People who help us- post deliverer

We have decided to look at people who help us.  This is part of our week theme of people.  We decided to look at the people who deliver our post.  Little Boo loves posting things and we also managed to find some fantastic resources in our local library and toy library.  It has been a great activity which has incorporated loads of fun learning including mark making, number recognition and communication to name just a few. 


To start with we did a few activities which were centred around people who help us.

First we sorted them into heads, belly's and feet.  I then gave Little Boo a couple to match up

People who help us matching activity from Sparklebox

Little Boo doing a colouring activity from Sparklebox

I decided to make a post box so that we could have some imaginary play and thought it would be a great idea if Little Boo could make her own postcards to post.

Making postcards 

Writing the postcard

Adding a stamp (these were just from the Internet)

Writing the address on the envelope 

 Making our postbox 

Before we started to create our postbox we looked at our library book together so Little Boo could learn about a post deliverer.

We made a postbox from an empty box as you can see Little Boo had already been playing with it. We just painted this red then painted five doors as well.

Putting the box post together I could of use a hot glue gun but at least doing it this way Little Boo can join in. 

Painting one of the doors

After all that creating it was time to use our postbox.  Little Boo dressed up in her outfit which she loved regardless of the fact it was way too big! She looked so cute.  We then got to work posting the letters then posting them in the correct doors.  All the letters had numbers on them which related to the numbers on the doors so this was good for number recognition.

Sharing a book- The Gruffalo Day

On Monday we decided to have a Gruffalo day as part of our sharing books together.  The Gruffalo is a Julia Donaldson Book which has some fantastic illustrations and links into learning about animals as the mouse meets different animals on the journey  through the woods.  The mouse it actually very clever and makes up a character, the Gruffalo to scare off creatures who may eat him.  Whether children as young as Little Boo actually understand this about the story I doubt but older children may do which may lead to conversation about who eats who in the animal world. The Goodreads website score this book 4.3 and many comments on the book give it glowing praise and refer to how the book uses rhyme and repetition effectively. 

Our Gruffalo day was fantastic! I really would encourage any parent to do this or have a Gruffalo inspired party there is a plethora of resources out there to have a really good day.

We started our morning making a Gruffalo Cake.  Whilst playing our latest CD from the library which is the Gruffalo songs

Just the sponge at first as it needed time to cool. We went to the park and recreated the Gruffalo with print outs that I got from Twinkl.  We first had to go on the swings and slides, then settled down on a bench before our walk to read the Gruffalo

I really do not know why I have not thought of taking books with us before on a picnic (probably the thought of carrying them) as Little Boo just sat and listened really well.

Little Boo enjoyed thinking of places where the characters could go and knew what came next in the story better than I did! We were busy finding a tree for the owl, a log pile for the snake then a hole for the fox.  She picked the characters that were needed for each photograph.  We did get some strange looks from people passing which was quite funny. 

"his favourite food is scrambled snake"

When the Gruffalo story was finished it was picnic time we settled down to picnic with all the Gruffalo cut outs and played some games.  First matching the pictures.  Then spotting the missing one and then we played with the finger puppets to tell the story again. 

Matching the pairs

Who is missing?

We also read The Gruffalo again with  the finger puppets.

When we came home we finished making the Gruffalo cake and had this for pudding after tea and it was lovely!

Little Boo keeps saying now that we had a, "Gruffalo Day" hence the name for the post.  I hope that you like this and that the links may be useful for parties or Gruffalo days.

Sharing a book - A squash and a squeeze

Julia Donaldson in my opinion is a wonderful author.  There are so many of her books in our library.  A Squash and a Squeeze is based around a lady who is not happy with her house being too small a wise man then tells her to take in animals then she realises that she was happier with what she used to have .  I feel that the moral of it is to be happy with what you have, kind of like the "grass is greener on the other side" but obviously it is not. 

The book incorporates elements of number recognition up to five so can be effectively used for learning numbers in a fun way.  Interesting to find out was that this was Julia Donaldson's first published picture book in 1993.  Goodreads have given the book 4 and a lot of people have commented on how the book has a good use of rhythm.  When considering the text there are many different size words "tiny for two" "titchy for three" this could make for interesting discussion.

