Once Upon A Time IEYC v4

Once Upon a Time
Stories and Storytelling
From Fieldwork Education, a part of the Nord Anglia Education family. © WCL Group Limited. All rights reserved. Not to be reproduced without permission.
Once Upon a Time
Contents
The IEYC Process of Learning 5
An Overview of Once Upon a Time 5

A Mindmap of the Learning Experiences Included in Once Upon a Time 5
A Suggested Pathway through Once Upon a Time 8
Suggestions for Enabling the Environment 8
Resource suggestions 11
The Big Picture for Teachers 12
The Big Picture for Children 15
Putting Once Upon a Time into Action 16

Entry Point 16
Capturing Curiosity 18
Learning Block 1: Explore and Express – The Enormous Turnip 19

Activity 1: Helping hands 22
Activity 2: It was this big! 30
Activity 3: From tiny seeds… 38
Activity 4: Soup, glorious soup! 46
Learning Block 2: Explore and Express – The Three Billy Goats Gruff 53
Activity 1: The grass is greener… 56
Activity 2: Building bridges 64
Activity 3: Trip-trap to the beat! 71
Activity 4: What a performance! 76
From Fieldwork Education, a part of the Nord Anglia Education family. © WCL Group Limited. All rights reserved. Not to be reproduced without permission. 3
Once Upon a Time
Learning Block 3: Explore and Express – The Tortoise and the Hare 83
Activity 1: Watch me go! 86
Activity 2: Looking after Tortoise 95
Activity 3: Going for gold 102
Activity 4: Animal sports day 110
Learning Block 4: Explore and Express – The Gingerbread Man 118

Activity 1: Gingerbread on the run! 121
Activity 2: Making gingerbread 128
Activity 3: All change! 134
Activity 4: A modern day retelling 144
Exit Point 148
Appendices 149
Appendix 1: Home Letter 149
Appendix 2: The Learning Strands, Learning Outcomes, Personal Goals and
International Dimension Linked to the Activities in Once Upon a Time 151
Appendix 3: Example of an ‘IEYC Learning Journey’ 161
4 From Fieldwork Education, a part of the Nord Anglia Education family. © WCL Group Limited. All rights reserved. Not to be reproduced without permission.
Once Upon a Time
The IEYC Process of Learning

For a detailed explanation of each part of the IEYC process of learning, please refer to the
IEYC Implementation File.
Entry
Point
Exit
Point Capturing
Curiosity
Child
Explore & Enable the
Express Environment
The Big
Picture
An Overview of Once Upon a Time

This section provides:
colour-coded mind map providing an overview of the learning experiences included in
a
this unit
suggested pathway through this unit
a

ideas for Enabling the Environment
Big Picture overview for teachers
a
Big Picture overview for children
a
A Mindmap of the Learning Experiences Included in Once Upon a Time

This mindmap provides an overview of the learning experiences that children will engage in
throughout this IEYC unit of learning.
The mindmap demonstrates how Learning Blocks are made up of a wide range of holistic
experiences underpinned by the IEYC Learning Strands. Whilst each learning experience
embeds all four Learning Strands, the mindmap identifies which are dominant areas by using
a colour-coded system.
The mindmap is intended to be used as a teacher resource and planning tool, providing a
useful snapshot overview of children’s learning.
Once Upon a Time Once Upon a Time
2 3 4 1 2 3
From tiny Soup, glorious The grass is Building Trip-trap to

It was this big!
seeds... soup! greener... bridges the beat!
1 4
Helping hands THE ENORMOUS THE THREE BILLY What a

performance!
TURNIP GOATS GRUFF
Once Upon
a Time
STORIES AND
1 STORYTELLING 4
Watch me go! THE TORTOISE AND THE GINGERBREAD A modern

day retelling
THE HARE Strand 1: Independence and Interdependence MAN
Strand 2: Communicating
Strand 3: Enquiring
Strand 4: Healthy Living and Physical Well-being
2 3 4 1 2 3
Looking after Going for Animal Gingerbread Making

All change!
tortoise gold sports day on the run gingerbread
6 From Fieldwork Education, a part of the Nord Anglia Education family. © WCL Group Limited. All rights reserved. Not to be reproduced without permission. From Fieldwork Education, a part of the Nord Anglia Education family. © WCL Group Limited. All rights reserved. Not to be reproduced without permission. 7
Once Upon a Time
A Suggested Pathway through Once Upon a Time

This IEYC unit of learning is intended to last about 4 weeks. However, it can be reduced or
extended depending on the setting context, the ages and interest levels of the children, and
how children’s personalised learning is developed.
Note: shaded areas show the on-going nature of a process of learning, or activities which can
be extended over a period of time.
Learning Block 1 Learning Block 2 Learning Block 3 Learning Block 4

The central learning The central learning The central learning The central learning
focus for this Learning focus for this Learning focus for this Learning focus for this Learning
Block is: The Enormous Block is: The Three Billy Block is: The Hare and the Block is: The Gingerbread
Turnip Goats Gruff Tortoise Man
Capturing Curiosity
Enable the Environment
Explore and Express Explore and Express Explore and Express Explore and Express
Activities Activities Activities Activities
1. Helping hands 1. The grass is greener… 1. Watch me go! 1. Gingerbread on the run!
2. It was this big! 2. Building bridges 2. Looking after tortoise 2. Making gingerbread
3. From tiny seeds…
4. Soup, glorious soup! 3. Trip-trap to the beat! 3. Going for gold 3. All change!
4. What a performance 4. Animal sports day 4. A modern day retelling
Suggestions for Enabling the Environment

As this IEYC unit of learning progresses, an enabled environment should be developed as
children’s curiosity and interests grow. The following suggestions may be useful in the early
stages of implementing Once Upon a Time:
Books for pleasure

This IPC unit is dedicated to the theme of ‘storytelling’, and aims to foster a love and
appreciation for sharing and enjoying different types of stories, songs and rhymes. In the
Early Years, these experiences support the development of language and literacy skills and
help create a positive and nurturing environment where children can develop both socially
and emotionally. Throughout Once Upon a Time, children explore four well-known traditional
tales, ‘The Enormous Turnip’, ‘The Three Billy Goats Gruff’ ‘The Tortoise and the Hare’ and ‘The
Gingerbread Man’. These stories have been told and retold by many generations of storytellers
from all over the world. While your sessions may focus on one version of the story, try and
have other versions available that children can explore and compare. You may find there are
similar stories or retellings which are relevant to the culture of the host country or children’s
Once Upon a Time
home countries – and these can present a rich learning opportunity for children to see how
stories and their themes can be universal, and how they can be changed and retold by people
of different backgrounds, cultures and ethnicities.
Develop an environment where children can explore books for pleasure, by having a
dedicated reading area that children can visit to relax and experience different types of
books – both linked to the themes that you are exploring, and books that are provided simply
for pleasure. As well as physical books, you might also want to provide audio books and
interactive stories on tablet devices. Staff members could provide their own favourite books
from their childhood for children to explore – perhaps having a ‘Favourite Book of the Week’.
Children could also bring in their own favourite bedtime stories to share with the other
children in their class. Also, ensure that books are made available in the children’s mother-
tongue language for them to enjoy.
Pre-reading and reading skills in the Early Years vary greatly from child to child, but
storytelling can be promoted simply by exploring the illustrations in a book and retelling it
from memory. Children will enjoy making up their own version of the stories and sequencing
stories that are familiar to them. Children gain great pleasure from copying the actions and
language of adults when they read books and joining in stories with repetition. To this end,
you might also want to provide some soft toys, puppets and blankets, which children can use
to role play ‘bedtime’, by putting a toy to bed and then reading them a story.
Storytelling corner
Complement your reading area with a storytelling corner, where materials can be provided
for children to draw and/or write their own stories. As well as paper, pencils, crayons and
other art materials, you could also provide a daily stimulus for writing – perhaps an object
such as a toy, an artefact (perhaps an old coin or piece of jewellery), a photograph or jigsaw
puzzle, a piece of music, and so on. Place word cards around your area related to the learning
and language you have explored during the main activities, such as the names of animals,
different vegetables, and repeated or rhyming phrases from the books.
Children’s ’stories’, whether drawings and/or examples of emergent writing, can be displayed
next to your storytelling corner or in your reading area, where children are free to share,
explore and enjoy each other’s contributions.
Four lands of Once Upon a Time

Each Learning Block focuses on a different story, each of which lends itself to an individual
display/role-play area. Suggestions for each area might include:

The Enormous Turnip – provide a story tray filled with sand or soil, where children can
retell the story using small world figures. The characters from your story could be displayed
in a row along the wall, all pulling on each other as they try and free the enormous turnip.
As the Learning Block develops, you could also add a farmer’s market stall, with plastic fruit
and vegetables, and a kitchen area, where children can pretend to prepare their own tasty
turnip soups.
Once Upon a Time

The Tortoise and the Hare – build a racetrack with small world toy animals that children
can use to tell their own stories. Children could make a bed area for the hare to sleep in,
and have a hibernation box for the tortoise. Word cards describing how the animals move
could be displayed on flags around the race course or on a background display. Provide a
basket containing photographs of different animals for children to explore, sort and play
with.

The Three Billy Goats Gruff – use blankets or card to create your river and the two banks at
either side, linked by a troll bridge. Children or an adult could draw and add the characters
of the goats and the troll to the display, as well as word cards with positional vocabulary
(on, over, under, across, beside, etc.) and phrases from the story (‘trip trap, trip trap’). Each
goat could also be labelled based on their size (e.g. little, bigger, biggest). Children may
wish to reposition the word cards and labels using sticky-tack as they retell their own
stories. As your theme develops, you could add the troll’s river cave and make flowers to
decorate the ‘green’ side of your river bank, where the goats are keen to travel to.

The Gingerbread Man – make a home for the old woman and old man out of junk materials
and create a winding cardboard path that leads to the river, where the gingerbread man
meets the cunning fox. Provide small world animals and figures, or picture cards, for the
children to use to add their own characters to the story. You could also have a ‘play oven’,
that children can place their own gingerbread men in (and have them escape from!).
By setting up and developing dynamic learning areas over the course of Once Upon a Time,
when it comes to the Exit Point presentation show for parents/carers, much of the creative
work will already be complete. This will allow you to focus on simply adding finishing
touches, examples of children’s learning, and other items of interest to each area, to reflect
the learning that has taken place.
Advice for developing these role-play and display areas is given in the continuous provision
and play experience suggestions for each Learning Block.
Once Upon a Time
Resource suggestions:
old new
old
and craft materials
Art
new
old

Junk
new
materials (cardboard boxes, tubes, egg cartons, etc.)

Water and sand tray

Plastic animals and small world play figures
old new

Storybook versions of ‘The Enormous Turnip’, ‘The Three Billy Goats Gruff’, ‘The Hare and
old
the Tortoise’ and ‘The Gingerbread Man’
new

Additional fiction books, such as:
old new
The Tiny Seed, by Eric Carle, Puffin, 1997

Maisy’s Sports Day, by Lucy Cousins, Walker Books, 2016
‘Froglet’s Animal Olympics’ series, various authors, Franklin Watts. (There are
several titles in the series, which include Hippo’s High Dive, Lizzie Lizard’s Long Jump,
Rattlesnake’s Relay Race and The Jaguar and the Javelin.)
Animal Opposites, by Petr Horacek, Walker Books, 2015
The Gingerbread Family: A Scratch-And-Sniff Book, by Grace Maccarone, Little Simon,
2010
The Gingerbread Boy, by Richard Egiekski, HarperCollins, 2000

Push and pull toys

Plastic/toy and real vegetables

Vegetable seeds (e.g. cress, radishes, lettuce, carrots, etc.)

