaps it is simply that winter, with its bare trees and long evenings and the particular comfort of a warm room, has always been the season of narrative — the time when human beings, young and old alike, most naturally reach for stories to make sense of the world around them.
At Saige Early Learning, we lean into that instinct completely. And this winter, our seasonal storytelling program — Winter Tales and Literature — is bringing the magic of books, oral narrative, and story-inspired learning to life across our Nursery, Toddlers, and Kindy rooms in ways that go far, far beyond reading time.
Why Seasonal Storytelling Is Not Just a Theme — It Is Deep Learning
When an early learning program connects its literacy experiences to the season outside the window, something remarkable happens. The story is no longer abstract. It is here, now, real. The frost on the grass this morning is the same frost in the picture book. The bare tree in the garden is the same bare tree where the owl in the story made its nest.
This is what early childhood researchers call contextualised learning — and the Early Years Learning Framework V2.0 (EYLF) places it at the heart of quality educational practice. When children encounter stories that connect to their lived sensory experience, comprehension deepens, vocabulary embeds more richly, and the love of literature grows roots rather than just leaves.
According to the EYLF, literacy is defined as “the capacity, confidence and disposition to use language in all its forms” — including written, oral, visual, and auditory communication. The framework explicitly recognises that literacy includes storytelling, visual arts, drama, and music, as well as talking, listening, reading, and writing.
Seasonal storytelling addresses every one of those forms simultaneously. It is one of the most genuinely holistic literacy experiences an early childhood program can offer.
The Science Behind Story: Why Literature Matters at Every Age
Before we explore what Winter Tales looks like at Saige, it is worth pausing on why story matters so profoundly in the early years — because “reading to children is good for them” does not do justice to what the research actually shows.
Shared book reading builds the architecture of literacy. Australian research published in the Early Childhood Education Journal found that the quality of shared book reading between educators and preschool children — including the questions asked, the vocabulary explored, and the connections drawn — is one of the strongest predictors of emergent literacy outcomes. When an educator pauses on the word crystalline in a winter story and says, “That means the ice looks like tiny crystals — have you ever seen frost on the grass?”, a child does not just learn a new word. They learn how to be a reader.
Storytelling builds emotional intelligence. Stories help children understand narrative structures, sequence of events and character, fostering a lifelong enjoyment and appreciation of literature. But they do more: they give children a safe imaginative space to experience fear, loss, joy, and courage — and to practise emotional responses in a context where nothing real is at stake. A child who has wept for a lost bear in a picture book is a child who is practising empathy.
Oral storytelling builds language at a neurological level. When a child retells a story — especially one heard repeatedly, with familiar rhythm and repetition — they are doing something neurologically complex: sequencing, recalling, narrating, and using language deliberately. These are the same cognitive skills that underpin reading comprehension, written expression, and formal learning throughout their schooling.
Seasonal stories build a relationship with the natural world. At Saige, our A — Awareness of Our World philosophy pillar drives our commitment to connecting children to the environment around them, including the land of the Dharug people on which we learn and play. Winter stories — stories of animals finding warmth, of seeds sleeping underground, of the particular hush of a cold morning — teach children that nature has its own rhythms, its own stories, and its own ways of being. This is sustainability education in its most organic form.
Winter Tales at Saige: What It Looks Like Across Our Rooms
🌙 Nursery (0–24 months): The Language of Winter Before Words
For our youngest learners, winter storytelling is entirely sensory and relational. Our Nursery educators introduce winter through: lullabies and songs about the moon and stars, the soft texture of winter fabrics during sensory play, the sound of rain on the roof during quiet read-alouds, and the warmth of a carer’s voice reading simple picture books about bears who sleep and birds who huddle.
At this age, the story is the relationship. The vocabulary of winter — cold, warm, soft, dark, bright, cosy — begins to accumulate in a baby’s understanding long before they can say the words. Our educators narrate the season as it happens: “Can you feel the cold air? Let’s go back inside where it’s warm.” These are not throwaway moments. They are language acquisition in action.
EYLF connections: Outcome 5 — Children are effective communicators; Outcome 3 — Children have a strong sense of wellbeing
🐻 Toddlers (2–3 years): Story as Play, Play as Story
In our Toddlers room, winter storytelling explodes into full dramatic life. Our 2–3 year age group is in the heartland of symbolic play — the stage at which a pillow becomes a sleeping bear, a blue blanket becomes a river, and a handful of cotton wool becomes snow.
Winter Tales in our Toddlers room involves:
Story-inspired provocations: After reading a book about a hedgehog preparing for winter, our educators might set up a provocation tray with natural materials — leaves, bark, twigs, small stones — and invite children to “build a nest for winter” alongside their small hedgehog figurine. The story does not end when the book closes. It continues in the hands of the child.
Retelling through props and puppets: Simple hand puppets, story stones, and felt boards allow toddlers to re-enact favourite winter stories in their own words, in their own sequence, with their own additions. This retelling — even when it wildly departs from the original — is one of the most powerful early literacy experiences available to young children.
