Dear Zoo is a very simple book with a repeating text that makes it so accessible to young children. It provides lots of directions for the children to go in, from finding out about animals to labelling things and putting things in boxes. Read it together and see where it takes you and the children at your setting! Personal, Social and Emotional Development Perfect Pets - do some small group circle times on what the children think their perfect pet would be and why. How do we look after our pets? - what do pets need to be healthy and happy? Do all pets need the same things - e.g. a stick insect and a dog? If you have willing parents, you could ask if they could bring in a pet to visit the children. Where do we take our pets when they are sick? - ask a local vet to come and visit the children, or go on a trip to a vet surgery. Have some soft toy animals, stethoscopes, plastic syringes etc for some vet role play. Washing hands - remind children to always wash their hands after touching animals. Practice this through play when they are pretending to be vets. The children might mention the film Madagascar, because the zoo animals in the film are put into crates and put on a boat. In "Dear Zoo" the animals are put into containers to be sent. There are lots of opportunities here to talk about looking after animals. Do the children think the animals liked being in the containers? Who has been to a zoo? Give the children lots of time to talk about their experiences. Communication, Language and Literacy Labels - in the book each container has a label. Have a selection of boxes and different types of labels - luggage tags, sticky labels etc - with some pens. Writing letters - have a supply of envelopes, stamps, letter paper etc for the children to experiment with. Make a post box. For a more focussed activity, write a letter together and show the children how a letter always begins with 'Dear...' 'Too...!' - Each animal is 'too...big, naughty, fierce etc'. At the end the puppy is 'perfect'. Read Goldilocks and the Three Bears and talk about how everything in this book is 'too...hot, cold, big etc. And each time the Baby Bear's things are 'just right'. Just like Dear Zoo! Have fun spending the day saying 'too...' and 'perfect' about things - 'your glass is too full', 'your hat is too big', 'this chair is perfect' etc. What did the animals do? Each animal in the story is not quite right. Ask the children what the animals did when they arrived. What did the monkey do that was so naughty? Why was it a problem that the giraffe was so tall? Collect their ideas and make a book. What rhymes with 'zoo'? Collect 'oo' words - moo, boo, too, and some cheeky ones like poo and loo! Make up some nonsense ones too. Collect together lots of different lift the flap books/animals books. What is the puppy's name? Collect together lots of ideas and display them around a picture of the puppy. Take photos of the children with a speech bubble coming out saying the name they would choose. Songs and rhymes - 'We're going to the Zoo, Zoo, Zoo', 'Old Macdonald had a Zoo' etc. Don't forget puppets, props, story boards, role play and other books by the same author. Problem Solving, Reasoning and Numeracy Size and shape - have a collection of boxes and containers and small world animals. Which ones fit best in which boxes? Sort small world zoo animals from pet animals. Vote for your favourite animal - collect votes using tally marks. Ask the children to help you count them. Invite the children to think of different ways to show the results. Or display the results in a bar chart - the children could stick coloured squares on for each vote. Have a selection of nesting boxes, beakers, Russian dolls etc for the children to explore how things fit inside other things. Measuring - the giraffe is too tall. Give the children opportunities to 'measure' things around the setting with rulers and tape measures. Decide which is the tallest out of a selection of plastic animals - how can we do this? Line them up. The children might want to do the same with each other! Heavy and Light - the Elephant's crate is labelled 'heavy'. Have a collection of boxes or containers of different sizes with lids. Put objects of different weights inside and let the children explore picking them up and deciding which are heavy and which are light. Try to have something light in a big box and something heavy in a small box to get them thinking and talking! Lots of counting opportunities with small world zoo play. Play animal pairs games. Knowledge and Understanding of the World Talk about Zoos. What sort of animals live in them? Where might these animals live if they didn't live in a zoo? Why do we need zoos? These are some difficult ideas for young children. John Burningham's 'Oi! Get off our train!' is a good book for talking about animals in danger. Small world zoo in sand or earth trays. The children might be really interested in one particular animal. Help them to find out more about it - where does it come from, what does it eat, where does it live? Vets - we have vets for our pets, and Zoos have vets too. Try to get one to visit and talk with the children. Have stethoscopes and other props available for vet play. Making medicines for the animals - colour the water in the water tray and add a selection of small bottles with lids, spoons, funnels and some extra special ingredients that the children can add. What do Monkeys like to eat? Bananas! There's one in the book. Make banana milkshakes, banana bread, banana muffins and banana sandwiches to share. Have a Monkey picnic. Transporting animals - if the children are interested in how the animals are sent, give them opportunities to explore this. Have lots of boxes for pretend play, vehicles including lorries and cars and boats, along with small world animals. Physical Development Provide lots of large boxes to climb in and out of. Do some animal yoga - lots of poses are based on animals - the cobra, dog, cat, lion etc. Make the animals shapes with your bodies. Read 'Monkey and Me' by Emily Gravett. In the book the little girl makes her body a bit like the animals she saw at the zoo. Can the children be an elephant/bat/monkey etc? 