Planning Template for a Big Book Story

Author Class

The Gruffalo
Julia Donaldson Senior Infants Areas of Focus

Sight Vocabulary Language Experience Approach Letter/Sound Recognition Phonological Awareness

saw, look(ed), good This, Gruffalo, brown, with, black, tongue I am the I live I eat Whatever letter(s)/blend(s) is being taught at the time can be consolidated through this unit of work, for example, sn/ake, gr/uffalo, ow/l Syllabic Awareness- Gruff/ al /o, un/der/ground, fav/our/ite, snake, log/pile Rhyming oral cloze wood/good, house/mouse and so on. Phonemic Awareness blending 2/3 sounds n/u/t, sn/a/ke Children composing a wall story. Teacher scribes where necessary, but approximate spelling should be encouraged. Report based on an animal in the story for example, the snake, fox, and so on. Procedure based on Gruffalo Crumble text Letter, word, space, sentence, full stop Front cover, title, author, illustration, left-right and top to bottom orientation Predicting Retelling Sequencing events Character analysis identifying main characters. Character descriptions physical and personality Character comparison. Oral response Visual arts drawing & painting, mrla ( or clay) Drama, role play, mime and improvisation.

Shared Writing Writing Genres: Report Procedural Concept of Print Book Knowledge Comprehension

Emotional and Imaginative Response

Day One: Tell children they are going to hear a story about a scary monster. Ask if they have heard any other monster stories. Talk about what they think monsters look like. Introduce the big book version of The Gruffalo. Introduce the term title, point out and read title. Perhaps invite individual children to point to and read the title for the class. Tell them it is a special story by a writer called Julia (Donaldson)

Encourage children to look at cover illustrations and predict what the story will be about. Can they describe all the cover? Encourage some predictions about the setting (time and place) and characters in the story.

Read story as naturally as possible, pointing to words as you read. Encourage the children to participate and predict.

After reading, question the children on the story. Ensure you ask a variety of question types:

General Questions did you enjoy the story? What was your favourite part and so on? Recall Questions (Literal) Name the characters. Where did the fox live? Where did the snake live? What colour was the Gruffalos tongue? Inferential Questions Why do you think the mouse was going for a stroll? How do you think he was feeling when he spotted the fox? Why do you think he told the fox about the Gruffalo? Evaluative Questions If you needed to go for a stroll, where would you go? Do you think its a good idea to stroll in the woods by yourself? Were you ever scared of something bigger than you? Questions formulated by children: Can you ask me a who? question based on the story? Similarly they can be asked to compose what? where ? why? and when? questions based on the story. Oral Cloze - Reread the story, encouraging the children to join in.

Pause before key words, enabling children to supply them, for example, Its terribly kind of you fox, but no, Im going to have lunch with a Day Two: Revise title and author of story. Reread as before. Talk about the Gruffalo - encourage the children to use the descriptive language from the text, for example, He has terrible tusks and terrible claws, And terrible teeth in his terrible jaws He has knobbly knees and turned out toes And a poisonous wart at the end of his nose

His eyes are orange His tongue is black He has purple prickles all over his back Develop the childrens vocabulary here tusks, claws, wart, prickles. Name other animals with tusks - look at pictures of elephants, rhinos, and so on. Do likewise for claws and prickles. Movement, Drama and mime: Ask children to change themselves into frozen statues of the Gruffalo. On the count of 3 or other arranged signal ask them to come alive and walk like the Gruffalo. Could you make the sounds a Gruffalo would make? This would be a suitable activity for the Halla. Provide A3 Paper and crayons. Ask the children to draw a picture of the scariest Gruffalo they can think of. As they work, encourage them to write a sentence on their pictures for example The Gruffalo is scary. My Gruffalo has huge tusks. Look at the Gruffalos wart and so on. These drawings would make a lovely Gruffalo display or could be stapled together to make Our Book of Gruffalo Drawings! Day Three: Letter cloze activity: Cover the letters upon which you intend to focus on during the week with masking tape. Explain that Mrs. Sound Snatcher took the letters what letter did she take? Examples: ran, till, hear, and fled. Initial Sound Substitution: Identify words from the story that you intend to focus on during the week and ask the children to sit in a circle. Teacher demonstrates by skipping around the circle while all sing the following to the tune of London Bridge. Change the first sound in your word, in your word, in your word, Change the first sound in your word, Whats your new new word? When the verse is over, swap the initial sound of the word of the child behind whom you are now standing and say your new word, for example, fox and Margaret swap initial sounds and become mox and Fargaret!).

