This week our group activity has been focused around one of our favourite stories in the Den – Little Rabbit Foo Foo, by Michael Rosen. In the story, Little Rabbit Foo Foo rides around the forest on his bike, bumping mice, worms, tigers and goblins, on the head. The Good Fairy sees this and gives him three chances to stop. But, he doesn’t, so at the end of the story she turns him into a Goonie!!!
Some parents may have seen us at pick up times telling the ‘Little Rabbit Foo Foo’ story as an action story. During this time children help to tell the story with adults whilst doing actions. The children are always highly motivated to actively join in with the story, this is why we chose it for our activity time.
Whilst each adult-led group can take the activity in the learning direction that they like, our key objectives based on the Early Years development matters included encouraging children to; listen to stories, join in with repeated words or phrases, fill in missing words of a known story, describe main story settings, events and principal characters.
There was a strong underlying moral to the story as we discuss the behaviour of Little Rabbit Foo Foo, the children highlighted that it was unkind for him to ‘bop’ the creatures on the head!
We also sequenced some pictures in the order that they appear in the story to help us to retell it. This encouraged children to think about the key events in the correct order.
Some children took on the role of the different characters in order to help them retell it. This became entertaining for others to observe the characters from the book coming to life in a theatrical way!
After taking part in the activity some children were excited to retell the story independently. Two girls in particular went outside and enthusiastically repeated key phrases as they travelled around the garden.
Having a favourite book or story is important for young children’s literacy development, and encourages them to enjoy books and reading which will inspire them to enjoy books in the future.
Lucy