'It was too....' - invite the children to be the things you say, e.g. 'it was too tall' (stretch up high), 'it was too small' (crouch down low),'it was too jumpy' (jump about) etc. Heavy and light - give each child a smallish box and tell them it is very heavy. How would they lift it and carry it? Now it is very light. Would they carry it differently? Talk about bending knees and keeping your back straight when lifting something a bit heavy. The same game can be played, but this time tell the children there is something dangerous/fragile/jumpy in their box. How will they hold the box now? Animal sounds - roar, hiss, croak, trumpet etc. Make little containers for small world animals out of Lego, wooden bricks, small boxes, stickle bricks. Don't forget a lid or the animal might escape! Creative Development Animal Patterns - look at the different patterns on animals skins. Do some printing to recreate them. Or use animal print paper to make a collage. Investigating Grey - the elephant is grey. Let the children explore how to make grey with black and white paint. Can they make darker/lighter greys? Make a 'Grey Display' with all the different shades they came up with. Elephant skin is very rough and wrinkly. Invite the children to help you mix up very thick grey paint and use combs to make wrinkly skin patterns. Make animal stick puppets out of felt and lollipop sticks. Have a selection of coloured and animal print fabrics for the children to wrap around themselves in role play. Add some large boxes that the children can climb in and pretend to be the animals in the book. Act out the story - this would be fun to do outside using big boxes as props. The children could take it in turns to be the different animals, being heavy/fierce/tall etc as they jump out of the boxes. Listen to the CD of Carnival of the Animals and talk about the different ways the animals are 'played' on the instruments. Role Play Here are some ways to link the role play area to the book. Post office/Parcel sorting office - have a couple of small tables and chairs. Provide lots of different sized boxes, parcel tape, sellotape glue sticks and scissors. Have all sorts of labels with pens and paper for children to make their own. Provide some ink stamps and pads as well as pretend postage stamps. Create an area where they can sort their parcels by size - ask the children to help you make some picture labels for big, medium sized and small. Let the children explore putting things in the boxes and taping them up. Vets' Surgery - have a table and chair for a reception area as well as a table for the 'vet' to examine and treat the animals. On the reception desk include a phone, notepad, pens, forms (collect some from your local vets, and some posters too), an old computer key board, appointment cards etc. In the treatment area include some animal carriers (baskets/boxes), stethoscopes, plastic syringes, bottles, bandages, thermometers etc. Provide lots of soft toy animals to be treated. Display The children will have their own ideas about what interests them most in this book. Try to involve them as much as possible in creating a display. Here are some ideas to get everyone started. What's in the box? - This is a fun display to do if the children have been interested in boxes and putting things inside them. Invite the children to choose a box and decorate it in their own way. Ask them to choose something to put in their box, and then support them in making a label for it. Make sure the label includes their name. They can help you stack the boxes against a wall, or display them along a shelf - somewhere where everyone can reach a box to have a look inside! Who is at the Zoo? - some of the children might have liked the flaps in the book, or been really interested in the animals. Invite the children to decorate pre-cut animal faces - lion, elephant, monkey etc - with collage or paint. They can choose which animal they would like to do. Take a photo of each child, and print them out so that they are quite big and cut out some big card flaps. Ask the children to help you make a zoo background - greys, greens and browns. They could use big sponges and paint straight onto a display board. Display each child's photo with their animal face, and ask the children to help you attach a flap to cover them up. Lots of fun can be had lifting the flap to see not only animals at the zoo but the children too! Allow the display to evolve with the children's ideas - they might want to make their flap look like the bars of an enclosure, or a container, or do a whole family of animals under the flap. Book List Books by Rod Campbell Noisy Farm, My Presents, Oh Dear!, It's Mine!, Dear Santa, Lift the Flap Animal Book, I'm Hungry, Buster's Bedtime, The Pop-up Jungle. Website, www.rodcampbell.co.uk Related Books Oi! Get off our Train, by John Burningham Monkey and Me, by Emily Gravett Brown bear, brown bear, by Eric Carle 1,2,3, to the Zoo, by Eric Carle My cat likes to hide in boxes, by Eve Sutton Chimp and Zee books by Laurence and Catherine Anholt Goldilocks and the Three Bears I went to the Zoopermarket, by Nick Sharratt My Mum and Dad make me laugh, by Nick Sharratt Elephant, Welliphant, by Nick Sharratt Alberto the Dancing Alligator, by Richard Waring and Holly Swain Kipper's A to Z, by Mick Inkpen Class Two at the Zoo, by Julia Jarman and Lynne Chapman Yoga Zoo Adventure, by Helen Purperhart What's happening at the zoo?, by Heather Amery and Stephen Cartwright Never Shout in a Zoo, by Karma Wilson and Doug Cushman
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