Overview These planning ideas are designed to be a starting point from which practitioners and children can go on a learning journey together, beginning with a book. The suggested activities are organised according to Areas of Learning and Development and are accompanied by a list of related books and ideas for display and role play areas. Personal, Social and Emotional Development Being brave - in the book the baby owls are trying to be brave about their mummy not being there. Ask the children if they ever have to be brave? Who else is brave? - they might talk about superheroes, their big sister or a rock climber... What do our grown-ups do when we are at nursery? - the mummy owl was looking for food for her babies. The children's grown-ups might be working, doing the washing, going shopping, having a cup of tea etc. Collect some pictures of some of the things that children know their parents or carers do while they are at nursery. Help the children to make a display. Ask adults to bring in pictures of their time without the children to add to the display. Feeling Safe - the baby owls cuddle together and comfort each other. Do a circle time on what makes the children feel safe and happy. Owls think a lot - what sorts of things do the children like to think about? Dark, day and night - do the children like the dark? What do we do in the day time/night time? Communication, Language and Literacy Telling the story - find three different sized toy owls to help tell the story. The children could take it in turns to hold the smallest and say Bill's repeated 'I want my mummy!' Twit-twooo - have fun with owl sounds. Can you talk like an owl? Help the children to emphasise the 'oo' sound as they speak - 'I am going to the loo'/'I am eating some food'. Read 'The Gruffalo' with a special voice for the owl. Where did the mummy owl go? - make up a new story about the mummy. Ask the children to help with suggestions. Where did she go? What did she catch? Was it easy or did she have to try hard? Flying - there is a beautiful picture of the mother owl flying back to her babies with enormous wings. Play some gentle, floaty music and let the children spread their arms and pretend to fly. What does it feel like to fly? Collect the children's flying words. Make a forest feely tray - collect some bark, moss, leaves, feathers, shiny stars and maybe some large round eyes. Invite the children to feel and describe the collection. Collect their words and ask them to help you make a display. Small world woodland animals - using trays of bark, leaves and twigs. Lots of opportunity to talk about nests, homes, feely words such as damp, rough, crunchy etc. The children might want to add little playmobile figures or people from the doll's house going for a walk through the woods. Remember story CDs, puppets, non-fiction books about owls and role play. Problem Solving, Reasoning and Numeracy Planting and estimating - if you plant some acorns, use pots and ask the children how many spades full of soil it will take to fill their pot? Try it and see. Circles - the owls have very round eyes. Collect together lots of circles - bottle tops, hoops, lids, plastic counters, toy car wheels etc. The children could sort them (size/colour/type), hunt for them or line them up into patterns. Go on a circle walk looking for circles- your walk could even be circular! Matching mothers and babies - read Eric Carle's 'Does a Kangaroo have a Mother Too?' There are lots of pictures of mothers and their babies in this book. Collect together some small world mother and baby sets (farm/pets/jungle), include people from the doll's house. Invite the children to muddle them up and then help the babies find the right mummy again. You could make this more interesting by hiding the baby animal figures outside. The children can try and find the lost babies and bring them back to their mummies. Sorting - who is nocturnal and who isn't, using pictures or small world toys. Sizes - the three baby owls are different sizes. Can the children sort themselves into height order, tallest first/smallest first? Or investigate feet - have fun putting the shoes in size order. Chat about size as the children play - which sand pile is the biggest?/Who has the smallest book? Using a beak - birds use their beaks to pick up twigs and things to make their nests, because they don't have hands. Find some large cooking tongs and show the children that they open and close a bit like a bird's beak (you could even stick some yellow triangles on the ends of the tongs to be beaks). Have some twigs and moss and leaves in a tray, or outside. Invite the children to have a go at picking them up using only the tongs. Is it easy or difficult? Knowledge and Understanding of the World Nocturnal animals - find out about animals that come out at night - bats, badgers, foxes, hedgehogs. Can they see in the dark? What do they eat? Do they all have nests? Small world woodland animals - fill a builder's tray with woodchips, leaves and some potted plants. Add some little woodland animals and help the children to make nests and burrows. Owl facts - look at non-fiction books about owls. What do the children already know? What do they want to find out? Collect some facts and display them - perhaps around a big owl poster, or with pictures of the children and speech bubbles with their fact written inside. Nests - try to find one to bring in. Try to make one with the children from leaves, twigs, grass and moss they have collected. Imagine doing it with only a beak! Make chocolate nests. Become a bird spotter - collect books about birds, put up bird posters, play birdsong, look at feathers, look at the parts of a bird (wings, beak, claws, tail), create a bird hide role play area with boxes and cloth, binoculars and bird call whistles. Become a tree expert - collect books about trees and leaves, try to get some tree stumps and count the rings to see how old the tree was, look at different types of bark, find some leaf posters, plant an acorn, go on a tree walk if you are near a park. In the dark - try to make it dark and give the children some torches