The Marvin Story Time Show
The next Story Time Show is the Winter Wonderland Adventure starting on January 7th 2024
Marvin’s Story Time Show is an inclusive opportunity for the whole family to participate in a meaningful fun story time. Central to the concept are children with special needs. They are a hugely overlooked group, they want to have fun and participate in accessible online story time programmes alongside their typically developing siblings/family/friends.
Children with special needs often work so hard to do the basic things. Fun and joy don’t usually get added into their day. Finding something enjoyable and meaningful for everyone is important. We all need that in our lives. Something to love, enjoy and look forward to for pleasure. The Story Time Show does this by the bucket load.
From it’s beginning in March 2020 when it was originally developed to support families of children with special educational needs it has grown beyond measure. It has been a resounding success and the outcomes from this fun, vibrant, family show have been immense to the extent now that the show goes live to over 200 families on a regular basis for families of children who are deafblind with special educational needs in America.
The Story Time Show touches on all the literacy access skills for children, tactile, fine motor, language, book and story, concept development etc. Marvin’s Adventures are linked to everyday experiences making them a starting point from which to build concepts and meaningful literacy opportunities.
Overview of the Story Time Show Elements
The Story Time Shows is especially designed to offer an inclusive multi-sensory fun enjoyable approach to story time that is welcoming of the whole family. It offers access to literacy beyond the typical story book.
What makes the Story Time Show so special?
What makes this show so incredibly special is the inclusion and visibility of differently abled children – humans. They can be reached; they want to have fun and enjoy life just the same as the next child. This is at the heart of the Story Time Show. Simple elements are incorporated based on sound teaching and learning strategies that are inclusive of ALL CHILDREN, topped off with a huge helping of fun and joy.
Gwyn-Gwyn-Gwynnie-Gwyn the story teller uses a noisy, colourful, interactive, engaging approach to capture the children’s attention. They LOVE THE SHOW and so do their parents!
Gwynnie-Gwyn-Gwyn uses cheerleader pompoms and lots of energy and enthusiasm to engage with the children through the screen. They LOVE IT!
Gwyn-Gwyn-Gwynnie-Gwyn-Gwyn chats with Marvin and we wave to the children
Gwynnie-Gwyn-Gwyn tells the stories of Marvin’s adventures every week. A new character is introduced as each chapter is told on each show.
Gwyn-Gwyn-Gwynnie-Gwyn-Gwyn wears sparkly hats and designs all the characters and makes them!
Marvin’s Songs
We have our own songs, written by our very own Maestro Tommity-Tom – a beautiful range of fun and poignant songs written to create lots of story sparkle!
One of the songs from Marvin’s Farm Adventure written by Maestro Tom-ity-Tom.
There is lots of repetition, colour, high contrast, fun, high energy and enthusiasm are just some of the ingredients to create a multi-sensory approach to story time that reaches right out to ALL children and importantly also their parents.
Gwynnie-Gwn-Gwyn makes a craft to go with the story chapter during each show. Then the families have fun making the craft during the week before the next show. It is always something related to one of the fun characters.
The aim of the Story Time Show
- Across the world, to reach more children with special needs, inclusively of their family and their typically developing siblings/friends
- To bring to them an accessible, fun, joyful Story Time Show, a concept that is already successful!
What do the parents say?
Parents love this show for their children beyond measure. They love it because it’s a show that cares about them, they too feel overlooked, reporting that there is little online for their children that works. They have seen the huge significant difference the show is making to their children, and because of this it brings them joy too!! Parents share the increased attention, concentration, vocalization, participation and engagement of their children.
Children who are non-verbal are engaging, shouting out, interacting during the show
Increased engagement, concentration, communication
Structured story time inclusive of the whole family – giving the starting point for story BEYOND THE TYPICAL STORY BOOK
The most important part it’s FUN! It’s JOYFUL. It’s full of HAPPINESS!
Measuring progress and outcomes
The Dales School in the Yorkshire Dales enjoyed the Story Time Show and monitored 10 children as they took part in a range of curriculum activities and then watched the Story Time Show. They measured their progress against the UK Engagement Model.
Presentation about the development of the Story Time Show
Presentation about development of Story Time Show
and the outcomes are incredible……
Meet Norah – the joy is incredible! (Fairfield School, Batley)
Meet Aisha – joint attention and attention is fabulous! (Fairfield School, Batley)
Meet Karen, a class teacher of children with PMLD at Charlton Park Academy, Greenwich, London
“I love Gwyn’s enthusiasm for the Story Time Show and everything related to Positive Eye. The impact that the show has had on my students in amazing and they are now showing recognition of the show when it first come on. Their focus and attention skills are really developing and we are seeing preferences for different colours developing. I have learnt so much from completing Gwyn’s courses which is having a positive impact on the teaching in my classroom and has helped the students to become much more engaged. It is amazing to watch the students reactions to the Story Time Show and was really special when Gwyn came to visit us. Thank you for all you are doing Gwynnie Gwyn Gwyn.”
Meet Jess, a class teacher of children with PMLD at Curnow School in Cornwall
“We found the Story Time show to be visually very stimulating, the use of bright colours against the plain black background made it much easier for the children to fixate and track the characters which is not available on other shows.
Auditory cues catch and maintain attention. Gwyn uses her tone of voice, volume and boundless energy which is positive and engaging, to help the children to realise that something exciting or new is happening. This made the show accessible to the children who have no functional vision at all.
The repetitive nature helps children’s to learn to recognise and anticipate key features.
The Story time show was a real success with my learners, each child taking something different dependent on their individual needs and access to the show. It was engaging, fun and certainly visually stimulating whilst not being visually cluttered. We love the Story Time Show.”
The children and young people love Marvin
