Word Activities


• The word ‘dark’ is repeated many times. Talk about what ‘dark’ means and about other words that are similar (black, pitch black, inky, jet black, unlit, gloomy, dismal, grim, mysterious).


• In one part of the story, the skeleton dog falls apart. To show that the skeletons have put the dog back together wrongly the word ‘woof’ is mixed up.


• Use magnetic letters or write the four letters of ‘woof’ on cards. Look at the letters in the word, then jumble them up. Ask the children to move the cards to make one or two different arrangements each time and write the ‘word’ down. [wofo, wfoo, oofw etc.]


Pay particular attention to understanding that oo represents the sound /oo/, but a single o – as in ‘wofo’ – represents a different sound. Focus on this only if you are at this stage of phonics teaching with the children.


• If the children are able, ask them to write their own name and then do it again with the letters in the wrong order (or make their name with letters and swap them around). Can the children guess each others’ names? Keep the capital letter to make this easier.


• Two of the skeletons are called the big skeleton and the little skeleton. Ask the children to come up with synonyms for ‘big’ and ‘little’. [instead of ‘big skeleton’ the children might say ‘large skeleton’, ‘tall skeleton’,’ huge skeleton’ etc.]


MATHEMATICS Counting


• Bury some ‘bones’ in the sand. They could be laminated pictures or perhaps dog biscuits in the shape of bones.


• Ask the children to search for the bones, count them and perhaps make pictures with them. • Make a skeleton game – recognising and matching the numbers 1–6. • Find a picture of a skeleton, make a number of copies to laminate and cut it up into parts.


• Put the parts into separate envelopes numbered 1–6 – e.g skull in 1, ribs in 2, one arm in 3, one arm in 4, one leg in 5, one leg in 6.


• Get the children to roll a dice, match the number with one of the envelopes and take out one piece of the skeleton.


• The first player to put together a whole skeleton is the winner.


Comparing and Questioning • If possible provide a selection of about four different-flavoured fruit yoghurts in a row on a table (or pictures of the fruits in the yoghurts).


• Ask each child, using a clean spoon, to taste a little of each flavour and decide which one they like best.


• To record their preference, ask them either to tick a sheet of paper below the flavour or leave a card with their name or a picture of themselves beneath their favourite.


• When the group or class have all chosen, make a pictogram of the results together, or simply talk about which yogurt is the most popular.


• Ask questions such as these. Were any of the flavours not chosen by anybody? How many people chose a particular one? Which is our favourite yoghurt out of the selection?


• Can the children name a different yoghurt that they prefer?


Ordering by Length • In the suggested text, Funnybones, the skeletons are big and little. Provide children with several different- sized skeletons or ‘bones’ (pictures) to order by height. (The number of skeletons given may be differentiated, from 3 upwards.)


• If appropriate for some children, this could be linked with the synonym activity. When the children have ordered the skeletons they could decide on words to go with them (e.g. tiny, little, big, huge).


2


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8