Nick Sharratt
David Fickling Books
Age 3-5

Timothy Pope has a brand new toy telescope and he is testing it out at the park. He thinks he can spot a shark through it. The reader sees what Timothy sees through cut out spy holes and can decide if they think he is right when he cries ‘There’s a shark in the park! Shark in the Park is a boldly illustrated rhyming story which is fun to join in with and talk about.

 Share the story

Read aloud
As you read the story aloud pause at each of the cut outs and guess together what Timothy may have spotted before you read on.

Join in
As you re read the story encourage your child to join in with Timothy’s cry ‘There’s a shark in the park!’  Children will enjoy completing the rhymes in the story as well.

Talk about the book
There are lots of things going on in the park, see what your child can spot on different pages.

Talk about why Timothy mistakes a cat, a crow and his dad for a shark.

If the story continued what would your child like to happen next? Would Timothy turn round and spot the shark in the pond?

Watch the story read aloud here 

https://youtu.be/Ketu-SWDyD0?t=7

From 3asafeer

Things to make and do

Make a telescope
Give your child a cardboard tube, for example from a roll of kitchen paper, to use as a telescope; what can they spot at home or in the park?
See here for more ideas for making simple telescopes.

Play a game
Play an I spy game eg ‘Timothy Pope, Timothy Pope what can you see through your telescope? I can see something beginning with ……’(use the sound the word begins with eg ‘sh’ for shoe)

Play ‘a follow my instructions’ game  eg ‘Timothy Pope looks left’; ‘Timothy Pope looks at the sky’  your child could follow the instruction with their toy telescope. With older children you could play this as a Simon Says game; only following instructions if they begin with ‘Timothy Pope’

Play a rhyming pairs game
Print off the game sheet and cut up the words. Spread them out and turn them upside down on a table or the floor. Take turns to pick up two cards and read the words. If they rhyme you keep them if not you replace them. Player with most pairs wins.  

Toyin and Lovemybooks talk about rhyming

Toyin says:
'Myri likes the rhyming and he remembers the book from school. He loves playing with his blow up shark and drawing sharks. We printed off the rhyming game but Myri found it quite hard because he was trying to sound out all the words rather than listening to the rhymes. We'll have another go with the game but we've got some poetry books so we'll try reading more of those.'

Rhyming books and learning to read
At Lovemybooks we feel sharing rhyming stories and poetry provide opportunities to draw children's attention to the patterns in words (eg shark and park, boy and toy) and can help children take on more of the reading for themselves as they begin to become independent readers. They will quickly be able to join in with the rhymes and choruses and suggest a missing rhyming word. Playing a game with the rhyming words from a story is another way to have fun with this - see the one you can download under 'Things to Make and Do' on our Shark in the Park activity page. When playing a rhyming card game like this you can always start with fewer rhyming cards to begin with and increase the number as your child gains confidence. 

Find out more

Read more books by Nick Sharratt, find out more here

Titles include:

Shark in the Dark

Socks

Don’t Put your Finger in the Jelly, Nelly

Ketchup on Your Cornflakes?

Octopus, Socktopus

Ouch I need a plaster

Watch a video to find out more about sharks here

Buy Shark in the Park here

Gabby Dawnay, illus. Alex Barrow,”
Thames and Hudson
Age 0-5 years

A little girl thinks about different animals she might have as a pet and decides that she would like a sleepy sloth. She describes the reasons she would like one, because they are smiley and good at gripping and hiding. She talks about all the things they might do together, playing games, swimming but mostly…. chilling!

This is an appealing and amusing picture book for the very young with great illustrations. The rhyming text and picture clues make it easy for young children to join in with reading once they are familiar with the story. This is another in the series by the same team. See our activity page for If I had a Dinosaur.

Watch the story read aloud by David Schwimmer on CBeebies

Share the story

Read aloud
Before starting to read the book to your child look at the cover together and talk about the animal pictured and other kinds of animals your child knows it reminds them of. If you have a copy of the hard back book you could feel the texture of the sloth on the cover too.

Read the story aloud to your child.

Join in
Children can join in with the opening spread – naming the animals the little girl might choose as pets from the images. If you leave pauses your child might like to supply the rhyme at the end of each couplet. Children of 4 or 5 beginning to learn to read can follow the words as they curve over the pages with their finger as you re read the story.

Talk about the story

• Share favourite pages together and why you like them.

