1. The Gruffalo
Communication and Language
We will be introduced to ‘Oral story telling’ and begin to learn stories like The Gruffalo off by heart.
We will use props, puppets and small world Gruffalo areas to help us retell the story. We will use Gruffalo picture boards to help us to sequence the story of the Gruffalo. We will learn to spot rhyming words in the story and have a go at continuing our own rhyming strings. We will start attending assemblies to help us to listen in a variety of situations. We will look at lots of nonsense rhymes and jokes about the animals in the story and develop our sense of humour. We will start looking at Wow Words when we read stories to develop our vocabulary. We will use the Gruffalo’s house and The Vets to use language to recreate roles and join in imaginative play.
Personal, Social and Emotional Development
The Gruffalo's Child is very brave on his walk until he meets the Big Bad Mouse. What makes you feel brave/ scared? How do you make yourself feel better?
We will teach the Gruffalo how to make friends and how to be a good friend.
We will teach the Gruffalo the rules of our classroom and how to behave in our setting when he comes to live with us.
We will learn how to resolve problems by helping the Gruffalo.
We will be joining in circle time activities with our Owl puppet and the talking pebble. Here we will spend time getting to know each other and our families.
Physical Development
We will talk about whether the Gruffalo’s food is healthy- scrambled snake, owl ice cream and roasted fox. We will make healthy snacks for him.
In music and movement we will move like the animals from the story, and we will learn to add musical instruments to our movement.
We will use the Finger Gym challenge area in the classroom to help with our fine motor skills. We will try and put the purple prickles on the Gruffalo’s back using a pincer grip. We will thread beads onto a cocktail stick for his black eyes. We will also start Disco Dough to help increase the strength in our fingers and hands. We will be starting dance in our PE lessons with Miss Steadman.
Literacy
We will look at Phase 1, Aspect 4, rhythm and rhyme before moving onto Phase 2 phonics where we will begin to learn the sounds of letters. We will also begin to hear the initial sounds in words, and start to blend them for reading. We will look at lots of non fiction books to find out about animals. We will also read other stories by Julia Donaldson so we become familiar with this author. We will read other stories based on animals, e.g. Percy the Park Keeper. We will be learning how to hold a pencil correctly and will get lots of writing opportunities inside and outside the classroom- writing letters to the Gruffalo, making menus, writing Vet receipts, drawing pictures of animals, using sticks and paint brushes for writing.
Our Topic
Whilst getting to know your children over the past few weeks, we have observed them during their play to find out their interests, what they like playing with and how they like to play. As a whole this class are very excited and motivated by the outdoors. They especially came to life when we took a trip down to the woods one day. Also the children loved it when I read The Gruffalo to them, they were all joining in with the story and actions. A child in the class also bought in a Gruffalo toy for show and tell which excited us a lot. This is why we have decided to theme our learning around “Down in the Woods.” We will now plan alongside the children to steer the topic into a direction that engages them in their learning.
Expressive Arts and Design
From studying the trees we will collaboratively turn our classroom into the forest, through exploring a variety of media and techniques- printing, rolling, using marbles to create different patterns.
We will use our own masks and props to help us act out the story. We will use junk modelling to create habitats for the animals to live in, which will help
us create our Forest Vet role play area. We will take part in Forest Schools and learn to use nature for our art work. We will learn lots of new songs and dances themed around animals.
Understanding the World
We will learn about hibernating animals, e.g. The squirrel. We will learn about animals habitats.
We will learn about nocturnal animals, e.g. The Owl.
We will investigate our school field and woods to see what animals live there. We are hoping to meet and hold a barn owl and find out information about it. We are also hoping to meet a Zoo Keeper to tell us how to care for animals. We will look closely at trees and leaves by doing tree rubbings. We will talk about Autumn and what this would mean for the animals. We will talk about the animals in the story all being different- how are we different to our friends?
Maths
We will use lots of natural resources for counting so we can be like the squirrel, e.g. Conkers, pine cones, leaves, sticks. We will sing lots of number songs to help us recite numbers to 5, then 10 and beyond.
We will play lots of number games, e.g. Gruffalo bingo, Gruffalo snap with numbers. We will use Gruffalo play doh mats to make the correct quantity of objects, e.g. Can you put 1 poisonous wart on the end of The Gruffalo’s nose and 5 purple prickles on his back.