Listening Activity: (Discrete Oral Language Lesson)

Distribute a photocopied line drawing of the Gruffalo. (You could trace this!) Ask the children to listen very carefully as you are going to give them instructions. Tell them you will pause between each instruction to give them enough time to carry them out, for example.

Colour the Gruffalos eyes orange. Put a green wart on nose. Colour his prickles purple. Colour his tongue black. Draw a mouse in front of the Gruffalo Draw grass under the Gruffalo Draw the sun over the Gruffalo. Encourage the children to retell the story, using the illustrations as prompts. Encourage them to use storytelling language, such as, words and phrases such as once upon a time, then, next, after that etc. Using photographed pictures of the story, revise the sequence of the story and encourage sequencing with one group as another group reads small versions of the book. If possible, ask children to work in pairs, small groups to sequence the pictures. Day Four: Re-read the story - teacher makes mistakes for children to spot. Introduce the sentence A fox saw the mouse and the mouse looked good or This Gruffalo is brown with a black tongue on a strip. Read it with the children, pointing to each word. Invite individual children to point the words as the others read. Invite the children to point out the Gruffalos name on front cover. Look at it in isolation on a flashcard. Draw attention to interesting features of the word, such as the capital G, (if there are children whose names begin with G, write these on a list of G names). Ask the children to look for it elsewhere in the classroom. Introduce the little words saw, looked, good or this, with. Talk about their size. Look for other examples around the class. Day Five: Silent reading of the story. Play rhyming games with names and objects from story as before. Use words from the story for syllabication activities. Help the children to isolate the first sound in Gruffalo, and collect other words and names beginning with that sound. These could be scribed if wished.

Revise sight words: A fox saw a mouse and the mouse looked good or This Gruffalo is brown with a black tongue in and out of context.

Writing Genre (Report)

Tell the children we will write a report about an animal in the story, and through questioning introduce this structure Here is a .. It is (appearance) It lives in . It likes to eat (What it does) (Something special about the animal). Spell each word as you write it, draw childrens attention informally to spaces and full stops. Children could be invited up to write the full stops, spell the words, find the words in the print environment in the classroom and so on. In circle time formation, encourage the children to orally construct sentences about the Gruffalo, using the starter This Gruffalo is.

Day Six: Rereading, retelling, sequencing, phonological awareness (syllabication and rhyming as before ) Begin teaching The Gruffalo song, to be found on inside back cover of big book if wished. Reread report written on Day 4 This is a snake. It is a reptile. It has scaly skin. It eats mice and bugs. It lives in the ground. It sheds its skin every month. Isolate the sight words. Help the children to begin to identify the phrase in the pages of the homemade book and also around the classroom. Encourage them to make new sentences with Here is by adding another card to finish the sentence ( for example, their own names ) At this point it would be invaluable to introduce little books (teacher made) with a photocopy of each animal and the appropriate sentences on each page that reinforce the sight words. These could also be sent home for shared reading. Day Seven/Eight/Nine/Ten: Whole class retelling/phonological awareness as before. Practice of Gruffalo song as before. Dramatisation of story would also be appropriate here, with a narrating group and individual children taking parts. Work with groups and alternate appropriate activities, for example,

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Group one handwriting of capital letter G Group two making Gruffalo and the other animals in mrla Group three - Collaborative reading with the teacher. It is important that each group gets a chance to participate in this. It would be ideal if there were a set of small books for the children to use. If this is not possible, it is fine to use the big book.

Reading in a small group like this allows for more opportunities to zone in on the sight words and any letters that have been taught.

Writing Genre: Procedural Writing: Gruffalo Crumble. Record the recipe Title, Ingredients, Method. Perhaps you could record the steps

using digital photographs these could be used to enhance the text. Continue practising the Gruffalo song and Drama. Perform it for the next-door class or teacher! Allow the children to read the homemade books as well as the big books during silent reading. If possible photocopy the homemade books to A4 size and send home for shared reading. Independent Writing: Use the following structure(orally) to help the children think about the characters o Teacher records on class chart which then becomes the text for reading, moving on to independent construction. I am the Gruffalo/mouse/fox/snake .etc. I live.. I eat I love. I hate I wish. This structure could also be used to make very entertaining homemade big books, as it would provide a very useful framework for scaffolded independent writing.

Link with L.E.A (Language Experience Activity) o