• There are some words which are likely to be new to your child such as ‘peek’, ‘hammock’ and ‘camouflage’

• Talk about what pet each of you would like if you could have any animal in the world and why – as exotic as you like.

Things to make and do

Be like a sloth
You could both try being very, very still like a sloth. Which of you will move first?! Can your child close one eye like the sloth in the cover illustration? Try dragging your body along the ground like a sleepy sloth. Go to the park and use the climbing frame to hang upside down and move like a sloth. Make your movements very slow, gripping on really tightly to the climbing bars.

Play hide and seek
See if you can be as good at hiding like a sloth, trying to keep very still and choosing where you hide carefully so you can’t be seen.

Make a rainforest setting in a large tray
Set up a large tray or builders tuff spot with greenery cuttings and house plants, pieces of bark, twigs and logs. Add some small wild animal toys. You and your child could hide different animals in the foliage and see if they can be found.

Make a picture
Make your own picture of a sloth hanging upside down. You could add camouflage to your picture with tree bark, twigs and leaves using paint or collage.

Find out more

Read more books by this author and illustrator team:
There are two more books In the same series:
If I had a Dinosaur (see here for our activity page) 
If I had a unicorn

Other books by the same team:
London Calls
A Possum’s Tail
A Roller Coaster Ride Around the Body

Find out about sloths:

• Find out about sloths from information books or online

• Watch a video filmed in an American zoo

• If possible visit a zoo such as London Zoo to see sloths living in a rainforest environment

Find out about animal camouflage:

Look at photos of some camouflaged animals, can you spot them? See here

Your child might like to make their own picture of imaginary animals hidden by their camouflage.

Adopt a sloth

To help with their protection and conservation adopt a sloth

https://www.folly-farm.co.uk/adopt-an-animal/sloth-adoption/

https://shop.zsl.org/content/adopt-sloths

Gabby Dawnay, Alex Barrow (illus)
Thames and Hudson
Age 0-5

This is a story about a little girl who wants a pet, and not content with the typical range, she wants one that is as big as a house! Clearly a dinosaur would be perfect. The story explores what she would do if she had a pet dinosaur, where she would take it and how her friends would react when they see it.  She considers the amount of food it would eat and the inevitable big problem its bodily functions would create!

This is a story that invites participation, with a rhyming text, pictures used sometimes to complete phrases instead of words and the concept of having a pet dinosaur to discuss. The illustrations are excellent with extra detail which adds to the story telling. The book design is absolutely brilliant, from the covers inside and out to the delight of turning a page to enable a dinosaur to walk from one spread to the next or be seen from both inside and outside the house. This is a book which children will want to revisit again and again noticing more each time and will fulfil the author and illustrator’s aim to create ‘stories and pictures[which] will ignite children’s imagination and take on a life outside the pages of the books.’

Share the story

Read aloud
Before reading the story look at the cover together, open it up to show children the big dinosaur and feel the texture of its surface.

Read the story aloud, pausing so that children can say the names of some of the different pets the little girl considers helping with less familiar eg hamster perhaps. Pause also after the first double page spread to see if your child want to suggest which pet the little girl will choose which is as big as a house. Continue reading, pausing again if your child wants to talk about what is happening in the story or pictures.

Join in
As you read it again children pause so that children can complete the rhyming pair, say the name of the animal and follow the words as they go round the dinosaur’s tail with a finger.

Talk about the story

• Share thoughts on having a dinosaur as a pet

• If your child did want one, which dinosaur would you choose – look at the illustrations on the final double page for suggestions.

• What noise might the dinosaur make? Can you make it?

• What would you feed it? How much food would it need?!

Watch the story

Watch the story read aloud

Things to make and do

Play the story
Take turns with ‘If I had a dinosaur I would….’ It is a good idea to make a suggestion first eg ‘If I had a dinosaur I would take it to the park and slide down its long neck’. Your child may choose to copy you or say something from the story which is fine.

Draw a picture
Using a big piece of paper and crayons, encourage children to draw a dinosaur perhaps filling up the paper with a ‘big’, ‘giant’, enormous dinosaur with a ‘super long’ tail.