Kitchen equipment (e.g. oven, safety knives, bowls, rolling pin, etc.)

Ingredients for vegetable soup

Ingredients for making gingerbread

Building bricks and construction sets

Musical instruments

Picture cards of animals

Examples of slow and fast tempo music

Computers with internet access

Digital cameras
Once Upon a Time
The Big Picture for Teachers
The power of storytelling

From the earliest cave paintings by our distant ancestors to the latest interactive tablet
adventures, we have been telling stories for thousands of generations. Today, we are
surrounded by stories – through the media (television, radio, newspapers), cinema, songs,
social media, and even the simple conversations we have with each other.
Stories began with the oral tradition, of passing on a narrative by being heard and retold. Very
often these early stories were designed to teach morals – a lesson or value that the author
believed people should follow. The most famous examples are Aesop’s Fables. Aesop was
a slave and storyteller believed to have lived in Ancient Greece between 620 and 564 BCE.
The stories were told orally (and were not collected and recorded until three hundred years
after his death) – and were originally intended for adults to provide a set of ethical social
guidelines for people to live by. It wasn’t until the 1300s onwards that they were used for
the education of children. Even today, the fables are still being retold by modern-day authors,
and while the stories may have gone through many changes – like most traditional tales –
the core message and lesson of each tale is still intact and as relevant today as they were in
Aesop’s time.
For young children, stories are a wonderful window on not only our own world, but also that
of our imagination where ‘anything can happen’. Stories are a powerful tool for teaching
children about social and emotional themes, as well as helping them to develop their skills
of prediction, empathy and, of course, language. Children also love to create their own make-
believe stories, whether that involves dressing up and acting out roles, or playing with small
world figures and creating their own narratives. Storytelling can help to empower children by
opening up new worlds of possibilities, where there are no hard and fast rules and they can
feel in charge. By exploring narratives and storytelling, children are given a vital opportunity
to develop confidence to try new challenges, practise new skills and strengthen their
interpersonal interactions – helping them to develop socially, emotionally and personally in a
safe environment.
The stories in this unit have been chosen for their universal and traditional themes. The four
stories have been told and retold across the world, and most cultures will have their own
version, perhaps with changes to characters and settings, but delivering the same message
or theme. What follows is a brief background on each story. It is strongly recommended
that with each story, you expose the children to multiple versions of the story – and use the
opportunity to compare and contrast different retellings. Perhaps there are specific versions
that are linked to the children’s host country or home countries, and versions that are told in
their mother-tongue.
By exploring these traditional tales, and helping children to understand the role of authors
(and illustrators) in shaping and changing stories for different audiences, you are providing
children with the tools and confidence to make up their own stories and develop an
appreciation of written and spoken narrative.
Once Upon a Time
The Enormous Turnip

‘The Enormous Turnip’ (also known as ‘The Giant Turnip’ or ‘The Gigantic Turnip’) is a children’s
fairy tale that originated in Russia. It was included in the printed collection Russian Fairy
Tales, published between 1855 and 1863. In the original story, a grandfather plants a turnip,
which grows so large that he is unable to pull it out of the earth. He asks various characters
to help him until he has a line of helpers who are all pulling on each other to try and release
the turnip. In various retellings, the order of characters changes and often these can be a
varied mix of people and animals, however in the original Russian version the order is fixed
– starting with the grandfather, who recruits the grandmother, the granddaughter, the dog,
the cat, and finally the mouse. It is only when the tiny mouse lends a helping hand that the
giant turnip is finally freed. The moral of the story is that we can achieve anything through
teamwork and dedication, which links to the IEYC Personal Goals of Collaboration and
Resilience.
The Three Billy Goats Gruff

‘The Three Billy Goats Gruff’ is a fairy tale that originated in Norway, and was first collected
in the compilation, Norske Folkeeventyr, published between 1841 and 1844. In the story, three
goats (of three different sizes – linking to the three characters in the original story, who were
a youngster, a father and a grandfather) have eaten all the grass on their side of a river and
desire the grass that is growing on the other side. However, to reach the other side, they must
cross a bridge. The smallest goat goes first and meets the hungry troll who lives under the
bridge. The troll wants to eat the goat, but the smallest goat tells him to wait for his father
(or bigger brother, depending on the version) to cross. The medium-sized goat crosses the
bridge next and the same conversation repeats. Finally, the biggest goat crosses – and with
his horns, the larger goat knocks the troll into the river, leaving him free to cross the bridge
and join the other goats. The moral of the story is ‘do not be greedy’, as the troll decides to
wait for a bigger meal each time. There is also a theme of problem solving and cleverness,
which links to the IEYC Personal Goals of Thoughtfulness, Adaptability and Resilience.
The Tortoise and the Hare

Originally of Greek origin, ‘The Tortoise and the Hare’ was recorded and printed in editions of
Aesop’s Fables in the 1500s. Like all of Aesop’s Fables, the main characters are animals – in
this instance, a hare – who is confident and boastful of his speed – and a tortoise. The story
begins with the hare ridiculing the slow-moving tortoise. The tortoise, who is fed up of being
made fun of, decides to challenge the hare to a race. Once the race begins, the hare leaves
the tortoise behind. Confident of his win, the hare decides to take a nap. However, when he
awakes he finds that the tortoise has beaten him to the finish line. The moral of the story is
‘slow and steady wins the race’, suggesting that with persistence and dedication it is possible
to achieve any goal – whilst over-confidence, bullying and idleness are to be avoided. The
themes of the story link to the IEYC Personal Goals of Resilience, Respect and Morality.
Once Upon a Time
The Gingerbread Man

‘The Gingerbread Man’ (also known as the ‘The Gingerbread Boy’) is a variation of many
popular folk tales about runaway food. The story first appeared in print in the May 1875 issue
of St. Nicholas Magazine, which was a popular American children’s magazine. In the story, an
old and childless woman decides to bake a gingerbread boy. When she opens the oven, the
gingerbread boy escapes – and so begins a chase, where the gingerbread boy meets various
animal characters who want to eat him, but the gingerbread boy is too fast for them and
teases each: ‘I’ve run away from a little old woman, a little old man, and I can run away from
you, I can!’ Finally, the gingerbread boy is eaten by a fox, who tricks the gingerbread boy into
sitting on his nose while the fox carries him across the river. Whilst the story does not have
an obvious moral lesson, it does explore interesting themes of trust (be wary of strangers,
such as the fox), possession (everyone believes they have a right to eat the gingerbread boy)
and over confidence (the gingerbread teases everyone he meets that they won’t eat him). This
makes this story a fascinating starting point for exploring these social and emotional issues
with children, and links to the IEYC Personal Goals of Respect and Morality.
Once Upon a Time
The Big Picture for Children
Overview of learning
(The following information should be used as a guide and adapted to match children’s
individual needs and levels of understanding.)
When we hear the words ‘Once upon a time’, we know we are about to be taken on an exciting
adventure. Everyone, no matter what their age, has a favourite story that they like to hear,
and often we like to enjoy them over and over again. Now, we’re going to discover some new
stories! By exploring these stories, we will be learning how to become better storytellers, and
will create our own amazing worlds of make believe. Shall we begin? ‘Once upon a time…’
In Learning Block 1, we’ll be:

Exploring pushes and pulls with ‘The Enormous Turnip’

Buying and selling vegetables at our own market

Planting and growing our own vegetables

Making a delicious vegetable soup!

Exploring size with ‘The Three Billy Goats Gruff’

Building our own bridge for a troll

Making sound effects to tell a story

Performing a story with props and music.

Making a race course for ‘The Tortoise and the Hare’

Finding out about tortoises and how to look after them

Setting our own goals

Creating a sports day for different animals

Making a character from ‘The Gingerbread Man’

Baking our own gingerbread

Changing the story of ‘The Gingerbread Man’

Creating a modern-day version of the story
Once Upon a Time
Putting Once Upon a Time into Action
Entry Point
For your Entry Point, you (or another adult) will be leading a storytelling session, by sharing a
storybook and inviting the children to help create their own story. To make this exciting and
memorable for the children, the chosen person could dress up as the ‘storyteller’. The costume
can be created from whatever you have available – the idea is to change the adult’s normal
appearance and appear mysterious and new to the children. This can be achieved by wearing a
hat and colourful wig, for example, and perhaps a coat. Other accessories might include a scarf
and spectacles, if appropriate.
You will also need a story sack, box or basket to carry books in. This can be made to look
exciting and magical, perhaps by decorating with tinsel, ribbon and bright shapes, such as stars
and moons. Place some storybooks inside for the children to discover. You will also need a story
object – see Making up a story below.
Alternatively, it may be possible to invite a professional storyteller to your setting to lead this
session with the children.
Meet the storyteller

Create some mystery in your setting before the arrival of the storyteller. Leave a book out that
the children can discover, filled with blank pages. Make the cover as sparkly and exciting as
possible, with glitter and star shapes. The book itself can simply be created by hole-punching
sheets of paper or card and then tying together with ribbon.
Allow time for the children to explore this book. What do they think is inside the book? They
may be surprised to discover that the pages of the book are blank. What do books normally
contain? Explore their ideas. Who might this special book belong to?
At this point, it is time for the storyteller’s grand entrance. Have an adult introduce them as
a special visitor, who has come from the land of ‘Once Upon a Time’ – where there are lots of
exciting and wonderful stories. Now, it’s time to meet the Storyteller!
Sharing a story
Greet the children and show them your magical box, sack or basket. Explain that you have lots
of stories to share. Shall we take a look at some?
Encourage the children to explore the picture books that you have available. Which one would
they like to listen to? Choose one of the books. Spend time observing the cover and discussing
what the story might be about. Who are the characters, and what might happen to them? Next,
share the book with the children.
Afterwards, ask the children if they like stories. Do they know any good stories? Encourage
confident children to share their experiences and memories.
If time allows, you could choose another book from your collection to share.
Once Upon a Time
Making up a story
Look surprised to discover an object at the bottom of your sack, basket or box. Invite a child to
carefully take out the object to show to the other children. This object will be the stimulus of a
story, so it can be whatever you like. Suggestions might include:
natural object, such as a shell or a shiny pebble
A
piece of clothing or a costume accessory, such as an umbrella, a pair of gloves, a necklace,
A
or a shoe
old object, such as a coin, a piece of jewellery, a toy or a photograph
An
map, perhaps showing a route to a special treasure or location.
A
You may want to include an object that is specific to one of the children’s home countries.
Tell the children that the object they have discovered will be the start of an exciting story.
Allow time for the children to handle and explore the object. Prompt them to think about who
it might belong to – and what might make this object special. Does it have a super power, for
example? Or is it something that is very precious to that person. Perhaps they have lost it and
they are looking for it.
Guide the children, helping them to build up a picture of who might own the object. This will
be your main character. Next, explain that your story needs a setting – a place where the story
is told. Where might your character live? Do they live in a home on a street, like our own – or
do they live in some other place – perhaps an enchanted forest or even in outer space! Enjoy
making up your own imaginative setting.
Then decide what your story will be about. Every story usually has something that the character
must do, such as finding their lost object, for example. Use the storybook you explored at the
start of the session as an example, revisiting the storyline and the characters. Provide enough
prompting and support to help the children develop their ideas into a simple story.
If you wish, children could become the characters in the story, using any props that you have
available. They may like to role play actions as you describe them during your storytelling.
Encourage children to imagine what the characters look like, what clothes they wear, and where
they live. Enjoy listening to the children’s ideas and incorporating them into your narrative.
What might start out as a simple idea (perhaps someone looking for their missing glove, for
example) could easily expand into an exciting tale of monsters, spaceships and dinosaurs! Allow
the children to share their existing knowledge of stories, and use any stories that children are
already familiar with to provide guidance and support.
At the end of your session, congratulate the children on becoming storytellers – just like you!
Explain that over the coming weeks, you will have some very special stories to share, and the
children will be making their own stories too!
If you wish, you could write and/or draw the story that you created in your Entry Point, inside
your blank mystery book. This can then be placed in your storytelling corner (see Suggestions for
Enabling the Environment) for children to revisit and explore.
Once Upon a Time
Capturing Curiosity
Capturing curiosity is an ongoing process, beginning with the Entry Point. The process
should lead to finding out what children already know about a theme, and what they are
curious to learn. This enables teachers to support child-initiated and personalised learning.
Some children may be able to express their curiosity during discussions, through drawings
or other expressive means; other children will need to be observed in order to see where
their interests lie. Circle-time, small-group and one-to-one discussions lend themselves to
capturing a child’s curiosity, but often a child’s spontaneous exploration is when teachers
successfully capture their curiosity.
This IEYC unit provides a wide range of experiences around a central theme. It might be
helpful to adapt the questions below, to find out what children already know about this
theme and what they would like to learn about. Sharing each other’s interests during circle-
time and group discussions often generates further curiosity.

