Room on the Broom

Some of the children have been telling us about their costumes for Halloween - so we thought this would be a good choice for our next Julia Donaldson book!

'The witch had a cat
and a very tall hat,
And long ginger hair
which she wore in a plait.'

We loved sharing this rhyming story, and afterwards the children shared their thoughts.

Here are just a few of them . . . 

Serenna - "The bow came off. She had it in her hair. The wind blowed it off."

Noah - "The witch flied and then her broom broke and she fell in the water."

Sammy O - "There was a dragon."

Annie - "The dragon carried the witch. He smoked fire. He's got smoke from his nose."

As well as reading the book, we watched and listened to the song - we thought you might like to see and hear it too!

       

Which was your favourite part of the story?

Post us a comment and let us know!

The Gruffalo

We have been sharing another Julia Donaldson story - and as anticipated, this one was very popular!

'A mouse took a stroll 

through the deep dark wood.

The fox saw the mouse

and the mouse looked good.'

When Fox invited Mouse to come and have lunch with him in his underground house, the quick-thinking mouse told him he was going to have lunch with a gruffalo - and his favourite food was roasted fox!

"The fox is scared!" - Amelia

After the fox had sped away, Mouse met an owl and a snake - and he continued to develop his description of the gruffalo . . . 

"His eyes are orange" - Georgia

"He's big - purple prickles on his back" - Kaidence

And then Mouse came face to face with the Gruffalo!

"The Gruffalo said the mouse looked good to eat on some toast!" - Zara

We won't tell you what happened next as we don't want to spoil the story - but have a read of the book yourself and let us know what you think! 

Monkey Puzzle

This is our second Julia Donaldson book - we have loved sharing the story together . . . 

"There's a monkey in the story. He lost his mum. There's a snake in the story" (Annie)

"There's lots of animals - a frog and a snake and a bat. The monkey can't find his mum" (Lucas)

"The butterfly finds the elephant and finds the snake, and finds the bat" (Toby)

"I liked the butterfly because she talked" (Jessica)

Zac became very involved in the story - he asked questions and made lots of comments as we progressed through the book!

"Is it going to be another elephant?"

"That's a big parrot, he's got wings!"

"That's his whole family - I want to draw the monkey's family" (Zac)

"I liked the daddy monkey because he was bringing the baby monkey home!" (Alfie D)

We thought you would enjoy the story too:

Post us a comment and tell us about your favourite part!

Tyrannosaurus Drip!

This term we are going to have Julia Donaldson as our focus author. She has written lots of wonderful stories and the first one that we decided to share was a dinosaur one! 

'In a swamp beside a river, where the land was thick with veg,

Lived a herd of duckbill dinosaurs who roamed the 

water's edge.'

'Now across the rushy river, on a hill the other side,

Lived a mean Tyrannosaurus with his grim and grisly bride.'

A duckbill egg ended up in the Tyrannosaurus nest!

"I like the egg one, it hatched!" (Sophie)

"There were little dinosaurs from the nest" (Seth L)

The baby duckbill dinosaur was very different to the others in the nest - his sisters found a name for him - 

'Tyrannosaurus Drip'!

Feeling sad and lonely, he decided to run away and saw a lovely sight, a herd of duckbill dinosaurs all 

hooting with delight.

That night a storm blew down a tree, and acted as a bridge.

The four Tyrannosauruses tried to cross it but were frightened by their reflections in the water - dad jumped into the air and landed with a crash - the tree bridge broke and they all went 'SPLASH!'

The children thought this was a very funny part of the story: 

"When the tree broke" (Sammy O)

"When they were flushed away in the water" (Olivia)

'And the duckbills hooted happily, they hooted 'Hip hip hip . . .  

Hooray for the heroic, one-and-only Duckbill Drip!'

"I liked the hooting bit at the end" (Samuel W)

Did you have a favourite part of the story?

Post us a comment and let us know!

Down in the Ocean!

We have really enjoyed the Ruth Galloway books that we have been sharing together.

We also had lots of fun creating our own under the sea board to display the different characters on, alongside some of our thoughts about each story.

We hope you enjoyed reading them too!

Have a lovely summer and if you get chance, look out for some more Ruth Galloway books - we would love to hear about them.

Smiley Shark

Here is another great story from Ruth Galloway . . .

Smiley Shark is the smiliest and sunniest, the friendliest and funniest fish in the sea.

He longs to play with the other fish but they are all scared of his big white teeth.

Haydn liked the big white teeth!

One day Pufferfish blew himself up into a big spiky ball and pricked poor Smiley Shark on the nose!

Harry R - "I liked it when the Pufferfish popped his nose!"

Rory - "I liked the nose bit"

Poor Smiley Shark was sad when the other fish swam away from him and didn't want to play.

Nobody had noticed that they were swimming towards a net - and soon they were caught and couldn't get out.

Now they needed Smiley Shark to help them!

He showed the fisherman his big white teeth - and the fisherman dropped his net in fright!

Harry W - "I liked when Smiley Shark scared the boat away"

The fish were so happy to be free - and now they all play and SMILE together!

Flynn - "I liked the shark when he had lots of friends"

We were glad to find the story had a happy ending!

Perhaps you could write your own adventure for the fish to have.

Share it with us - we would love to hear from you!

Clumsy Crab

We have had lots of fun reading this lovely story written by Ruth Galloway . . .  

Nipper the crab hated his huge clumsy claws - they always seemed to get in the way!

Jasper - "I liked the bit when the crab popped the bubbles with his claws"

Nipper and his friends decided to play hide and seek. He climbed into a big clam shell and pulled it shut.

Lola - "I like when the crab went in a shell, it was dark."

Poor Nipper ended up breaking the shell with his claws!

The friends decided Nipper would be better at finding rather than hiding - then they heard a cry.

Octopus had got tangled in some seaweed.

Zak - "I like the bit when the seaweed got the octopus"

Turtle and Jellyfish tried to help, but the knots just got tighter and tighter. 

Nipper had an idea - he was able to rescue Octopus by using his claws to snip at the seaweed until he was free!

Isla - "The crab was good because he saved the octopus."

At last Nipper knew how useful his claws could be.

We really enjoyed this story - we hope you do too!