Sing a song
Sing a song about having a dinosaur 

Find out more

Find out about the background to the story
The story was inspired by the discovery of Titanosaur bones in Argentina. Titanosaurs were the largest animals to have ever walked the earth. Read more about the discovery

Author Gabby Dawnay writes about the background to the story here:

Read more books by this author and illustrator team:

London Calls

A Possum’s Tail

A Roller Coaster Ride Around the Body

Elizabeth Laird, illus. Toby Newsome
Tiny Owl
Age 3-5

When Gloria makes a bowl of porridge her cat wants some, but Gloria doesn’t want to share. This leads to a chain of events upsetting not only the cat, but also a donkey, a hive of bees, a hen and Gloria herself. Fox hears the rumpus and helps them sort out the problem. An engaging picturebook based on a traditional Ethiopian folk tale.

Watch a trailer

Share the story

Read aloud
Before you start reading the story look at the cover image together and talk about who is going to be in this story and what might happen.

Read the story aloud to your child, pausing to talk about what is happening in the story or pictures when your child wants to.

Join in
When children become familiar with the story, they can join in with parts of it – they might like to be Gloria, the cat or the fox for example. Or they could join in with the sound effects and follow the bees buzzing with a finger.

Talk about the book

• Does the story remind your child of any other stories? Children might mention another story with porridge in for example Goldilocks and the Three Bears or The Magic Porridge Pot

• Talk about what the cat might have said to Gloria to explain why he ate the porridge.

• What would your child say to Gloria about what she could have done differently at the beginning of the story?

Things to make and do

Tell the story
Children could use the illustrations to help them tell the story in their own words. It doesn’t matter if their version is slightly different, they can make it their own just like all storytellers do.

Play the story
Using soft toys and a few props such as a bowl for a porridge pot and a wooden spoon you could act out the story with your child, don’t forget to include the fox who sorts out the problem.

Make some porridge
Make porridge together, talking about what you are doing – stirring the milk or water into the oats, getting the texture just right so it is not too thick too sticky. Spoon it equally between two bowls so you can both have a share and talk abut the taste together.  

Make a card
Make a card from Gloria to the cat to say sorry for not sharing or from the cat to Gloria to say sorry  for eating her porridge

Find out more

Visit publisher Tiny Owl’s website for more resources and activities and a downloadable poster based on the story Gloria’s Porridge – Tiny Owl

Elizabeth Laird – Award winning children’s author

Have a look at Elizabeth Laird’s collection of Ethiopian Folk Tales Ethiopian Folktales

Read another book for young children by Elizabeth Laird

Grobblechops with Jenny Luncander

Beautiful Bananas with Liz Pichon

Find out more about illustrator Toby Newsome toby newsome | illustration | main gallery

Ross Montgomery, ill. Sarah Warburton

Walker Books

Ten teachers miss the school bus and decide to take a short cut through a forest. They don’t spot the hungry monsters waiting to pounce. One by one the monsters pick off the teachers on their way through the forest until only Miss Hunter, the nursery teacher remains. However, she is more than a match for monsters and in no time at all takes them in hand teaching them some manners and how to count to ten!

This is a very funny counting story with a humorous rhyming text well matched by the illustrations – the monsters are fantastic and might encourage young readers to design their own.

Watch author Ross Montgomery read from the book in this trailer:

Share the story

Before reading the story look together at the cover illustration and talk about what is happening and what the story might be about.

Read the story aloud to your child pausing to talk about what is happening in the story and the illustrations  

Join in

When you read the story again leave gaps so that children can finish the rhyming and half rhyming lines.

Talk about the book
➤When you have finished the book you could:
➤ Share your favourite or funniest illustrations – talk about the parts of the story you and your child liked best
➤ Talk about unusual words such as ‘snaffle’. Collect all the words you can find for the monsters ‘gobbling’
➤ Talk about all the different ways the monsters catch the teachers.

Things to make and do

Counting fun
There are lots of counting opportunities in the story, you could:

• Predict and count how many teachers are left
• Count how many monsters you can see ready to pounce
• Count how many eyes the monsters have

Practise counting backwards from 10, 20, 50 – you can make this more or less challenging depending on how confident your child is.

Draw or make a map of the dark woods
Give your child a large piece of paper to draw an enormous map of the dark woods. Alternatively, you could create a kind of map on the floor using fabric, cardboard trees stuck on modelling material.  Children could use small toy figures, or decorate small bricks, cardboard tubes or cotton reels to represent the teachers and monsters.

Design a monster
Use collage materials to create a monster – your child will need backing paper, scissors, glue, and material to cut or tear such as magazine or fabric scraps and wool.