What stories do you know?

What is your favourite story?

What do you like about this story?

Can you tell me a story?

Who is this character? What can you tell me about them?

Where does the story take place?

What do we think will happen next?

What can we learn from this story?

What happens first, next, last?
you think this story had a happy ending?
Do

How might this character be feeling at this point in the story?

Have you ever felt those same feelings?

How might we change the story?
Once Upon a Time
Learning Block 1: Explore and Express
The central learning focus for this Learning Block is:

The Enormous Turnip
Suggestions for this Learning Block’s continuous provision and play

experiences:
As well as providing an area for children to retell the story, using puppets and/or characters
that the children have made themselves (see Activity 1), you could also provide some different
push and pull toys for the children to explore. Have word cards displaying ‘push’ and ‘pull’ for
the children to reference and use to label the toys.
Have a pretend garden area, where children can plant, look after, and dig up plastic
vegetables, using trowels, rakes and other role-play garden equipment. The garden area could
simply be a tray filled with soil and pebbles or an area in your outdoor setting. You could
also hide examples of real vegetables in the soil each day for the children to discover. They
can identify the vegetables, wash and clean them up, then use in further pretend play. (Note:
ensure that children are aware that they should not taste or eat the vegetables unless given
permission by an adult.)
The IEYC Personal Goals children will be helped to develop in this

Learning Block are:

Adaptability

Communication

Cooperation

Enquiry

Resilience

Respect

Thoughtfulness
Once Upon a Time
The IEYC International Dimension children will experience in this

Learning Block is:

Learning and playing with others beyond their immediate friendship group

Applying the IEYC Personal Goals in various contexts

The characteristics of the kinds of children the school is helping to develop and
demonstrating them in developmentally-appropriate ways
Suggestions for linking to Language and Mathematical development

to complement the setting’s policy for these areas:
Children can make their own recipe books for vegetable soup. For younger children, these
could simply be sequenced pictures (either drawn themselves or provided on photocopied
sheets), or photographs taken during the soup-making activity. More confident children could
draw their own pictures and practise emergent writing by providing a sentence for each
stage.
Children are also encouraged to keep diaries to record the growth and changes of their
vegetables (see Activity 3). Encourage children to combine drawings, photographs, mark
making and emergent writing, to keep a record of their observations.
Create an interactive display, with separate images of the characters from the story (these
could be the images of the children themselves – see Phase B, Activity 1), and word cards that
feature the characters’ (or children’s) names and linking words to create sentences (pulls, the,
turnip, etc.). Children can rearrange the characters, then use the word cards to assemble their
own version of the story:
the dog pulls the cat pulls the farmer pulls
Combine a set of weighing scales with your pretend vegetable garden (see continuous
provision and play experiences). Children can imagine the farmer has tasked them with
preparing the vegetables for market. As well as washing and cleaning the vegetables,
children can weigh them and record the measurements on a chart. Over the course of a week,
they can find out which is the heaviest vegetable that they have weighed. Provide different
examples of weighing scales for confident children to explore, such as a balance, digital
scales, floor scales and so on.
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Suggestions for linking physical development to complement the

setting’s policy for physical education:
Create boxes of scrunched up newspaper to represent your ‘vegetable patches’. Place these
in a row at one end of the room. Hide some plastic vegetables, plastic balls or bean bags
amongst the newspaper. Hold a relay race, where teams must try and collect the most
‘vegetables’ in a set amount of time. Team members take it in turns to run to one of the boxes
then ‘dig’ for a vegetable. When they have found one, they must run back to their team and
place the vegetable inside a hoop, basket or bucket. Then the next child in the team can take
their turn.
Have a giant plastic beach ball or sponge ball that children can pretend is their ‘enormous
turnip’. In pairs, encourage children to practise rolling and guiding their turnip around the
space. Then set up a simple obstacle course and challenge children to get their turnip from
one end of the room to the other without picking it up – they can only roll it! Once children
are confident with guiding their turnips, you hold a race to see who can get their turnip to
‘market’ the quickest, by being the first to navigate your course.
Reflective Practices
During IEYC Explore and Express activities, teachers should reflect on the following
questions:
all children learning – is there evidence that learning is taking place?
Are
learning experiences developmentally-appropriate – do children need to revisit Phase
Are
A learning activities or extend to Phase B learning activities?
the learning sufficiently engaging and challenging?
Is
anything helping learning to become secure?
Is
anything hindering learning to become secure?
Is

What types of learning experiences will further support children’s progression?
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Activities
Activity 1: Helping hands
Phase A
During this learning activity, children will experience:
IEYC Learning Strand 1: Independence and Interdependence

1.6a Expressing personal choices
1.7a Making choices with others
1.15a Playing alone, alongside and with others in a wide range of contexts
1.16a Participating in group activities
1.24a Sharing experiences with others
1.27a Learning independently, alongside and from others
IEYC Learning Strand 2: Communicating

COMMUNICATING THROUGH SPEAKING AND LISTENING
2.4a Asking questions
2.5a Describing objects, people, places and events that are present and not present
2.6a Using language skills in play situations and a variety of developmentally-appropriate
contexts for example role play, storytelling, giving and receiving instructions
2.7a Using language to recall events
2.8a Using language in imaginary play situations
2.11a Listening to familiar sounds and identifying them; joining in stories, poems, action
songs and rhymes
2.12a Identifying and anticipating repetition in stories, poems, songs, rhymes and other
language activities
2.13a Listening to others and joining in listening activities for developmentally-
appropriate periods of time
2.14a Following conversations and stories
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COMMUNICATING THROUGH READING

2.15a Identifying own name(s)
2.19a Exploring books and reading for pleasure
2.22a Repeating and retelling familiar stories, filling in missing words/phrases/events
2.27a Following simple texts when being read to
COMMUNICATING THROUGH SHAPE AND MEASURES
2.63a Exploring weight through play and practical activities
2.64a Using language associated with weight
COMMUNICATING THROUGH THE EXPRESSIVE ARTS AND CREATIVITY
2.77a Exploring and creating 2D and 3D artwork
2.80a Freely experimenting with art materials and initiating own art adventures
IEYC Learning Strand 3: Enquiring

ENQUIRING ABOUT PEOPLE
3.4a Exploring how we move
ENQUIRING ABOUT THE WORLD
3.10a Exploring what makes things move
Explore: Phase A
Begin your session by setting up some games and play experiences that will introduce the
children to pushes and pulls. These might include:

Push me, pull me – have a selection of toys that can be pushed and pulled along.
Encourage children to explore the toys. Discuss how they can be made to move. Invite
children to choose a toy that can be pushed or pulled, and demonstrate how they will make
it move. Confident children may be able to talk about toys that are easier to pull/push
than others. Explore pulling and pushing on different surfaces. Is there any difference? For
example, some toys may travel less distance on a carpet than on a smooth surface. Pulling
a toy across the carpet might be quieter than if it is pulled across tiles, and so on.
easy load – if you have trolleys suitable for children to use, then explore loading the
An
trolley and then pulling it along. Is it better to pull the trolley rather than carry the objects
instead? How many toys can we pull on the trolley? Can we make the trolley lighter or
heavier? How might we do that?
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on the move – have some sponge balls, and some lengths of wool, ribbon or string for
Art
the children to paint with. Using large sheets of paper, encourage children to dip the balls
into paint and then gently push them across the paper. Explore the patterns and shapes
that can be made. Then dip the wool, ribbon or string in paint and invite children to ‘pull’
them across the paper, dragging them to make interesting patterns.