Winter sensory play connected to story: A sensory tray of “winter forest” materials — dark soil, bare twig “trees,” small animal figurines — invites children to enter the world of the story physically. Language flows naturally: “The fox is cold. He’s looking for his burrow. Here it is, under the leaves.”
100 Ways to Play connections: Our Story Stones and Imagination Games play type — part of our 100 Ways to Play campaign — is particularly alive in the Toddler room during winter, as children use natural and story-inspired materials to create their own winter narratives.
EYLF connections: Outcome 1 — Children have a strong sense of identity; Outcome 5 — Children are effective communicators; Outcome 2 — Children are connected with and contribute to their world
📚 Kindy (3–5 years): Literature as a Lens on the World
In our Kindy room, Winter Tales and Literature becomes a genuinely rich curriculum thread — connecting to literacy, science, social-emotional learning, mathematics, and the arts in ways that no single-subject lesson ever could.
Literature selection: Our Kindy educators curate a winter reading list that balances Australian winter realities with the broader tradition of winter storytelling from cultures around the world — including stories that honour the First Nations connection to Country and the seasonal knowledge of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Through story, children learn that winter means different things in different places, to different peoples, and in different traditions. This is diversity in its most literary and respectful form.
Author and illustrator study: Rather than reading books in isolation, our Kindy educators introduce children to the idea that books are made — by real people with names and intentions. Studying a favourite winter picture book’s illustrations teaches children to read images as carefully as text, building visual literacy alongside print literacy.
Writing and mark-making inspired by story: After deep immersion in a winter text, children are invited to create their own winter stories — through drawing, dictated text, early writing attempts, or collaborative group storytelling. The EYLF V2.0 Outcome 5 describes children as “effective communicators” who use language confidently across many forms: a child who has illustrated and dictated their own winter tale is living this outcome completely.
Drama and movement: Winter tales come alive through movement — children becoming the wind, the snowflake, the migrating bird, the sleeping bear. Research consistently shows that young children experience literacy best through movement, and a total physical response approach to literacy is developmentally appropriate for the early years, setting children up for future success.
Science and wonder: Winter stories naturally open into scientific inquiry. Why do some animals sleep in winter? Where do the birds go? Why are mornings darker? Our Kindy educators follow these questions wherever they lead — into books, into the garden, into conversation, into careful observation of the Gregory Hills winter sky.
Winter Stories We Love: Building Your Home Reading List
One of the most meaningful things a family can do during the winter months is share great books together. Here are some of the kinds of winter stories that deepen children’s connection to season, story, and language:
🌿 Stories of animals in winter — bears hibernating, birds migrating, insects sheltering — teach children about the natural world’s seasonal rhythms and build scientific vocabulary organically.
🌙 Night and moon stories — winter’s longer, darker evenings are a perfect invitation for books about the night sky, stars, and the magic that happens in the dark.
🏠 Cosy, warm-home stories — narratives about gathering, warmth, and belonging speak directly to a child’s emotional world in winter and build vocabulary around comfort, family, and community.
🌍 Stories from other winter traditions — books that explore how winter is experienced in other cultures around the world build curiosity, respect for diversity, and understanding that the world is wonderfully varied.
📖 Australian winter stories — books that reflect the mild, particular character of an Australian winter (cooler and greener rather than icy and white) help children see their own landscape reflected in literature — one of the most affirming experiences a young reader can have.
We invite families to borrow books, talk about stories, and share your family’s winter tales with us — because at Saige, we know that the most powerful stories children encounter often come not from a page, but from the people who love them most.
Join the Story This Winter
Our 100 Ways to Play campaign runs all year — and this winter, story is at the heart of it. Follow our daily play moments on Instagram and Facebook, where you will see winter storytelling, dramatic play, sensory provocations, and the real, joyful, wonder-filled faces of children discovering that every story is also an invitation to imagine.
📞 (02) 4602 5515
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📍 67–77 Lasso Rd, Gregory Hills NSW 2557
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“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world.” — Albert Einstein
We acknowledge the Dharug people as the Traditional Custodians of the land on which we meet, play, and work every day. We pay our deepest respects to Elders past, present, and emerging.
Sources: Early Years Learning Framework V2.0 (EYLF) — Belonging, Being and Becoming, Australian Government Department of Education (acecqa.gov.au); NSW Early Learning Commission — Implementing the Approved Learning Frameworks V2.0 (education.nsw.gov.au, 2024); Essential Resources — Language development in early childhood through creative arts (essentialresources.com.au, 2024); Early Childhood Education Journal — Oral language and emergent literacy strategies in shared book reading with Australian preschoolers (Springer Nature, 2022); ACECQA — Play-based learning and intentionality, NQS (acecqa.gov.au); Raising Children Network — Reading aloud to children (raisingchildren.net.au); Children’s Book Council of Australia — CBCA (cbca.org.au); Australian Institute of Family Studies — Language and literacy in early childhood (aifs.gov.au).