When my daughter was around 2 years old she discovered The Gruffalo. So when I saw that the BBC was showing the movie over Christmas I taped it and her love for the Gruffalo was rediscovered. However this time both Pink and Blue have become obsessed with the mouse in The Gruffalo and The Gruffalo’s child.
Now naturally the home educator is me realised that this would be a great opportunity to revisit some of the topics that we have covered in the last 18 months (we used the Gruffalo as one of the first topics when we started her Reception year).
I found her sequence cards (these are from the Primary Treasure chest website)
We also discussed which animals are predators and where the different animals live. I wrote out some of the phrases from the book and cut them up so that she had to read the words and put them into the correct order
We also used the animals in the book for some art fun. We have been working on drawing and painting by breaking the picture down into basic shapes. We had great fun doing this with the fox and the snake.
The Gruffalo’s Child is a great follow on story. My daughter loved the fact that the gruffalo now had a child and that the child had her own adventure with the mouse. Something which both kids have been doing with their toy mice
With The Gruffalo’s Child book we revisited the concept of nocturnal animals. We also talked about the footprints in the snow and how different animals make different type of footprints. This was a great excuse to get the playdough out and make footprints in the playdough with there different plastic animals.
In the movie of The Gruffalo’s Child there is a scene where the gruffalo’s child walks out on a frozen pound and the ice cracks (this is not in the book) so we talked about how water freezes and melts (again something which we have been through in the last 18 months).
We also had great fun playing with shadows and looking at how the little mouse made itself so scarey but using light and dark. And without me even suggesting it Pink got out some paper and pens and started writing out some the lines from the book.
A caution for sensitive children : my daughter did find The Gruffalo movie scarey but I think the fact that she knows the story so well helped.
All in all the BBC’s broadcasting of The Gruffalo and The Gruffalo’s Child over the festive season proved to be a great revision of some of the concepts which we have covered in our home schooling journey thus far. Thank you BBC we loved it !!!
ofamily learning together 