See-saw – invite children to sit facing each other, holding hands. Encourage one child to
gently pull against the other, so one is leaning forward and the other is leaning back. Then
repeat, with the second child gently pulling against the first, to lean the other way. Once
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children are confident, they will be able to keep up a coordinated rocking motion. Talk
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about who is performing the ‘pulling’ action each time.
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With all activities, have an adult present to help support and guide the children, and
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emphasise the vocabulary of ‘pushing’ and ‘pulling’.
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Afterwards, gather the children on the carpet. Explain that you are going to share a story,
which features a lot of pulling! We’ve been exploring pulls today – can anyone show me one?
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Offer prompts as necessary to help children recall their earlier play experiences.
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Share the story of ‘The Enormous Turnip’ (also sometimes known as ‘The Giant Turnip’). There
are several versions available online and in picture book format. Some examples include:
The Enormous Turnip: Ladybird First Favourite Tales, by Irene Yates, Ladybird, 2012.
The Giant Turnip, by Aleksei Tolstoy and Niamh Sharkey, Barefoot Books, 2016.
The Giant Turnip Russian & English (Folk Tales), by Henriette Barkow, Mantra Lingua, 2010
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www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vjjIWJYM58
YouTube hosts this animated retelling of the traditional folk tale, ‘The Enormous Turnip’.
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www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yu6C7P_SnWs
YouTube hosts this episode from the popular CBeebies Bedtime Storytelling session, in
which a presenter shares the book, The Giant Turnip, by Aleksei Tolstoy and Niamh Sharkey.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysPxSHHE8Lg
YouTube hosts this retelling of the traditional folk tale, ‘The Enormous Turnip’, using
picture book illustrations.
(To watch a YouTube video in restricted mode, scroll to the bottom of the page and click on the ‘restricted mode’ tab
which brings up the ‘restricted mode’ information. Under this section, select the ‘on’ option, then click ‘save’)
www.outoftheark.co.uk/ext/pdfs/ET%20script%20for%20easy-reading.pdf
The Out of the Ark website features a play script of ‘The Enormous Turnip’ story, which
could easily be adapted into your own retelling.
www.twinkl.co.uk/resources/story-resources/traditional-tales/enormous-turnip
Twinkl is an online library of resources and activities, which include a PowerPoint and
eBook version of ‘The Enormous Turnip’.
As you read (or watch) the story, encourage the children to join in with the pulling motions,
by imagining they are holding onto the turnip and leaning back.
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Once you have shared the story, retell it a second time by having the children join in as the
characters from your story. An adult can play the farmer. Then each time a new character is
added, invite one of the children to join you and take on the role. Build up your line of eager
helpers, as you continue the story and pretend to pull up the turnip!
Express: Phase A
Children can create their own story tray to retell the story using small world figures and toys.
Provide pairs or small groups with a tray, which they can fill with natural objects (such as
soil, pebbles, rocks, leaves, etc.) to create their farmer’s field. They could then use a pompom,
a sponge ball or a rolled-up ball of playdough for their giant turnip. Available small world
figures and toys can then act as the characters in the story. Support the children in telling
their stories, by encouraging them to repeat the sequence of characters each time a new
figure/toy is added. For example: the dog pulls the boy, the boy pulls the girl, the girl pulls the
woman, the woman pulls the man, and so on.
Take photographs of the children’s story trays to record their learning. You could also take
photographs of the children imagining they’re pulling the enormous turnip. The photos could
be sequenced as a wall display to retell the story using the children’s names. For example:
Jack pulled, Amy pulled, Hamad pulled, Nadiya pulled, Lucca pulled, and so on.
End your session with a fun song to recap the story. Begin with yourself as the farmer. The
following is sung to the rhythm of Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star:
There’s a turnip in the ground,
Can you see it, big and round?
Who can help me pull it out?
Shall we see, who is about?
Look back and forth along the line of children, then point to and choose a child, calling out
their name. Invite them up to join you. Turn sideways, with the child placing their hands on
your waist. Pretend to pull the turnip:
One, two, three, pull everyone
Pull the turnip, it’s such fun!
Pull again, it’s almost there…
(Pause.)
Our turnip’s stuck, it’s just not fair!
Repeat the first verse:
There’s a turnip in the ground,
Can you see it, big and round?
Who can help me pull it out?
Shall we see, who is about?
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Encourage your chosen child to pick someone else from the group to come up and help. As
before, make a line, and then sing the second verse. Continue to repeat the song, with the last
child to join the line each time, picking a new child to join. Once everyone is in the line, you
can sing this final verse:
One, two, three, pull everyone
Pull the turnip, it’s such fun!
Pull again, it’s almost there…
(Pause)
Pop!
Our turnip’s out, there’s lots to share! Hooray!
Congratulate everyone afterwards for their good teamwork!
Activity 1: Helping hands
Phase B

1.6b Expressing own views and ideas
1.15b Initiating and participating in different types of play by taking on new roles and
responsibilities
1.16b Co-operating, taking turns and following the rules of group activities

2.5b Using increasingly complex language to describe objects, people, places and events
that are present and not present
2.6b Exploring and increasing vocabulary through play and developmentally-appropriate
contexts, for example role play, storytelling, giving and receiving instructions
2.7b Using language to recall, retell and sequence events
2.8b Using language to describe roles, events and storyline in imaginary play situations
2.11b Demonstrating listening skills, taking turns in conversations and joining in language
activities
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2.13b Concentrating on what others are saying and responding at the appropriate time
2.14b Joining in conversations and discussions
2.18b Using illustrations to make predictions
2.22b The structures of stories: characters, settings, events, beginning, middle, end
COMMUNICATING THROUGH NUMBER
2.48b Exploring the total number of objects in groups by counting ‘how many altogether’
2.50b Exploring early addition and subtraction through practical contexts
2.57b Using positional language
COMMUNICATING THROUGH ICT AND COMPUTING
2.72b Using computers and other forms of ICT as tools to record, link and extend
experiences that happened away from the computer
2.77b Designing and creating 2D and 3D artwork for a range of purposes
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Explore: Phase B
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Begin your session by sharing the story of ‘The Enormous Turnip’ (also sometimes known as
‘The Giant Turnip’). See Explore: Phase A for a list of recommended picture books and online
links.
Once you have shared the story, ask the children if they can remember all the characters that
helped the farmer to pull out the turnip (these will differ depending on the version of the
story that you shared). If possible have picture or name cards for each character on string, so
that the children can wear around their necks. Assign one to each of the children. If you don’t
have enough characters, then any remaining children could help you with narrating the story.
The following website provides a good source of supporting resources:
Twinkl.co.uk/resources/story-resources/traditional-tales/enormous-turnip
Twinkl is an online library of resources and activities, including these sequencing cards,
character images, and puppets for ‘The Enormous Turnip’.
Retell the story a second time by having the children join in as the characters from your story.
An adult can play the farmer. Then, each time a new character is about to be introduced,
invite the children to name the next character in the story. That child (with the associated
picture card or name tag) can then join the line. Build up your line of eager helpers, as you
continue the story and pretend to pull up the turnip!
Once Upon a Time
You could use this activity for sequencing and counting. As your line expands, ask the children
to count the characters and give you the total. Who is number one in the line? Who is number
four? How many more characters do we think we need to add to the line before we can pull
up the turnip?
Express: Phase B
Children could create their own retelling of the story using puppets – and the puppets could
feature themselves!
There are two possible methods for creating the puppets:

Full body shots – have the children stand in front of a plain wall (if possible), posing
so that they have their arms out in front of them, as if holding someone’s waist. Take a
photograph, or have another child in the group take the photograph. Check that the images
are clear and in focus, and that the whole child is in the frame. Show the children how the
images can be loaded onto computer, then printed out. Children can then glue the images
onto card and cut around them.

Head on a stick – instead of taking full body shots, you can take a portrait photograph of
each child or help children to take the photos. Load onto computer and print out, for the
children to mount onto card then cut out.
Provide some template bodies that the children can glue the heads onto. The bodies can
then be decorated – perhaps using colours and fabrics that match closely to what each
child is wearing on the day.
Alternatively, children could be provided with craft materials to make their own characters;
perhaps based on the version of the story that you explored as a class.
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Attach the puppets to lolly sticks, so that children can use them in small groups to tell their
own story. Visit each group in turn to talk to them about their story and prompt them to
sequence and count the puppets. For example:

Who is in their line?

How many characters are there altogether?

Where is [insert name of child or character] in the line?

What number are they?

Who is first?

Who is last?
If you wish, you could glue or draw images into their own long zig-zag books, to make their
line-up of characters. The books can then fold out gradually as the children tell their story.
(title) character character character character character character

6 6 6 6 6 6
character
(title) 1
Once Upon a Time
Activity 2: It was this big!
Phase A

1.25a Exploring emotional and social contexts through play

2.3a Expressing ideas and experiences through language
2.16a Exploring and observing the use of printed materials and resources
2.21a Exploring words through games, play, art and digital means
COMMUNICATING THROUGH WRITING
2.29a Creating marks and symbols that have personal meaning in a range of play
situations
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2.30a Developing and applying fine motor skill control within a range of relevant contexts
2.34a Exploring writing and spelling through games, play, art and digital means
2.35a Sorting and grouping objects
2.36a Counting through play activities, action songs, rhymes and games
2.40a Exploring one-to-one correspondence
2.41a Using mathematical language to describe groups containing more or less objects
2.43a Counting groups of objects
2.44a Separating a quantity of objects into groups with smaller number values
2.45a Selecting a given number of objects
2.46a Creating groups of objects
2.48a Comparing groups of objects
2.52a Exploring money
2.53a Exploring size and shape through real-life and play contexts
2.56a Describing objects according to size and shape
2.57a Identifying similarities and differences between shapes
2.74a Using the senses to explore materials and textures
2.75a Exploration of colour, texture, materials, textiles, space, line and shape involving
tools, manipulation, techniques and construction

3.1a Exploring the senses
3.12a Exploring natural materials and objects
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IEYC Learning Strand 4: Healthy Living and Physical Well-being

HEALTH AND SELF-CARE
4.4a Exploring food and drink, textures and tastes
Explore: Phase A
Begin your session by encouraging the children to explore a collection of different
vegetables. Your collection could include: turnips, sprouts, broccoli, leeks, onions, radishes,
spring onions, cabbage, potato, peppers, cucumber and parsnips. Try and include examples
from the host country and the children’s home countries. If you have a container large
enough, some of these could be buried in soil for the children to dig up using little trowels,
such as the potatoes, turnip, carrots, parsnips, radishes and onions.
Spread out your collection, and invite the children to explore the shape, size and textures of
the different vegetables. Do all vegetables look the same? Which do they know the names
of – or might recognise? Compare the size of the turnip with the other vegetables. Is it the
largest vegetable in the collection? Would they describe it as ‘enormous’? You might want
to explain that some vegetables can grow to different sizes. Sometimes there are even
competitions for who can grow the biggest vegetable!
Note: be sure to remind the children not to put the vegetables in their mouths. You could
have some sliced and/or cooked examples which the children can taste – which will provide
further opportunity to discuss texture (soft/hard) and how the vegetable has been altered by
cooking. You could even provide some chips/French fries, and challenge children to guess the
vegetable that went into making them. You might get some interesting answers! As with any
activity that involves food, always check for allergies beforehand.
Explain that some vegetables grow in the ground and have to be dug or pulled out of the soil
when they are grown – just like the farmer did (with some help!) in the story, ‘The Enormous
Turnip’. Others grow above the ground.
Once the vegetables are collected by the farmer, they are then taken to the shops and
supermarkets, where we can buy them.
In small groups, pretend that you are helpers on the farm. The farmer wants the children to
help sort all his vegetables, ready to sell at market (or the local supermarket).
Using the real vegetables or plastic toy versions, support the children in grouping the
vegetables into baskets based on different criteria – for example, shape (round and not
round), colour (e.g. green and not green) or size (big and small). When the vegetables have
been sorted into groups, challenge the children to help you to count them. Can they put each
individual group into size order, starting with the smallest?
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Once Upon a Time
End your session by having some picture labels on boxes or baskets, and asking the children
if they can put the correct vegetables into each box/basket by matching the pictures to
the real (or toy) examples. Reinforce the names of the vegetables as you sort through the
collection.
The following website has useful resources to support this activity:
Twinkl.co.uk/resources/fruit-and-vegetables
Twinkl is an online library of resources and activities, including sorting cards, labels,
games and presentations, linked to the theme of ‘vegetables’.
If you wish, you could extend the role play by having children ‘load the vegetables’ carefully
onto a trolley and then pull them to your ‘market area’, where they can be unloaded and
arranged, ready for sale.
Express: Phase A
Provide children with playdough in a variety of colours. Encourage them to make their own
vegetables by choosing the correct colours and then sculpting the playdough into the correct
shapes. Again, this provides opportunity to reinforce the names of the vegetables, as well as
vocabulary related to colour, size and shape. Have the children work together to make enough
extra vegetables for their market area.
With guidance, children can then role play being market sellers/shopkeepers, with some
children playing customers who have come to shop for vegetables. Confident children could
practise mark making to create their own pretend price labels for different vegetables.
Provide play money so that children can role play transactions, paying and accepting change,
etc.
Give customers challenges, such as – Can you go and buy me three carrots please? Can you
buy me two potatoes and one cabbage? Vary the challenges based on the confidence of the
children. Take photographs to record your session.
End your session by sitting in a circle, with a selection of different vegetables arranged in the
middle. Start a game, whereby you say – I went to the market and I bought…
Choose one of the vegetables from the collection and hold it up, naming the vegetable. Then
continue around the circle, inviting each child to take a turn to pick a vegetable. Provide
support if necessary to help them repeat the sentence and name their vegetable. Once
everyone has chosen a vegetable, change your sentence to ‘We went to the market and we
bought…’ and then go around the circle and list all the vegetables that were chosen (e.g. one
cucumber, one turnip, one carrot, one pepper, and so on) encouraging the children to join in.
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Activity 2: It was this big!
Phase B
During this learning activity children will experience:

