The Gruffalo, by Julia Donaldson,

The Gruffalo website has many things to do and games to play: https://www.gruffalo.com/activities/activities

Make an edible chocolate playdough Gruffalo!

3 cups sugar

6 tbs cocoa shopping list

3/4 cup powdered milk

1/2 cup butter, room temperature (no substitutes) shopping list

1/2 cup golden syrup shopping list

1 tsp vanilla

How to make it: Mix and knead by hand until it’s sticky!

Smarties would make great prickles and orange eyes

• Use an old roll of wallpaper or a big cardboard box and create escape plans in case you ever meet the Gruffalo, or a Story Map and retell the story, try to use key phrases from the book.

• Create a Deep Dark Wood. You could use earth and leaves for an underground house, a pile of twigs for a logpile house. How would you decide to make a treetop house?

Here’s a no baking required Gruffalo Crumble recipe: https://mummy2twindividuals.com/world-book-day-no-bake-gruffalo-recipe

• When eating the Gruffalo Crumble, model cutting it into halves and quarters etc.

• Design a pattern for the snake’s skin by printing them with paint.

Did you know that if you print with a 3D shape it will make a 2D shape Can you print a circle, square, rectangle or even a triangle?

• Can you make a Deep Dark Wood obstacle course? Use large and small equipment to explore the ways in which owls, snakes, foxes and mice move and where they hide. Can you travel over, under, across, above, below, around and through?

Naughty Bus, by Jan and Jerry Oke.

Try this this mini movie version too! So good! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqQ1BAEj1oE

In 2011, Jan Oke said, 

‘…I love to hear about children who have taken pictures themselves and written their own ‘further adventures of Naughty Bus’, and I ended the story with the night bus headlights coming on because I wanted readers to imagine what might happen next.’

We want to allow your little one/s to see themselves as authors.

Use the model of 'Naughty Bus' and imitate the structure and format. Take a toy bus or another vehicle on an adventure around your home or local area. You could take a series of photographs of the vehicle doing something naughty, or you could draw your own illustrations.

Use your photographs and/or illustrations to structure an amazing adventure for your ‘Naughty Bus’, your ‘Naughty Helicopter’ or your ‘Naughty…’.

Perhaps you would prefer to continue the original story of ‘Naughty Bus’. Use the last photograph and the text in the book ‘Sometimes I am a night bus…’ to begin a night-time adventure for your bus.

How far can your vehicles travel through the tunnel and out of the other side? Does it make a difference when you alter how high you hold the end of the tunnel?

You could make bottle top sailboats and have some races…

Oi Frog, written by Kez Gray

Singing nursery rhymes regularly is critical for learning to read in the early years.

Try to learn these animal-themed nursery rhymes and songs:

• Five Little Speckled Frogs
• Baa Baa Black Sheep
• Old MacDonald Had a Farm
• Pussy Cat, Pussy Cat
• Hey Diddle Diddle
• The Animal Fair
   

Read out pairs of words and ask your child to call out SNAP if they rhyme. Mix up the rhyming words from the story to create a mixture of rhyming and non-rhyming pairs:  frog/log, cat/mat, hare/chair, shark/lark, shrimp/chimp, stool/mule, bear/stair.

Can you hear the rhymes in this song? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHroOYO1iOo

Can you make a simple see-saw for your toys?

Can you make any of your toys balance?

How many small toys does it take to balance a bigger one?

Collect 10 stones, are they all different? How?

Paint stones to look like your favourite animal.

Mrs Tennant painted these for her garden, they are lovely. I like how she then made a noughts and crosses board on her paving slab too

Try to make a nature collage of an animal using leaves and stones from your garden.

Spinderella, by Julia Donaldson

Spinderella wants to be clever and learn to count and use numbers.

Why are numbers important?

Why does saying lots or loads just not work in the story?

Why is it important to have an equal number of players in a game?

How many football boots would your family team need?

Play a game of football together, can you score any goals?

Can you play table football, or even blow football? Make your goals from Duplo or Lego. You could design a kit for your players. Cut it out and stick it on your fingers or straws!

Ask your child to use a holepunch to make some holes around the outside edge of a paper plate. Can they then thread their own spider’s web? It’s a bit fiddly.

Create a spider’s web maze and enjoy climbing through it. Maybe you could search for your favourite toy, or some fruit, or even some numbers.