When it came to sharing the story together I thought of some activities related to squashing and squeezing.  I think it is really important that the books can also become a sensory experience and will endeavour to do this more often. I decided  to make sensory balloons (this is something that I have wanted to do for ages) it worked really well.  This would be a great activity for siblings to make the balloons for each other.

This is how to fill the balloon as it took me ages to realise!

Items used to make the sensory balloons

 The items that we used for the balloons were

• Water
• Sequins
• rice (had some that I had dyed)
• gravy granules (make a good crunch noise)
• spiral pasta
• ready brek
• Rice Krispies (again crunchy)
• raisins
• flour
• Golden syrup (My favourite)

I put little face on them with permanent marker to make them more interesting.  All this was done whilst Little Boo was at Nannies with her Daddy that way when she came back it was a complete surprise and she was intrigued what was in them.

Crunch, crunch!

"This one does not crunch Mommy"

Some squashing and squeezing of the balloons.  Then Little Boo said "I want to look  inside, get my scissors Mommy" so we did.

Cutting open the balloon

squeeze to get it all out.

The squashing and squeezing was a great hit! I then wanted to make an activity in which Little Boo could use a sequencing activity having looked at this story stick and realising I had no painting sticks, I had a look around and saw a box file, perfect! this can contain all the images and be used to sequence the images as I put Velcro strip inside.  It was decorated using one of Little Boos contact pictures

Inside the folder Little Boo could stick the images on the Velcro in order.Then peeled them off in the order they left the house

 We have loads of items that we are going to use including our alphabet, numbers, images that are different sizes and colour sorting.  Hope that you have enjoyed this review I wanted to do something a bit "out the box"! 

Sharing a book- We're going on a bear hunt.

Tonight we shared the book We're going on a bear hunt. This book has had great reviews on goodreads and scored 4.1.  Many people like the repetitive nature of the book as it allows children to memorise it and feel like they are reading it themselves. This is so true as sometimes I stop reading mid sentence and Little Boo is able to carry on.

Some of our resources

I printed out some resources from Twinkl so we were able to make puppets and even used the backgrounds to re create the story.

When sorting out our spare room this weekend I came across loads of plastic wallets! So put these to use making a washing line sequencing activity of the story with the resources from Twinkl.  We watched the clip on youtube for We're going on a bear hunt then was able to pause the clip at each different section giving Little boo time to select the correct order and peg it up. Little Boo loved this and was good at putting the story in order on the line.

The washing line sequence

Playing with our stick puppets

Then Little Boo wanted the cave with the bear inside

Then the people all walked in

We then looked through the book and Little Boo matched the characters with the stick puppets.

This is a fantastic book with lovely images and a wonderful story line. The best thing is that the story can be sang so we got out the musical instruments! Little Boo loved playing and even tried to keep to the beat.  I hope that this has provided you with some inspiration. 

Sharing a book- Shirley Hughes Dogger.

I love Shirley Hughes and Dogger is one of my favourites! This is probably because I remember reading it as a child.  I went on line to find resources and found a great movable dogger.  All you need to do is subscribe to TES which is free .  We found the movable Dogger to colour in and make and a sequencing printable.  Both of which Little Boo enjoyed doing.

Colouring in Dogger

After being laminated and some split pins added! Apparently the dog wanted to sit on Little Boos chair.

Looking at the sequencing cards. I am going to add a few more cards to this.

Dogger then went for a little walk

The school fair began and poor little Dogger was at the back of our stall. 

Little Boo brought Dogger.

There are other activities that may be suitable for older children.  Me and Little Boo did a market stall with loads of toys we used this as role play but for older children you could extend the activity further to incorporate money. There was also plenty of opportunity to play fancy dress as there is a fancy dress competition at the school fayre

The book has scored 4.11 out of 5 on Goodreads and has brilliant reviews from most people on there.  I feel that it is fantastic that even though it was written a long time ago it still has relevance today.  I like the way that the book displays positive behaviour as Bella gave away her toy so her brother could have Dogger back. 

I hope that this has provided you all with other ways to enjoy the book Dogger together. Next week  we will be looking at We're Going on a bear Hunt.