The book we are sharing this half term is "Dear Zoo" by Rod Campbell.

Here it is read by Mr Tumble, Justin Fletcher-

Ideas for home learning-Dear Zoo

• Read/listen to the story. You can find it here…https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqGYWRHOV6E
• Re-tell the story
• Talk about the different animals and why they would not make good pets eg why couldn’t you keep an elephant in your house? Or could you?!
• Think about different words for the animals eg

-elephant: big, large, huge, gigantic

-giraffe: tall, high, big, long

-lion: fierce, cross, angry

-camel: grumpy, bad tempered, moody

-snake: scary, frightening, creepy

-monkey: naughty, mischievous, rude

-frog: jumpy, bouncy

-puppy: perfect, just right

Creative

• Make animal masks out of paper plates, paper or card
• Make enclosures for animals out of cardboard boxes, straws, sticks, twigs, and any construction sets you have at home (these could be any animals-they don’t need to be the ones in the book)
• Make play dough animals-here is a really easy play dough recipe-https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/howto/guide/playdough-recipe

Physical

• Pretend to be the different animals. Move like an elephant, stretch like a giraffe, jump like a monkey
• Try some animal yoga! Look at the video below...

Writing

• Write a letter to the zoo, asking for a pet (let your child write the letter in their own way-any form of making marks is great! Then let them tell you what it says and write the words next to it. This values their writing!)
• Write labels for the animal enclosures
• draw the zoo
• make a map of the zoo

Maths

• Get any toy animals you have together and count them
• Sort them into groups eg big/small, fluffy/smooth, 2 legs/4 legs

(see also “numbers all around” for other counting and number activities at home)

Understanding the World

• Look on the internet and find out about the animals in the book. Where do they come from? What are their babies called? What do they like to eat?