Gypsy House

After the long summer break I am begining to post again. Last week as part of the Roald Dahl day celebrations I visited Gypsy House, the home of Roald Dahl in Great Missedden. I had visited a couple of years ago but wanted to go and see the famous writing hut before it's proposed move next year. It was an enjoyable afternoon exploring the gardens and seeing the writing hut and gypsy caravan. Great Missedenden is a lovely village to spend time in with both the Roald Dahl Museum and looking at the buildings that inspired some of Roald Dahl's stories. I am looking forward to a visit to the Roald Dahl Gallery in Aylesbury as well as the Dahlicious Dress up day on the 30th September.

Harry Potter Premiere

Being a fan of all things Potter, I went to London to experience the excitement of the final premiere. I was not lucky enough to be amongst the 8000 fans in Trafalgar square, but managed to watch some of the events on the big screen and walk around between Trafalgar Square and Leciester Square whilst the movie was being watched in the three cinemas. I got to see some funny sights as well as catch a glimpse of some of the stars as they left the cinema for the aftershow party. I can't wait to see the film myself next week!

Colours

One of our classes was looking at colours, focussing on a different one every week. I found two very nice books for this topic. Something Begining with Blue is a lovely book with holes to peep through and encourages you to guess what is behind the peep hole.

Brown Bear, Brown Bear What do you See? is a very simple story with a repetative narrative. We used this one in class as a sensory story using coloured objects for the children to explore. We sat around a table covered with a large black tray (this allowed the colours to be easily seen against the background as some of the children are visually imapired). I tried to find items that were interesting to both feel and look at and some made interesting noises.

As we read the book we filled the tray with objects to match the colour of each animal (e.g. blue objects for the blue horse etc). A laminated picture of the animal was placed on the tray so that we could see they were the same colour.
At the end of the book I used a monkey puppet then the children looked at themselves in the mirror. We finished by placing all the laminated pictures on the tray and repeating the colours. Despite being such a simple story the children remained focused on the objects and the session lasted approx 35 - 40 minutes.  Another addition which could be made is to sing a song about each colour as it is being explored.

Rockpools

Whilst doing our seaside stories, one of the most popular activities has been exploring the rockpool. For this we used a round washing up bowl filled with tepid water and filled it with rockpool objects. In our rockpool we had pebbles and rocks, shells, plastic (but very realistic) starfish and crabs and some seaweed made from green plastic. Both visually and auditory sensual the odjects made a lovely noise when moved around the bowl. Each child had a 'dip' and showed us what they had found in the pool.

Lighthouses

One of the favourite stories that we do in class is The Lighthouse Keepers Lunch. I have developed a story bag and plan that has been used many times with several groups. The main props that we use are:
A lighthouse (ours is made from our bubble tube - see photo)
Feely bags with plastic food and matching symbol
A rope (strung between a ladder and the lighthoue
A large basket
Rubber seagulls on sticks
A large puppet/doll for Mr Grinling
A toy cat and blanket
Mustard

                                                           (our bubble tube 'Lighthouse')

We tell the story and act it act using the props. Each child is given a feely bag with food in and they match it to a large symbol that is held up at the appropriate time in the story. When the child has matched their food it is placed in the basket. When the basket is full, it is slid along the rope. It stops halfway and we then 'fly' seagulls around the basket (rubber seagulls on threads tied to long canes). You can also play seagull sound effects.

Laater we add the cat, Hamish to the basket and repeat the seagulls. When the mustard sandwiches are added to the basket we pass around a pot of mustard to smell and see how yucky it is.

The children's favourite parts are: exploring the foods, flying the seagulls and watching the basket slide along the rope! We have repeated this many times and the children manage to stay focussed and interested throughout the story.

DUCK!

Yesterday I went to a duck race and watched approx 4000 yellow rubber ducks drift down the river. It gave me an idea for a sensory story using Eric Carle's '10 Little Rubber Ducks'.

This story gives us plenty of scope for sensory activities:

• Using hammers and wooden blocks to create the noise of the factory.
• Painting the ducks with paintbushes and packing them in boxes.
• Driving the truck alonga  bouncy road, listening to the sound of the engine.
• Sailing on a boat, gently rocking side to side and then more vigorously duting the storm (use cymbals, thunders and torches to create the storm).
• The ducks fall into the sea (either using a large blue sheet or parachute to bounce the ducks or a tray of water (coloured blue).
• Remove each duck with a net as we count them, adding puppets or props for the creatures they meet.
• Use a duck 'whistle' at the end for the Mummy duck and duckilings and a squeaker for the rubber duck.

This is still in the planning stage so I need to go and hunt for 10 rubber ducks, before hopefully using the story with a class on Wednesday.

Children's Laureate

I was glad to read the news that Julia Donaldson is the new children's laureate. Her books are extremely popular in several of the classes at school. With the younger children we read The Gruffalo over several weeks using the soft toys that accompany the book. To make the Gruffalo we drew a large version on sugar paper and used collage to add his hair (curled paper) and made his claws, teeth, wart, purple prickles and knobbly knees. They 'body parts' were laminated and had velcro on the back so the children could take them on and off.

By coincidence I read The Smartest Giant in Town with one of the older groups today. We read it as a sensory story. Once child was the Giant and the others were the animals he meets. Props we used were:
The Clothes Shop - A board (on casters) with a clothes shop sign and the items of clothing (trousers, shirt, tie, belt, socks, shoes)hung up on coat hangers (later in the story we added a 'closed' sign).
George the Giant -  wore a ragged gown and had a pair of big heavy sandals.
The Giraffe - wore a card headband with giraffe spot and ears and the symbol for giraffe on it. He also had a giraffe puppet to wrap the tie around.
The Goat - wore a headband with goat ears and horns as well as the symbol for goat. For the boat we used a physio step turned upside down with a pole for a mask. We then tied the shirt onto the mask.
The Mouse - wore a headband with mouse ears and mouse symbol. They had a mouse hand puppet to place into the shoe.
The Fox - wore a head band (see above) plus had a toy fox/puppet to put into the sock, and a pop-up tent.
The Dog - Wore a headband as above (they can walk over a brown blanket for the bog)

We told the story and dressed the giant in his robe and sandals. When he got to the clothes shop the children chose which clothes to put on him (using symbols) and we 'threw away' the gown and sandals in a black sack. When the giant was dressed we continued with the story. As each animal appeared a child dressed up as that animal (had a good look in teh mirror!) and was given the relevant piece of clothing from the giant. Switches can be used to say 'Thank you' and 'I am the smartest giant in town'. Each time the giant sings his song we focussed on the sequence, pointing to each child/animal in turn. At the end of the story we found the black bag and pulled out the gown and sandals. Finally we had a big wrapped box with a crown and card inside for the giant to wear. We ended the story by listening to the song on CD, again focussing on the sequencing.

The children really enjoyed this and we will be expanding on it by revisitng the sequence and creating simple three word sentences (who is doing what)