1.7b The importance of the views and ideas of others
responsibilities
1.23b Demonstrating independence and increasing confidence in new situations
1.27b Being a member of a team and learning with others

2.3b Responding to the ideas and experiences of others through language
2.4b Asking increasingly complex questions, providing answers and explaining reasons
2.10b Extending vocabulary, exploring language patterns and sounds, word meanings and
word groups
activities
2.16b Exploring and observing the use of print, logos, labels and signs in the environment
2.20b Exploring how print conveys meaning and recognising letters and features of
familiar words
2.27b Recognising and reading common words and familiar sentences
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2.28b Distinguishing differences and giving meaning to different marks and symbols
2.29b Writing for a range of purposes and meaningful real-life and play contexts
2.33b Using phonic awareness to write words
2.35b Identifying common properties in and between groups of objects
2.52b Counting and using money in a range of real-life and play contexts
2.53b Ordering and classifying size and shape in practical contexts
2.54b Selecting sizes and shapes according to given criteria
2.63b Comparing and ordering weight
2.64b Exploring how to measure weight in practical contexts
2.70b Giving instructions, programming and operating digital toys, devices and computers
2.73b Presenting ideas and information using technology
2.75b Exploration of colour, texture, materials, textiles, space, line and shape involving tools,
manipulation, techniques and construction to create unplanned and planned effects

3.1b Using the senses to make discoveries
3.11b Classifying and comparing objects in the natural world
Once Upon a Time
Explore: Phase B
Begin your session by encouraging the children to explore a collection of different
vegetables. Your collection could include: turnips, sprouts, broccoli, leeks, onions, radishes,
spring onions, cabbage, potato, peppers, cucumber, parsnips, etc. Try and include examples
from the host country and the children’s home countries. If you have a container large
enough, some of these could be buried in soil for the children to dig up using little trowels,
such as the potatoes, turnip, carrots, parsnips, radishes and onions.
Spread out your collection, and invite the children to explore the shape, size and textures of
the different vegetables. Do all vegetables look the same? Which vegetables do the children
know the names of, which do they recognise? Compare the size of the turnip with the other
vegetables. Is it the largest vegetable in the collection? Would they describe it as ‘enormous’?
You might want to explain that some vegetables can grow to different sizes. Sometimes there
are even competitions for who can grow the biggest vegetable!
Note: be sure to remind the children not to put the vegetables in their mouths. You could
have some sliced and/or cooked examples which the children can taste – which will provide
further opportunity to discuss texture (soft/hard) and how the vegetable has been altered by
cooking. You could even provide some chips/French fries, and challenge children to guess the
vegetable that went into making them. You might get some interesting answers! As with any
activity that involves food, always check for allergies beforehand.
Explain that some vegetables grow in the ground and have to be dug or pulled out of
the soil when they are grown – just like the farmer did (with some help!) in the story, ‘The
Enormous Turnip’. Others grow above the ground.
Once the vegetables are collected by the farmer, they are then taken to the shops and
supermarkets, where we can buy them.
In small groups, pretend that you are helpers on the farm. The farmer wants the children to
help sort and prepare his vegetables, ready to sell at market (or the local supermarket).
Begin by re-exploring a selection of the vegetables you have available. Begin by sorting
them into size order, starting with the smallest. Ask the children which of the vegetables
they think is the lightest, and which is the heaviest. Do they think the biggest vegetable will
automatically be the heaviest?
Have some balance scales that the children can use to weigh and compare the different
vegetables. Provide support to help the children to ‘read’ the scales. If you have enough
vegetables available, you could explore how many of one type of vegetable are needed
to balance out a heavier vegetable. Once the children have experience, they can start to
estimate numbers, before trying out their predictions.
Children could also be given playdough and challenged to model out a weight that they think
will balance (i.e. be of equal weight) to another vegetable. This activity provides opportunities
for exploring the IEYC Personal Goals of Thoughtfulness and Resilience.
Based on the children’s findings, they can now order and record the weights of the vegetables
by sequencing them in order of lightest to heaviest.
Once Upon a Time
Express: Phase B
Encourage the children to help you set up your own ‘farmer’s market stall’ or supermarket
counter, selling vegetables. Decide together how your vegetables will be arranged, and any
signs and labels that might be required to help customers.
Provide baskets, trays or other containers for the vegetables to be sorted into. If you don’t
have enough real examples, then you could use plastic role play versions or have the children
make their own from playdough.
Children can practise mark making and emergent writing to create name and price labels for
each type of vegetable. Provide play money so that children can role play transactions, paying
and accepting change, etc.
Assign roles for children – either as shopkeepers, assistants, or customers. Provide prompts as
necessary to develop the role play. For example:

Give customers challenges, such as – Can you go and buy me three carrots please? Can you
buy me two potatoes and one cabbage? You could also provide shopping lists, with images
and numbers for the quantities that you want.

Invite the shopkeepers to promote their goods – describing what is good about their
vegetables. Explore ideas and vocabulary that would help make them more appealing. For
example: delicious, fresh, crunchy, healthy, tasty. Can they encourage shoppers to buy more
than what they originally came for?

Assistants could help with picking and bagging the items, or placing them in baskets for
the customers to carry away. They could also help with reading the prices, taking money
and giving change.
Encourage the children to lead the role play, developing the roles and situations freely as
they play and use the equipment available. As new situations arise, explore how you might
resolve them. For example, perhaps the customers have bought most of the vegetables and
the shop is nearly empty! Now, we could create a ‘farm area’, where children can pretend to
dig up and pick fresh vegetables. You could even imagine you have a giant turnip that needs
several children to pull free from the earth. How will you transport all the vegetables to the
shop? Explore the children’s ideas and have fun with your ongoing story.
If you wish, you could end the session by asking children to imagine they are creating a
new story about a giant vegetable. Provide paper and invite them to draw a picture for the
cover of their book. This could show their giant vegetable and someone trying to pull it out
of the earth or pick it from the plant. Have photographs showing how the real-life versions
are grown, to give the children ideas. For example, children may decide to draw a cucumber
plant, with one of the cucumbers bigger than all the rest. Or you could change ‘The Enormous
Turnip’ to ‘The Giant Carrot’ and have a farmer trying to pull a carrot from the ground.
Confident children could practise their emergent writing by creating a title for their book.
These could be created on computer with adult assistance, allowing children opportunity to
explore font size, style and colour. Perhaps your ‘giant’ or ‘enormous’ could be in a bigger font
than the other letters to emphasise the size!
Once Upon a Time
Some children may want to develop and create the story that accompanies their cover.
Encourage use of the ‘storyteller corner’ to write and draw pages for their books, which can
then be shared with others as part of a show and tell session.
Activity 3: From tiny seeds…
Phase A


songs and rhymes
language activities
Once Upon a Time

2.54a Exploring size and shape through construction materials, puzzles, modelling and
creative activities
2.60a Using language associated with time; morning, afternoon, day, night, mealtimes, etc.
2.62a Using language associated with length and height

3.12a Exploring natural materials and objects
3.16a Observing nature in the local environment
3.21a Exploring growing things
3.22a How to take care of living things and the environment
3.23a Observing changes in plants over time
Explore: Phase A
Prior to the session, assemble a varied collection of vegetable seeds.
Set up tables, each with their own collection of different seeds. Have an adult assisting at
each table. Begin by encouraging the children to explore the seeds. What do they think they
are? Do they all look the same? Prompt them to handle the seeds. Can they describe the
colours, shapes, textures and patterns?
Once Upon a Time
Explain that these are seeds from vegetable plants. The seeds grow into new plants, which
then produce vegetables that we can eat. If you have a vegetable garden at or near to your
setting, the children can view examples. Talk about how some vegetables grow underneath
the soil (like turnips and carrots) and some grow above the soil, like beans and cabbages.
Explain that the turnip in the story, ‘The Enormous Turnip’, would have started as a tiny seed
in the ground.
Ask the children how they might make their own seeds grow? Explore the children’s ideas,
offering prompts as necessary. Have soil in a tray and a watering can so that children can
choose some of the seeds to plant. Water the soil using the can. Do they think their seeds will
grow quickly? How high will they grow?
Show the children the packets that the seeds came in. Explore the seeds for each type of
vegetable. Have some real examples of each vegetable for children to view and handle.
Put the vegetables in size order. Then place their seeds in a line underneath for comparison.
Do the biggest seeds grow the biggest type of vegetable? Do the seeds share a similar colour
with their vegetable or are they different? Children could draw around the seeds and the
vegetables to make a picture.
Afterwards, gather the children together. Sing the following song and have the children
perform the actions, imagining they are the farmer from the story, ‘The Enormous Turnip’.
(Sung to ‘The Farmer in the Dell’)
The farmer plants the seed (bend down and pretend to be planting a seed)
The farmer plants the seed
Hey ho – time to grow
The farmer plants the seed.
The sun shines on the seed (raise hands above head and wave from side to side)
The sun shines on the seed
Hey-ho – time to grow
The sun shines on the seed.
The rain falls on the seed (wiggle fingers, pretending they are rain falling)
The rain falls on the seed
The rain falls on the seed.
The seed becomes a plant (put hands together, then raise arms until they are above
your head)
The seed becomes a plant
The seed becomes a plant
The farmer picks the veg (pretend to be picking beans from the plant)
The farmer picks the veg
Hey-ho – time to eat!
The farmer picks the veg.
Once Upon a Time
If you wish, you could provide some further experiences for the children to explore. For
example:

Hide and seek – place some soil in a plastic zip-lock bag, along with some of the larger
seeds. Seal the bag and then encourage the children to explore the contents with their
fingers, pushing and moving the soil that is inside the bag to find the different hidden
seeds. How many seeds can they count?

Water the plant – children can play a simple game where they grow their own plant! First
you will need some equal-sized cardboard rolls, painted green. You will also need a simple
board, with some squares displaying a sun symbol and other squares displaying a rain
symbol or a watering can. Each child starts with a seed card, that will be the base for their
plant. They then take turns to roll a 1–3 dice and move around the board. If they end their
move on a sun or a water symbol, they can ‘grow’ their plant, by adding one cardboard roll
to their base.
If the space they land on is blank, nothing happens, and play then moves to the next player.
Children continue the game, taking turns to roll the dice and move their counter. Each
time they get a sun or water symbol, they can carefully add another cardboard roll to their
model, placing it on top of the last. As the game progresses, they will get to watch their
plants grow! If you wish, you could have a winner – perhaps, the first person to grow their
plant past a certain height. If a plant should accidently fall, then the child starts over. The
game will help to develop fine motor control, and can also be used to support counting
and height comparison. The game could also be linked to the popular fairy tale, ‘Jack and
the Beanstalk’.