Make thumb print monsters
Using finger paints or other washable ready mixed paint help your child to paint their thumb and create a series of ten thumb prints on a piece of paper. When they are dry, they can add arms, legs and different numbers of eyes like the monster in the book.

Play Monster’s footsteps
Play a version of grandma’s footsteps with one of you being the teacher and the other being a monster creeping up from behind. This is even greater fun if you have more children playing.

Find out More

Try these activity sheets based on the story by illustrator Sarah Warburton WEB_READY_Ten_Delicious_Teachers_Activity_Sheets.pdf (rossmontgomery.co.uk)

Find out more about author Ross Montgomery Ross Montgomery | Award Winning Children’s Author and visit his YouTube channel Ross Montgomery – YouTube

Find out more about illustrator Sarah Warburton Sarah Warburton Illustrations

Read another story by the same creative team (Ross Montgomery and Sarah Warburton) Penguin Huddle

Read more picturebook stories by Ross Montgomery for example Space Tortoise lovemybooks | FREE reading resources for parents and The Building Boy illustrated by David Litchfield

 Frann Preston Gannon
 Pavilion
Age 3-5

The alarm clock rings and a farmer gets up and has a hearty breakfast before leaving for a day’s work in his tractor. But this is no ordinary farm; the livestock are not cows and sheep but dinosaurs! This means lots of hard work and more than a little danger. The farmer is kept very busy all day feeding the hungry dinosaurs, cleaning and clearing up after them and looking after their newly hatched babies. He is exhausted by the end of the day and keen to get home, but did he lock the gate…..?!!

A day in the life story with a difference Dinosaur Farm is an interesting and amusing story and the humorous illustrations offer lots to discuss.

Share the story

Read aloud

Before looking at the cover or title, it might be fun to look together at the first few double page spreads of the farmer waking up and getting ready for work together and think about why its hard work being a farmer, what he has to do or what might happen in the story.

Then read the story aloud to your child pausing to talk about what’s happening when your child wants to.

After reading the story look back together for all the dino clues in the first few pages ( eg the famer’s bed cover) and the end papers, with dinosaur footprints.

Hear a father share the story

Listen here. Talk about the ending and how the dinosaurs got into the farmer’s house.

Join in

Show your child how to follow the writing with a finger as it curves round the images.

Children could join in with the alarm ringing or add extra sound effects as you read the story, eg for dinosaurs running or snoring at the end of the story.

Talk about the story

• What has happened at the end of the story? Talk about what you can tell from the words and pictures and what you guess.

• What might it be like being a farmer on a dinosaur farm? Look at the farmer’s expression for clues about what he is feeling when feeding the animals, clearing up the mess or going home after a long day.

• Look for the dino details in the illustrations – including the end papers, and the farmer’s bedroom.

• Was anything in the story puzzling? Eg why did the farmer have such a big egg for breakfast?! Anything unusual about the farmer’s dog

Things to make and do

Create a dinosaur farm

With dinosaur figures if you have them and construction material you could help your child set up their own dinosaur farm. Add a figure with a vehicle to be a tractor and a toy dog and children can act out the story or make their up their own story about a dinosaur farm.

Make a day in the life chart

Take a large piece of paper and fold it into 6 or more squares so that your child can draw different things that happen during the farmer’s day. Talk to your child about what they have drawn.

Find out more

Read another story by author illustrator Frann Preston Gannon.

Titles include The Journey Home 

Dinosaur Beach

Dave’s Cave

Sloth Sleeps On

Deep Deep Sea

As well as specific linked activities and templates, there are some activities that are used more generally. Click on the links below to find out how to…

Make a book

Make a book with animal ears
Make a simple zig-zag book
Make a simple lift-the-flap book
Make a simple origami book
Make a simple window book
Make a simple big book
Make a simple invitation

Make a puppet

Make a stick puppet
Make a simple sock puppet
Make a finger puppet
Make a simple puppet theatre
Make a shadow puppet theatre

Play the story

Make playdough
Make a mask
Make a story map
Make a simple story box
Make a simple dice and card reading game

There’s a lot involved in writing – children need to know how to form each letter, think how words might be spelt, how to set them out on a page AND have something they actually want to write.

Extra practice at home can really help children make progress and gain confidence but this needs to be something they want to do, ideally a part of everyday life or imaginative play. Some of this may be linked to stories and you will see that we have tried to link reasons to write in with our activity pages. Here is some advice and ideas for helping your child become a writer.