and go on a 'night' walk. Is it hard to see? Creative Development Feathers - make collages using feathers, feathered birds, or give the children strips of paper to cut into to make their own feathers. Paint with feathers, dipping them into paint like quills. Leaves - preserve beautiful autumn leaves - use 2 pieces of white tissue paper and slightly watered down PVA glue, brush the glue over one piece of tissue paper, press the leaf onto it, and coat the leaf in glue, then stick down the second sheet of tissue paper on top. Leave them to dry and then hang them up near a window. Print with leaves, make a collage, make a leaf mobile or thread leaves on some wool. Weaving - this works well as a group project. Make a frame using wood and wool. Collect leaves, twigs, feathers, dried grass, acorn shells, pine cones etc and invite the children to 'weave' them into the frame you have provided. Take photos of the children as they weave and display the finished product with some photos. Owl masks/owls with big googly eyes. Twig trees - hold twigs in place with modelling clay and provide lots of things for decorating the 'trees' with, both natural and found objects. Nesting - provide cushions and blankets for the children to use to make nests (indoors or outside) Become and owl - make owl noises, swoop around to gentle music, wear your owl mask and go to sleep in your soft nest of cushions! Physical Development Catching feathers - this is fun to do outside where the wind can carry the feathers. Throw feathers in the air and ask the children to try and catch them. Can the whirl and twirl like a feather in the wind? Balancing - provide tree stumps close together for balancing on. Move them a bit further apart! Make it even more fun by having a hungry fish in the stream waiting to nibble any toes that wobble! Sand nests - lots of digging and piling and patting down of sand. What could the children use as eggs? Climbing - as the children are on the climbing frame pretend it is a very tall tree and they are climbing to see what is at the top. Egg hunt - hide cardboard cut out eggs/feathers around the setting, inside and out. Invite the children to hunt for them. Bring them back to a big 'nest' (a basket) and maybe get a little treat at the end! Swivelling heads - owls can move their heads all the way around. You could find a bit of film that shows this. How far can the children move their heads? Make this into a game by standing behind them holding something. The children have to try and see what it is by turning their head around - not their body too! Collecting Walk - go on a walk outside with the children to collect things you might need for some of the activities - twigs, leaves, conkers, pine cones, moss, feathers. Give each child a little box or basket to carry their finds in, and have a look at them together at the end. Role Play Areas A Bird Hide - Find some pictures of people using a bird hide and talk with the children about what a hide is for and why it can be a good way to watch birds. Use large cardboard boxes to make the hide, cutting rectangular holes to look out of. Invite the children to help you disguise it using fabric and branches. In front of the hide create a forest area using fabric, branches, leaves, twigs etc. Print and cut out some pictures of birds and dot them around the forest area. The children could make some of their own birds to spot. Add binoculars, bird call whistles, posters, books and leaflets about birds. You could try to find a CD of bird calls. Don't forget you have to be really quiet so you don't frighten the birds away! A dark wood - make the area dark using fabric and black paper. Cut out a tree trunk and branches to climb up the wall. Add luminous stars and fairy lights and the moon. Use brown and green fabric on the floor. Bring in branches, twigs, autumn leaves, a tree stump. Add soft toy woodland animals and torches. The children can help make leaves for the tree, or nests, or animal foot prints. Add some plastic eggs for the nests. Nearby include posters about trees, leaves and woodland animals. Display Ideas Some of the suggested creative activities would make great displays - hanging the leaves preserved in tissue paper in front of a window, or the twig trees on a table. Include photos of the children making their creations. Leaves! - if the children have enjoyed exploring leaves, their different shapes, colours and sizes, then you could use this as the basis for a display. You could display their leaf printing, invite children to thread leaves together and hang them, let the children experiment with sticking leaves in patterns. Some children might have drawn their own picture of a leaf. Put these together in one big leaf display. Birds! - the children may have been really interested in finding out about owls and other birds. Again, you could display their various creations together - hanging birds/owls eyes/feathered birds. Or invite the children to make a great big owl as a group project. Have a look at pictures of owls with the children. Cut out an enormous owl shape from sugar paper or card. Then ask the children how they would like to make the eyes/beak/feathers/claws. Have lots of resources for them to access and see what they do with their big owl. When it is displayed, add little comments the children made as they worked on it. Book list Books about the dark or being worried: Can't you sleep little bear? By Martin Waddell I forgot to say I love you, by Miriam Moss Night monkey, Day Monkey, by Julia Donaldson Books about woods and other animals: The Wild Woods, by Simon James The Gruffalo, by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler Percy the Park Keeper books, by Nick Butterworth Does a Kangaroo Have a Mother Too? by Eric Carle Owl book The Owl and the Pussy Cat Little Owl and the Star, by Mary Murphy White Owl, Barn Owl, by Nicola Davies and Michael Foreman Little Owl, by Piers Harper Wow! said the Owl, by Tim Hopgood Non-fiction Books I love Owls, by Steve Parker and Belinda Gallagher First Nature Encyclopaedia - Dorling Kindersley
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