Paint with seeds – provide different seeds in a tray for children to move with their fingers,
to practise mark making and explore patterns. Sprinkle some onto a sheet of paper and
then encourage children to arrange them to create a picture or a shape, such as flower.
You could even have paints that children can dip the seeds into, to use for printing. What
shapes and patterns can they make by moving the seeds across the paper?
Once Upon a Time
Express: Phase A
Children can grow their own cress seeds in yoghurt pots or plastic cups. Remove any labels
from the containers. Provide marker pens for the children to draw a face onto the outside of
their container, then fill out the bottom of the container with some scrunched up tissue paper
or kitchen roll. Wet a cotton wool ball and place on top, ensuring there is a gap between the
cotton wool and the top of the container. Then sprinkle some cress seeds onto the cotton
wool ball. Place the pots in a warm sunny spot and wait for the cress to grow!
Encourage children to predict what will happen to the seeds. How high do they think they
will grow? Observe the pots each day to see what changes are occurring.
Once grown, the cress can be picked, washed and used in sandwiches. You could also place
some different seeds on a sheet of wet kitchen roll and watch them grow. This is a good way
of enabling children to see the roots that seeds produce. They can then be placed in soil
afterwards, to continue their growth. The children can help to look after them.
Activity 3: From tiny seeds…
Phase B

1.26b The joy and satisfaction of experiencing and learning something new

2.9b Using language to discuss the past and present and to make predictions about
future events
activities
Once Upon a Time

2.32b Creating a sequenced account and reading it
2.34b Writing and spelling some common words within simple sentences
2.58b Collecting simple data and representing pictorially
2.59b Sequencing the passage of time in relation to familiar routines and significant
events
2.61b Comparing and ordering length and height
2.62b Exploring how to measure length and height in practical contexts
2.79b Using the styles of selected artists to inspire drawings and artwork

3.7b Asking questions, experimenting with ideas and finding out about the wider world
Once Upon a Time

3.16b Planning investigations involving nature; researching, making predictions and
drawing conclusions
3.18b Representing the environment through maps, plans, drawings, photographs and
diagrams
3.21b Exploring the needs of growing things
Explore: Phase B
Prior to the session, assemble a varied collection of vegetable seeds.
Set up tables, each with their own collection of different seeds. Have an adult assisting at
each table. Begin by encouraging the children to explore the seeds. What do they think they
are? Do they all look the same? What will they grow into? Prompt the children to handle the
seeds and view them using a hands lenses. Can they describe the colours, shapes, textures
and patterns? Is there any way of sorting the seeds into different groups?
Explain that these are all seeds from vegetable plants. The seeds grow into new plants, which
then produce vegetables that we can eat. If you have a vegetable garden at or near your
setting, the children can view examples. Talk about how some vegetables grow underneath
the soil (like turnips and carrots), and some grow above the soil, like beans and cabbages.
Explain that the turnip in the story, ‘The Enormous Turnip’, would have started as a tiny seed
in the ground. Have images available of seed pods and vegetable plants for children to view
and discuss.
Show the children the packets that the seeds came in. Explore the seeds for each type of
vegetable. Do the biggest seeds grow the biggest type of vegetable? Do the seeds share a
similar colour with their vegetable or are they different? You might want to have some real
examples of each vegetable for children to view and handle.
Ask the children to consider why plants might need to make seeds. Without them, there
wouldn’t be more plants. Seeds are very important – but not every seed that is produced will
get a chance to grow into a plant…
If possible, share the picture book The Tiny Seed, by Eric Carle, Puffin, 1997. In the story, we
follow a group of seeds as they are carried by the wind across a varied landscape. The tiny
seed is able to avoid all the various hazards and grows into the tallest, biggest flower for
miles around.
Afterwards, discuss all the various hazards that the seeds faced on their journey to becoming
a plant. Did they predict that the tiny seed would be safe and grow into a big, tall flower?
Provide art materials and seeds for children to create their own picture, based on the story,
The Tiny Seed. Children can start by creating the landscape that their seeds will be flying
over (perhaps the farmer’s house from ‘The Enormous Turnip’), and then glue the seeds on
afterwards, floating along on the wind.
Once Upon a Time
As an alternative to painting or drawing a scene, children could use a digital camera to take a
photograph for their background. These can then be enlarged and printed out for the children
to collage their seeds and other decorations onto (such as leaves and twigs).
Express: Phase B
Ask the children how they might make their seeds grow. Explore the children’s ideas, offering
prompts as necessary. You may decide to plant some seeds in your setting’s garden (if
available), which will give children opportunity to experience choosing location, predicting
the size and space that plants will need, and using tools to help them plant the seeds in the
soil.
You can also plant various seeds in pots, which the children can look after and observe.
Lettuce, carrots and radishes are ideal as they are quick growing. Children could also
experiment by planting seeds in the dark, in the light, with water, without water, etc. and
compare results over time.
Children can keep diaries of their observations once the seeds are planted. These could be
a combination of photographs, drawings and emergent writing. Encourage children to make
predictions about what changes will occur – and how high their plants might grow.
The activity also encourages children to develop their understanding of time – as each entry
in their diary can have the day and/or week recorded.
Once the plants have outgrown their pots, they can be replanted in your setting’s garden (if
available), or taken home by the children to plant in their own gardens. Children can then
continue to record and share observations – and may eventually have their own vegetables
they can show everyone!
As a follow-up activity, children could be taken on a nature walk to observe and record the
types of plants and trees they can see. Discuss what types of seeds they may have grown
from. It may even be possible to collect examples of seeds – such as acorns, chestnuts, maple
seeds, pine cones, etc. Children can perform additional research by searching on the internet
or using information books to find out more about the plants, trees and seeds they have
explored. This information, and any real examples of seeds the children may have collected,
could be used as the starting point for a story, similar to The Tiny Seed or ‘The Enormous
Turnip’.
Once Upon a Time
Activity 4: Soup, glorious soup!
Phase A

1.26a The pleasure and delight of gaining new experiences

songs and rhymes
language activities
Once Upon a Time
creative activities

Explore: Phase A
If possible, set up an area of your setting to become your farmer’s kitchen. As well as
including role-play kitchen equipment, such as cookers, microwaves, cooking pots, bowls and
cutlery, you can also include examples of play food (ideally vegetables) that the children can
incorporate in their play. The area could also have a table covered with a table cloth, which
the children can imagine is the farmer’s dinner table.
Explain to the children that the farmer has been very busy in his fields. As well as an
‘enormous turnip’ he has also dug up and picked lots of other vegetables, which could all go
into a tasty, delicious soup!
Encourage the children to use the play equipment to pretend to make their soup. If you
don’t have suitable play food available, provide playdough for children to sculpt their own
vegetables. This is a good opportunity to recap the size, shape and colours of the different
vegetables that you have explored. Once the vegetables are made, children can use safety
knives to slice the playdough into pieces that they can add to their cooking pot. Support
the children in their role play, prompting and guiding them through the steps of making
their soup – from chopping up the vegetables, adding them to the bowl, stirring the soup,
sprinkling salt and pepper, tasting it to check that it is tasty, before finally serving the soup in
bowls. Children can then sit around the table and pretend to eat the soup.
Afterwards, gather the children together on the carpet. Sit in a circle around a large bowl
that you can imagine is your cooking pot. Sing the following song as you stir the imaginary
contents of the pot:
Once Upon a Time
(Sung to the rhythm of ‘Row, Row, Row Your Boat’)

Stir, stir, stir the bowl
We’re having so much fun
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily
There’s soup for everyone!
Invite the first child in the circle to choose a vegetable to add to the soup. For your first
attempt, you might want to have picture cards that the children can choose. After this
addition, repeat the song, encouraging children to name a vegetable from memory.
Once a child has chosen a vegetable, they can pretend to add it to your cooking pot. Give
them the spoon, and sing the verse again, encouraging the child to stir the bowl. Then,
choose the next child in the circle, and so on, until everyone has chosen a vegetable (children
can choose the same one if you like) and had a stir of the bowl.
If you wish, you could end the session by providing children with circles cut from card. They
can imagine the circles are their soup bowls. They can then use art and collage materials to
create their own imaginary soup inside the bowl.
Express: Phase A
Involve the children in making your own vegetable soup, which the children can enjoy
tasting. If you wish, you could provide the ingredients yourself or have children each bring
one or two ingredients to contribute towards the soup.
The number of ingredients will vary depending on the size of your class, but the following
provides a rough guideline for 6–8 children:
onions
2
potatoes
2
carrots
5
sticks of celery
4
cabbage
1
cup of peas
1
teaspoon of salt
½
teaspoon of black pepper
½
cups of broth or stock (chicken or vegetable)
4

Rosemary

Thyme
Once Upon a Time
The types of fresh ingredients you include will depend on what is available at the time
of year. Tinned alternatives could also be used. You might also want to include broccoli,
sweetcorn, peppers, swede, parsnips, zucchini and/or green beans. Whilst tomatoes are a
fruit rather than a vegetable, they can make a welcome addition to your soup, adding some
sweetness and colour.
Note: with any teaching that involves food, food preparation and tasting, it is vitally
important that you are aware of any food allergies in your class. Before you begin this
session, be sure to find out from each child’s family if they have any specific allergies or
dietary concerns, and make their family aware of any food items the children will have access
to.
It may be appropriate for children to initially observe you as you prepare the ingredients.
Explain what you are doing as you demonstrate the different techniques, such as chopping,
slicing and peeling. Children can then join in by handling the vegetables and using child-safe
utensils for washing and preparing some vegetables if appropriate. Use this opportunity to
talk about staying safe in the kitchen and the dangers of handling equipment and tools that
can cause harm. Always follow your setting’s policy for health and safety. Involve the children
in counting, naming and describing each ingredient.
Ensure that children are not exposed to the heat and are at a safe distance, before
adding some oil to a pan to gently sauté the onions. Add the other ingredients and fry
for approximately 5 minutes. Transfer the mixture into a pot and add the stock/broth and
seasoning. Leave to simmer until the vegetables are cooked (approx. 15–20 minutes). Allow
time for the soup to cool a little before spooning into bowls for the children to taste.
While waiting for the soup to cook, provide some cuts of different vegetables and a selection
of paints for the children to print their own vegetable patch pictures. Children may enjoy
creating repeating patterns by using several colours and vegetable shapes.
Activity 4: Soup, glorious soup!
Phase B

responsibilities
Once Upon a Time

word groups
activities
2.66b Exploring how to measure capacity in practical contexts