Under threes – Learning to make your mark
For very young children, lots of experience with drawing shapes with their fingers, brushes and scrapers can really help them develop the skills they need to use a pencil or pen and to practise the movements they will need to make when forming letters.

• Drawing in shaving foam or sand
• Making patterns with finger paints
• Drawing with crayons on big paper
• Painting water onto paving stones

NB Very young toddlers explore with their mouths and are likely to want to eat shaving foam, or crayons at first!

For children at Nursery and Primary school

Find out about the school approach to writing
Most schools have a policy about the particular handwriting style they use. Try to find out about this. They may have print outs of the alphabet in the school style that you can have to refer to at home.

Being an author
Composing ideas is an important part of being a writer. Have fun making up stories together, this may be based on a story you both know or be something completely new. Write down your story and read it to your child, this will give them a feeling of pride that something they have made up or helped to make up has been written down.  Some children may have lots of ideas of their own, some may want to retell stories they know really well.

Having a reason to write
To be confident about writing children need to have lots of practice and to have something they want to write.

• Labels
  For a display perhaps an ‘exhibition’ of toy dinosaurs with labels for each or of animals in an imaginary zoo.

• Make mini books
  It is more often much more fun to write in a mini book than on a piece of paper. These can be made very simply. See here for our instructions for making simple folded paper books. Make a selection in different sizes and colours. Children can use them to write a story they make up or already know, to draw their favourite story characters, toys or the people in their family.

• Writing lists
  • Of classmates or friends like a register
  • Of wish lists eg for Christmas or birthday
  • Of favourite toys, games, TV programmes, football teams
• Writing letters
  • To a member of the family or friend who doesn’t live nearby
  • Thank you letters
  • Letters to Father Christmas
  • To a character in a story
• Writing notes, messages or clues
  • Requests for what children would like to eat
  • Sorry notes https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/just-say
  • Clues – Hide to Hide a Lion or Where’s Spot with clues to find the toy or linked to advent calendar

Photo albums Choose a selection of photos, about the family or a holiday or special event and make an album. Children can compose and write captions for the photos. Children could also do same thing with a scrap book of pictures cut out of magazines.

Helping your child with writing

Louise asks us:
My daughter is in reception. My question is how much to intervene with her writing at home?  If she writes something it is likely to have capital letters in the middle of a word or letters formed incorrectly. If I just leave her to write in some ways it reinforces the mistake but if I try to show her she doesn’t want to write anymore!

The most important thing to do is to show you are interested in what your child has written. ‘How lovely that you have written me a birthday card, thank you.’ or ‘That’s a really useful list we can use it when we go shopping.’

You may not be able to read what your child has written but if you can’t, ask them to read it to you. It is good to find the time to talk about what they have written straight after they have done the writing if possible or as soon as you can, otherwise they might forget what they were trying to say.

You are likely to see lots of mistakes but try to resist the temptation to point these out while they are writing, unless you are asked for help.

Spelling
It is really important for children to have a go themselves. Try to look for what’s right in children’s spelling attempts rather than focusing on what’s wrong, praise the words spelt correctly and the words your child is close to spelling correctly. Show them they are nearly right and point out the tricky part – writing down the word and underlining or circling it. If you can think of other words with the same spelling pattern write them too so that children see there’s a pattern.

Capital letters
Children may not be sure of the capital and lower case versions of each letter and may muddle them in words. Find reasons to write yourself so that your child can see what you are doing – talk about it while you do it eg I’m going to start with a capital letter here because this is a name.

Make an alphabet book – you could do this by making several zig zag books (see here) and sticking them together. Have a capital and lower case version of each letter on every page with a name ( perhaps of friends or family) and an object or animal to illustrate eg A for Anna, a for apple.

Write the letters of the alphabet on small squares of paper to make a set of capitals and a set of lower case letters and play a matching game. You could focus just on the letters which children find tricky.

Handwriting
Forming letters correctly and consistently helps children develop a fluent style. Have fun with this by playing guess which letter – drawing letters in the air or on each other’s back. Children often muddle b’s and d’s for example, this is one way to point out the difference. Talk about how you are forming the letters as you do this eg round in a circle up

Helen Nicholl, Jan Pienkowski (illus)
Puffin
Age 3-5

The story begins with a familiar morning routine of a character called Meg dressing and having breakfast. However Meg is a witch, she gets up at midnight instead of the morning and mixes her breakfast ingredients in a cauldron! Later Meg flies on her broomstick to meet her friends at the annual Halloween spell party. Unfortunately Meg’s spell goes wrong and she turns her friends into mice!

