Book of the week: The Gruffalo by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler.
Synopsis: A mouse took a stroll through the deep dark wood. A fox saw the mouse and the mouse looked good...
It hardly seems imaginable that once upon a time there was no Gruffalo, so deeply cemented has the character become in the folklore of children’s literature. Originally created by Julia Donaldson in 1999, the Gruffalo, with his purple spikes, knobbly knees, turned out toes and warty nose is a truly unforgettable character.
Weekly Activity: We read the Gruffalo book to the children at base camp (most of whom were already very familiar with it) and talked about the various activities they could do based around the story and specifically, the various animals from the book:- mouse, owl, fox, snake and of course, the Gruffalo.
Activities included:
Making wearable masks of either the Gruffalo or one of the other animals from paper plates decorated with twigs, leaves or using paints or pens. The children cut out their own holes for eyes and mouths using scissors
We printed off colouring sheets of the animals and placed them in various high or awkward places so the children had to use their ingenuity to retrieve them. Some children decided to climb trees to grab them while others thought of using long sticks to knock them down. Others worked in teams to bring things to stand on to try to reach the sheets
We gave the children some modelling clay to make their favourite animal. We then stuck them onto a tree which made a wonderful Gruffalo tree collage
We made snakes using sticks, paints and googly eyes
We wrote the names of the animals on chalk boards. The objective was for the children to try to read the word (with help if necessary) and then draw the animal
Special mention must go to the little boy (we'll call him 'T') who went all out in the imagination stakes and decided to make an entire Gruffalo costume! (please see the fabulous picture below)
Other activities this week included making natural tube necklaces from elder wood and garden twine, doing some letter work one of the tuff trays, making hand print pictures and very kindly helping Keith fix a wooden slat on the bench at Blackheath.
Home Activity: Click the link below for lots of resources and downloads from the Early Learning HQ website all based on the Gruffalo story. It includes making finger puppets, masks, a play scene, topic cards and colouring sheets amongst lots of other things. As always, please upload your finished activities onto your Tapestry account.