4.4b Healthy eating, sleeping and choices
Explore: Phase B
As with Explore: Phase A, set up an area of your setting to become your farmer’s kitchen.
Include role-play equipment, such as cookers, microwaves, cooking pots, bowls and cutlery, as
well as any examples of play food (ideally vegetables) you might have, which the children can
incorporate in their play. The area could also have a table covered with a table cloth, which
the children can imagine is the farmer’s dinner table. Encourage the children to lay the table
with spoons, dishes, cups and plates for a given number of guests.
Once Upon a Time
Explain to the children that the farmer has been very busy in his fields. As well as an
‘enormous turnip’ he has also dug up and picked lots of other vegetables, all of which could
all go into a tasty, delicious soup!
Encourage the children to use the play equipment to pretend to make their soup. If you don’t
have suitable play food available, then provide playdough for children to sculpt their own
vegetables. This is a good opportunity to recap the size, shape and colours of the different
vegetables you have explored. Once the vegetables are made, children can use safety knives
to slice the playdough into pieces that they can add to their cooking pot. Support the children
in their role play, prompting and guiding them through the steps of making their soup – from
chopping up the vegetables, adding them to the bowl, stirring the soup, sprinkling salt and
pepper, tasting it to check that it is tasty, then finally serving the soup in bowls. Children can
then sit around the table and pretend to eat the soup.
Afterwards, gather the children together on the carpet. Sit in a circle around a large bowl,
that you can imagine is your cooking pot. Ask the children to imagine that they are going to
create a very special soup that will do amazing things when eaten – just like the enormous
turnip was special and amazing. What might our imaginary soup do if we eat it? Explore the
children’s ideas. Offer prompts if necessary, such as imagining that it will make everyone grow
very tall, or even shrink everyone to the size of a mouse! Perhaps it might turn everyone into
a turnip! Enjoy exploring all the fun and interesting ideas that the children have.
Choose some appropriate examples, which can be developed into a word game. Instead of
adding vegetables to the soup, the children will be adding words linked to their special and
amazing power. For example, if you have decided that your soup will turn everyone big, then
ask children to think of as many words as they can that can be used to describe ‘big’ or that
they associate with the word (giant, huge, dinosaur, house, mountain, tall, bigger, biggest,
gigantic, grown-up, etc.). If you wish, you could move around the circle, with each child
offering a suggestion. Scribe their word onto a card, and then invite them to add it to the
bowl. Sing the following verse, as the child pretends to stir the bowl:
(Sung to the rhythm of ‘Row, Row, Row Your Boat’)
Stir, stir, stir the bowl
We’re having so much fun
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily
There’s soup for everyone!
Continue until you run out of ideas. Then have everyone pretend to taste the soup. Imagine
you are now all big and tall – taller than your building. What might you do next? Explore the
children’s ideas.
Repeat the game, perhaps by exploring words the children associate with small (to make
a shrinking soup) or words to describe a turnip (to make a soup that turns everyone into a
turnip!).
Children could use the words and ideas you have explored as a stimulus for their own
storytelling, perhaps creating their own sequel to ‘The Enormous Turnip’, entitled ‘The
Amazing Soup!’.
Once Upon a Time
Express: Phase B
Involve the children in making your own vegetable soup, which the children can enjoy
tasting. If you wish, you could provide the ingredients yourself, or you could ask children
each bring one or two ingredients to contribute towards the soup. See Express: Phase A for
suggested ingredients and recipe.
Children can help to prepare the ingredients using safety knives and peelers. Provide plenty
of adult assistance to supervise and help the children. Discuss the different techniques for
preparing the vegetables, such as chopping, slicing and peeling.
Once the vegetables are prepared, an adult can then proceed with the cooking of the soup
(see Express: Phase A). Allow time for the soup to cool a little, before spooning into bowls for
the children to taste. You may want to link this activity to a discussion of food groups and
healthy eating.
Note: with any teaching that involves food, food preparation and tasting, it is vitally
important that you are aware of any food allergies in your class. Before you begin this
session, be sure to find out from each child’s family if they have any specific allergies or
dietary concerns and make their family aware of any food items the children will have access
to.
If you wish, you could extend the session, by having children make their own gloopy soup art.
Provide large circles of card to represent a bowl or cooking pot. Using art and craft materials,
children can create their own textured ‘soup’ mixture. You may even want to provide some
cuts of different vegetables that the children can use to print with.
Once children have created their art, show the children how they can use plastic wrap (also
known as Clingfilm, used for wrapping around food) to cover their picture and give it a shiny,
gloopy texture!
Take a sheet of plastic wrap and stretch over the image. Use fingers to scrunch up the wrap,
to make dips and ridges. You could even cut and add further layers in different parts, to build
up the effect. You can even do this when the paint is still wet, and use fingers to move the
paint around underneath the wrap. Finally, trim any excess wrap from the image or fold over.
Then the children will be left with a shiny, gloopy textured soup – ideal for the cover of their
book!
Once Upon a Time

The Three Billy Goats Gruff

experiences:
Children can use their story mats and plastic animals to retell the story (see Activity 1).
Supplement this play by providing construction kits and bricks for children to build their
own bridges, and one or two musical instruments (such as drums or homemade shakers) that
children can use for the ‘trip-trap, trip-trap’ beat of the goats’ hooves on the bridge.
Provide two different images each day of contrasting landscapes. Encourage children to
explore the features of each of the environments. These can then be placed side by side, with
a bridge spanning the space between the two. Children can then use these two landscapes
to create their own stories with a similar structure to ‘The Three Billy Goats Gruff’, where
someone wants to cross from one side to the other. Explore their motivations for wanting to
cross and what obstacles they might face on the bridge. Will there be a hungry troll looking
to stop them?
Have a water tray that children can pretend is their troll’s river. Provide pebbles and rocks,
and other materials for the children to explore. Can they use their materials to make stepping
stones or a bridge across their river? Use cups, tubes, watering cans and other play equipment
to explore the movement of water and the patterns that can be made. Explore what happens
when you add food colouring to the water, or other liquids such as cooking oil and washing-
up liquid. Create your own magical rivers and take photographs or marble prints, or use small
world figures to tell your own stories.

Learning Block are:

Adaptability

Communication

Cooperation

Enquiry

Morality
Once Upon a Time

Resilience

Respect

Thoughtfulness

Learning Block is:




Imagine the troll is still feeling hungry because he was unable to trap and catch any of the
goats – what might he eat instead? Encourage children to invent their own imaginative
dishes for the troll, such as mud cake, river-weed stew, pebble pie, worm spaghetti, and so
on. Children could draw, paint or collage their dish ideas onto circles of paper, imagining
they are the troll’s plate. Alternatively, children could make a menu for a troll restaurant or a
recipe book for trolls. Explore new vocabulary for describing and naming each new dish that
children create.
Using your story mats or the contrasting landscapes display (see Suggestions for continuous
provision and play experiences), practise counting by having different numbers of objects (e.g.
counters, small world toys, etc.) on each side. Count objects as they cross the bridge and
explore the changing number of objects in each group by counting ‘how many altogether’.
Explore halving by taking a total and sharing it between the two sides, or doubling by making
two even groups. Explore simple subtraction by imagining that the troll ‘eats’ an object as it
crosses the bridge. Ask how many objects you have left after one or more has been eaten by
the hungry troll!

Create a variety of ‘bridges’ using PE equipment, such as mats, hoops, balance beams, etc.
Encourage children to explore moving across the equipment in different ways. Invite them
to imagine they are characters from the story, such as the troll or the little goat. How would
these characters move across the bridges?
Once Upon a Time
Give children blue streamers, ribbons or scarves, and encourage them to imagine that they
are the fast-flowing river. Explore different flowing movements. Create a ‘river bed’ of mats
and hoops to represent stones and rocks, for the children to move and dance in between.
questions:
Are
learning experiences developmentally-appropriate – do children need to revisit Phase A
Are
learning activities or extend to Phase B learning activities?
Is
Is
Is

Once Upon a Time

Activities
Activity 1: The grass is greener…
Phase A

1.11a Being empathic and sensitive towards others

2.1a Using gesture and body movement to communicate
songs and rhymes
language activities
Once Upon a Time

2.55a Exploring size and shape in everyday objects in the environment
2.76a Exploring how colour and texture can be changed
2.79a Using illustrations to inspire drawings and artwork

3.19a Exploring young and old animals
3.20a Exploring wildlife, domestic animals, birds, sea-life, insects and other life forms that
are of interest
Once Upon a Time
Explore: Phase A
Begin your session by setting up some simple games and experiences to help reinforce an
understanding of size and related vocabulary, such as small, bigger and biggest:

Everything in order – provide different objects in groups of three, such as toys, clothing,
tools, 2D and 3D shapes, fruits and/or vegetables and so on, and challenge children to
put them in size order, by choosing the smallest, then the one that is bigger, and finally
the object that is the biggest. Take an object away, and introduce a new one. Which is the
smallest, bigger and biggest now?

Can you find…? – give children a challenge, to find something that is the same size, smaller
or bigger than an object you have given them. For example, you might give them an object
such as a book or a pencil, and then challenge them to find something in your setting that
is the same size, smaller or bigger.

Dress me – have three dolls of different sizes, with a selection of clothes that are suitable
for each. Begin by sorting the dolls into smallest, bigger and biggest. Then ask the children
if they can help you to dress the dolls by choosing the right size of clothing to fit each doll.
me out – provide children with three different sized shape cutters and some rolled-out
Cut
playdough. Encourage children to practise using the cutters to create shapes out of the
playdough. Then order the shapes into smallest, bigger and biggest.
Afterwards, gather the children on the carpet. Explain that you are going to share a story.
old
Reveal the title and/or cover of the book, ‘The Three Billy Goats Gruff’. If possible, use plastic
new
old
toys or picture cards to represent the goats. Explain that in the story, there is going to be a
new
small goat, a bigger goat and a biggest goat. Count the goats – one, two, three. There is also
old
going to be another character in the story, called a troll. He is big and mean, and grumpy –
new
old
and likes to eat tasty goats for his supper. He is even bigger than the biggest goat. What shall
new
we use for our troll? Have some dolls, puppets, small world toys, or picture cards of troll-
like characters (such as Shrek from the popular DreamWorks animation) in different sizes.
Encourage the children to pick one that they think is a good size to represent their troll.
Share the story of ‘The Three Billy Goats Gruff’. There are several versions available online and
in picture book format. Some examples include:
The Three Billy Goats Gruff: Ladybird First Favourite Tales, by Irene Yates, Ladybird, 2011
The Three Billy Goats Gruff (My First Fairy Tales), by Mara Alperin, Little Tiger Press, 2014
The Three Billy Goats Gruff, by Stephen Carpenter, HarperCollins, 1998
The Three Billy Goats Gruff (in a variety of bilingual editions), by Henriette Barkow, Mantra
Lingua, 2007
Once Upon a Time
Youtube.com/watch?v=f4kdZTnizG4
YouTube hosts this excellent animated version of ‘The Three Billy Goats Gruff’, narrated by
Hollywood actor, Richard E Grant.
Youtube.com/watch?v=OO-5KgcfHmI
YouTube hosts this reading of ‘The Three Billy Goats Gruff’, produced by the publisher
Mantra Lingua.
As you share the story for the first time, use your toys and models to help act out the
characters. Children can use these to show the goats ‘trip-trapping’ across the bridge, and for
when the grumpy troll appears from beneath the bridge. Encourage the children to join in
with the repetition of the story and explore the illustrations. For example, you could compare
the dry brown land where the goats live and the green land across the bridge, where there
is lots of grass. Also, explore any differences in the way the three goats are illustrated – for
example, colour of their hair, size of horns, and so on. These details will differ depending on
the version of the story you are sharing.
Afterwards, ask the children to imagine how the goats might have felt crossing the bridge
and meeting the troll. Do they think that the goats were very brave to cross the bridge?
Consider the character of the troll. Do they think that the troll was sorry for what he did?
Revisit the story, this time encouraging confident children to take on the roles of the three
goats and the troll. The other children can help with the repetition from the story, such as
‘trip-trap, trip-trap’ and ‘who’s that trip-trapping over my bridge?’.
Express: Phase A
Children will be making their own play mat that can be used to retell the story of ‘The Three
Billy Goats Gruff’.
Either in pairs or in small groups with an adult, provide children with two large sheets of
paper divided by a strip of blue card, arranged to represent the setting for the story:
Once Upon a Time
Place some goat models/toys/images on one side to show where the goats begin the story.
Help the children to visualise the two sides of the river. Revisit your story to discuss the
colours that could be used to colour in each side. One side is dry and dusty, and has no grass
– and the other side is green and bright, and has lots of grass.
old Provide paints for the children to colour in each sheet of paper to represent the opposite
new
sides of the river. Invite children to choose their colours from a range of browns, greys,
oranges, greens and yellows. Children can then paint the sheets of paper in their chosen
colours. Encourage them to fill the entire space, moving their brush to the edges. Have some
different-sized sponges that children can dip in the paint and then use to print with. Children
could also be encouraged to sprinkle sand onto their paint to create a textured effect.
Once dry, an adult can tape the underside of the sheets together, to make one big play mat.
Provide a rectangle of brown or grey card to represent a bridge, and small world toys and
other accessories, that children can use to make up their own stories of ‘The Three Billy Goats
Gruff’.
The following website is a good source of resources to support children’s storytelling:
Twinkl.co.uk/resources/story-resources/traditional-tales/billy-goats-gruff
Twinkl is an online library of resources and activities, including picture cards, puppets and
role play masks for ‘The Three Billy Goats Gruff’.
Activity 1: The grass is greener…
Phase B

