The jealous car....

The children had been engrossed in their play for some time when one child called me over and asked if he could tell me the story they had been working on. Here it is...

Once upon a time there was a car factory. It had lots of workers and all the cars lined up carefully when they needed fixing or upgrading.

One day, the queue of cars waiting to be seen was so long that some of them had to be turned away for the day and were asked to return the next day.

The large green truck was mad. He did not want to wait. He thought it was unfair so he did something bad.

He drove as fast as he could into the factory so nobody else could use the factory that day either. Everyone was very sad but luckily noone was hurt. The police came straight away and took him away.

He felt really bad and said sorry. Then he helped to rebuild the factory but a bigger one so more people could be seen at once. Then they were all friends and he was good from then on!!!

THE END

I loved all the dinosaurs standing watching in the second picture!!! All the children had a little part in remembering the story and they were very pleased that it had such a happy ending!!!! :-) 

 

The Enormous Turnip - root vegetable printing

As part of our work on Traditional Tales, we explored the tale of The Enormous Turnip and have been looking closely at root vegetables. We put out paint in trays with root vegetables and left the children to it :-) I loved the variations in the children’s pictures and processes. Some children arranged the veg in patterns, others covered the paper entirely and two children ignored the veg and went straight in with their hands :-D good fun was had by all!!

Huff and Puff pictures - The Three Little Pigs!!!

Recently, we looked at the story of The Three Little Pigs. We had heard lots of conversations about the wolf huffing and puffing (and seen it in the children’s play) so we set up a station where the children could make their own ‘Huff and Puff’ pictures. It went down a treat and some children several up to 40 minutes dropping watered down ink onto the paper and blowing it like the wolf :-) It is so nice to see children so highly engaged and the conversations about mixing colours that took place were a treat to hear! 

LIght box fun and story telling

I really like these glass nuggets - I got them at a discount store for very little money and the children haven’t stopped playing with them! I put them out next to the light box along with a basket of people. One of my EAL speakers then called me over to tell me the story of the people playing in the swimming pool at their party - great for confidence building and language development!

Exploring Michael Rosen's We're going on a bear hunt!!

One of my favourite books is We’re going on a bear hunt by Michael Rosen.
We set up the sand to represent the scenes in the story and the children have had a ball exploring the small world setting and re-telling the story - admittedly it didn't look like this for very long but I am taking that as a sign that it was a good idea!! And on day 2, the children took the dinosaurs from an activity on the carpet and started telling the story - we’re going on a dinosaur hunt :-D

After listening to the story several times, the children were able to retell the story themselves. We laid out a selection of different materials and encouraged the children to think about the parts in the story. We then made a story map of the story We’re going on a bear hunt….all the ideas came from the children and they did all the work :-) 

I think it looks fab and we have had lots of fun playing with it - we took it outside in the end and it was lovely that so many boys were acting out the story once it was no longer indoors!

Olympic fun with The Champion Hare

The Champion Hare

Have just discovered this amazing book! It is the story of a little hare who takes part in various (olympic) races and although he tries his best, he doesn’t ever win - love the attitude though “I’ve jumped and I’ve pole vaulted, thrown things and I’ve run, I’ve never come first but I’ve still had great fun!” At the end of the story, the animals celebrate his decathlon achievements for taking part in each race and doing so well. 

If you ‘like’ them on facebook, then message them, they will send you a free Powerpoint version of the book! Seriously fab!!! And great for our upcoming Olympic theme!