This is a picture book classic with two popular characters, Meg the witch and Mog her cat.  The illustrations are very striking with bold use of colour, black and white. For children who enjoy this story there are many more amusing and appealing Meg and Mog adventures to discover.

Share the story

Read aloud
Before reading the story look at the cover together and read the title. Talk about what children see, who they think Meg and Mog are and what they are doing.

Read the story aloud pausing to talk about it when children want to.

Join in
When you read the story a second time children could join in with the sound effects eg ‘whoo, whoo’ or ‘bubble, bubble.’ They could follow Meg’s footsteps with their finger as she ‘clip clops’ down the stairs.

Talk about the story

What would you put in a cauldron to make a spell?

What will happen to Jess, Tess, Bess and Cress now they have been turned into mice?

Tell the story

Using the pictures to help them children can tell you the story, it doesn’t matter if their version is slightly different.

Watch the story

Things to make and do

Play the story
Children could use soft toys to be Meg, Mog and Owl and set a table for their breakfast. Talk about how many bowls and spoons will be needed so they have one each. This sort of matching is very good for children’s mathematical understanding.

Using a large pan as a cauldron, children could have fun mixing ingredients to make spells, with imaginary ingredients, small toys or drawings.

Children might like to dress up as a witch or a wizard. Collect black or dark clothes for them to dress up in and make a hat – see here.

Write a spell
Children could make a list and draw all the things they would put in their spell. What will theu include? What will the spell do?

Have fun with rhyme
Look for the rhyming names in the story (Jess, Tess, Bess, Cress).  See if you can think of any more together eg mess/less or words which rhyme with Meg or Mog? (Peg/leg – or hog/dog).

Find out more

There are many more Meg and Mog books to enjoy by Helen Nicholls and Jan Pienkowski

Find out more about Jan Pienkowski

 Emily Gravett
Two Hoots Books
Age 5-7

Pete is a badger who likes things to be tidy. He keeps the forest tidy even tidying away the Autumn leaves! Not content with this he decides to get rid of the trees as well and even goes as far as concreting over the forest. Now the forest is really tidy but Pete soon discovers he has no food and no way to get into his home either. Has he done the right thing?

A clever story about the natural environment and what happens when it is destroyed. Are there possible perils in being just too tidy?! Lots to talk about here in this stunning picturebook. The cut outs in the cover and end papers make a lovely woodland scene. The rhyming text makes it perfect for joining in.

Share the story

Read the story aloud
Before you start to read the story aloud take time to look at the end papers and talk about what you both can see and what the story might be about. Read the story aloud, pausing now and then to talk about what Pete is doing and what might happen next.

Join in
As you read the story again leave gaps so children can join in with parts, for example finishing some of the rhymes and the repeated section ‘No mud, no leaves’ etc.

Talk more about the story
Which part of the story or illustration did your child like most?

Did anything puzzle them about the story?

Talk about Pete – what would your child tell someone else about him? What do they think the other animals might have said to Pete about all of his tidying up?

Watch an animation of the story

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Things to make and do

Have an imaginary conversation
Make two masks, one for the badger Pete and one of the other animals in the story (eg the fox or the rabbit). You and your child could then act out imaginary conversations between the characters. This sort of play will help children think about the story, be creative and have fun too.

Write a letter
Children could imagine they are one of the animals and write a letter to Pete complaining about his tidying up.

Make a poster
Make a keep our forest tidy poster to encourage (human!) visitors not to drop litter

Make your own cut out ‘peep through’ scene
With some adult help with cutting, children can make their own peep through picture.

Your child can draw their own picture of Pete or another woodland animal in the centre of a piece of A 4 paper. (Find the centre of the paper by folding it in half and then half again). Fold the second in the same way then draw a wiggly circle around the centre and cut around the line to make a hole slightly bigger than your child’s picture, the drawing should peep through. Children can decorate the frame with a woodland scene using crayons or felt pens.

Find out more

Find out about badgers here

Find out more about our woodlands here 

See here for how to finger print leaves and some activity sheets designed by author/illustrator Emily Gravett:

Read more books by Emily Gravett.

titles include:

Blue Chameleon – see our activities

Orange Pear Apple Bear – see our activities

Wolves – see our activities