Story Seats

10 seats, 10 stories, 10 parks…

Sunshine Coast Council have designed and constructed 10 innovative Story Seats, located in 10 of the Coast’s most stunning local parks, and have incorporated 10 fabulous illustrations into the seats’ designs.

These eye-catching pieces of art have been purpose-built to provide outdoor literacy experiences for families and offer spaces that actively encourage you to talk, read, sing and play with your child every day.

Story Seats have been funded by First 5 Forever, a Queensland State Government funded universal family literacy program aimed at supporting strong language and literacy environments for young children from 0–5 years and their families.

Tips when visiting the seats

TALK: Have a conversation with your child about the seat, the illustration and the characters. Ask them questions about what they think the characters are doing, what their names are and what stories they would create using the characters. Talk about everything and anything! Your little one is bursting with new ideas and questions and loves to talk to you.

READ: If you happen to bring a book, great! If not, use the graphics on the seat to aid in early literacy by helping your child count or find the characters and point out colours. Help your little ones make up stories about the images or ask what they think is happening in the picture.

SING: Create silly songs using the images on the graphics. Sing nursery rhymes your child loves. Sing any song your child loves! Singing is one of the best ways for developing sound awareness skills in your little one that will ultimately help them be successful in learning to read.

PLAY: As a parent/caregiver you are your child’s first and most important play mate. Play tag around the seat or use the images on the seat to help make up games. Let your child make up games and join in with them.

Share your adventure: check in and tag a photo #storyseat