1.19b Recognising and interpreting feelings and emotions in others

Once Upon a Time
future events
activities
2.12b Identifying and using aspects of language such as rhyme, rhythm and alliteration in
a range of related activities
2.17b Stories and literature valued by other cultures

3.19 Exploring wildlife habitats
3.20b Exploring the needs of wild-life, domestic animals, birds, sea-life, insects and other
life forms that are of interest
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Explore: Phase B
Begin your session by recapping size and related vocabulary by challenging children to find
something that is the same size, smaller or bigger than an object you have given them. For
example, you might give them an object such as a book or a pencil, then challenge them to
find something in your setting that is the same size, smaller or bigger. Children could also
challenge each other.
Afterwards, gather the children on the carpet. Explain that you are going to share a story.
Reveal the title and/or cover of the book, ‘The Three Billy Goats Gruff’. Some of the children
may already be aware of the story and know a version of it. This presents a good opportunity
to talk about how the same story can be told by different writers – called authors – and they
sometimes change the story a little. Share the name of the author of your own version of
the story (if known) and also introduce the illustrator. Demonstrate where the author’s and
illustrator’s names can be found.
Explain that in the story, there is going to be a small goat, a bigger goat and a biggest goat.
Invite the children to share any pre-existing knowledge they might have about goats or
assumptions about what they might eat and where they would live.
There is also going to be another character in the story, called a troll. Encourage the children
to think about what the troll might look like and how they might behave. Do they think the
troll will be big – bigger than the biggest goat? Encourage children to show you how they
think a troll might move and act.
Share the story of ‘The Three Billy Goats Gruff’. There are several versions available online and
in picture book format. See Explore: Phase A for examples.
As you share the story for the first time, encourage the children to join in with the repetition
of the story. For example, children can tap fingers on the floor for the ‘trip-trap’ of the goat’s
hooves. Use deep voices for the troll’s ‘who’s that trip-trapping over my bridge?’ line.
Explore the illustrations. Compare the dry brown land where the goats live and the green
land across the bridge, where there is lots of grass. Also, explore any differences in the way
the three goats are illustrated – for example, colour of their hair, size of horns, and so on.
These details will differ depending on the version of the story you are sharing.
As the story progresses, prompt the children to think about the characters and make
predictions about what might happen next. For example:

What do we think will happen to the little goat (and the medium goat, and the biggest
goat) as it crosses the bridge?

How might the troll be feeling at the end of the story? Do we feel sorry for him?

What words would we use to describe the goats? (e.g. brave, clever, determined, hungry,
thin, hairy, etc.)
we think the goats could have made friends with the troll? How might they have gone
Do
about doing that?
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old
If you wish, you could explore a second version of the story, ideally choosing a version in a
new
different format (e.g. an animation). Explore any similarities and differences in the story, and
the way the characters are drawn. Which version did the children prefer?
Afterwards, explain that the story is very old – and was first told in a country called Norway.
Use maps and globes to find your host country and then Norway. Compare the distance and
location with some of the children’s different home countries.
Look at some images of Norway and talk about the physical features of the landscape (such
as mountains, lakes and hills). Compare with the illustrations from the stories, and the
physical features of your local area/host country. Also view some images and video footage of
mountain goats, which live in steep rocky areas.
The following video gives an interesting insight into the extraordinary rock-climbing skills of
mountain goats:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZWxlxrIWus
YouTube hosts this short video clip showcasing the rock-climbing abilities of mountain
goats and the features of their habit.
As you explore the images and videos, discuss their features and habitat of mountain goats,
and compare with those in your stories.
Express: Phase B
Children will be making their own play mat that can be used to retell the story of ‘The Three
Billy Goats Gruff’.
Provide pairs or small groups with two large sheets of thin card – each of which will
represent one side of the river in the story. A third strip of paper/card will be used to create
the river itself, which will divide the two areas.
Provide art and craft materials for children to decorate each sheet to become their dry land,
grass land and the river. Use the story illustrations for reference to choose a colour palette for
each (earthy colours like oranges, greys and browns for the dry land, and more vibrant colours
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old new
such as greens and yellows for the grassy area). Children could also add collage materials,
such as pebbles, stones and sand, to add texture to their areas – and even create their own
hills for their goats to climb using playdough or papier-mâché. Flock, which is available from
most hobby and modelling stories, is great for sprinkling over wet paint or glue to add a grass
texture.
Once dry, an adult can tape the underside of the sheets together, to make one big play mat.
Provide a rectangle of brown or grey card to represent a bridge, and small world toys and
other accessories, that children can use to make up their own stories of ‘The Three Billy Goats
Gruff’.
The following website is a good source of resources to support children’s storytelling:
Alternatively, children could make their own goat and troll characters from playdough.
Activity 2: Building bridges
Phase A

1.14a Fair competition
1.20a Recognising situations that impact on feelings and emotions

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creative activities
2.61a Exploring length and height through play and practical activities
2.87a Exploring movement and dance through role play and imagination

are of interest

PHYSICAL WELL-BEING
4.9a Exploring movement including walking, running, kicking, skipping, climbing, rolling,
crawling, hopping, jumping, sliding, throwing, catching and swimming if appropriate
4.10a Developing gross motor skills using a range of equipment
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4.11a Developing confidence, control and coordination using small and large equipment
4.12a Playing games and using equipment independently, in pairs and with groups
4.13a Following instructions, copying and repeating actions
Explore: Phase A
Begin your session by recapping the story of ‘The Three Billy Goats Gruff’. As you share the
story, talk about the bridge and its purpose – to provide a safe path across the river to the
other side. Use the story illustrations (where appropriate) to emphasise positional vocabulary,
such as ‘on’, ‘over’, ‘under’ and ‘across’.
Provide the children with a selection of building bricks and construction sets, which the
children can use to build their own bridges. If you wish, children can perform this task using
their play mats from the previous session.
Prompt the children to explore different shapes when building their bridge. Instead of
creating a row of bricks, for example, suggest that they add more bricks to make steps that go
up and down. Can they make a space under their bridge for the troll?
Widen the river by using an extra strip of blue card, and then see what pieces the children
can use to bridge the two sides.
Use small world figures to retell the story, and encourage use of positional vocabulary
through questioning. For example:

Where is the troll? Is he on or under the bridge?

How many goats have crossed over the bridge?

Which goat is on the bridge now?

How many goats still need to cross over the bridge?
Explore making bridges for each of the goats – a small one, a bigger one and a biggest one.
Introduce some different materials, like cardboard rolls, sheets of paper and card, and other
junk materials that the children can experiment with. Test the bridges by placing a small
world figure on them. Which bridge is the strongest/weakest?
Express: Phase A
Gather the children in the hall or other area where there is plenty of space to move around.
Using skipping ropes, begin by marking out the two riverbanks, with the middle space acting
as your river. How might we cross to the other side of the river? Explore the children’s ideas.
Hopefully someone will suggest that you build a bridge!
Use PE mats to create a bridge that reaches from one bank to the other. Then, ask the
children to cross the bridge one by one. They could pretend to be the different goats from the
story. Start with the little goat and ask the children to move slowly and carefully ‘trip-tapping’
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across the bridge, being careful not to wake the troll. Once everyone is at the other side, you
can then pretend you are the bigger goat, crossing the bridge with more confident strides.
Finally, you can pretend to be the biggest goat, and stomp your way loudly across the bridge.
Next, you could play a game of mischievous trolls. Choose one or two confident children to be
the trolls. They can sit in the river, about a metre from the bridge. The other children are the
goats who must cross to the other side.
Give each of the trolls a large soft sponge ball. Their goal is to roll their ball when a goat
crosses the bridge, in an attempt to try and touch their legs. Make sure that the trolls are
careful to be gentle!
If the goat makes it across, they are safe. If they are touched by one of the balls, they can
swap places with the troll that caught them. Continue the game, with each goat taking a turn
to try and cross the bridge.
End your session by creating two more methods of crossing the river. These might include
hoops that make a pathway of stepping stones that the children can jump between, and
a pair of balance beams or benches that provide a narrower bridge. Play some music, and
encourage the children to move from one side to the other, choosing a different bridge each
time. They can move as one of the goats, choosing to be the smallest, bigger or biggest goat.
When you stop the music, everyone must freeze (as the troll has woken up!). Be as still and
quiet as possible so no one gets eaten! Then start the music again!
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Activity 2: Building bridges
Phase B

1.17b Overcoming challenges with increasing independence
1.18b Offering support to others when able to

activities
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2.55b The names of given 2D and 3D shapes
2.56b The mathematical language associated with 2D and 3D shapes
2.71b How computers are used in the environment and the language associated with
operating them
2.80b Freely experimenting with art and design and presenting ideas through artwork

3.8b Selecting materials to carry out simple investigations
3.12b Classifying and comparing natural and man-made materials
Explore: Phase B
Begin your session by recapping the story of ‘The Three Billy Goats Gruff’. As you share the
story, talk about the bridge and its purpose: to provide a safe path across the river to the
other side. Use the story illustrations (where appropriate) to emphasise positional vocabulary,
such as ‘on’, ‘over’, ‘under’ and ‘across’.
Ask the children if they have ever seen or used a bridge. Look together at images of different
bridges from around the world, including some from the host and children’s home countries.
You may also have a bridge in the local area that you could provide photographs of or view
together by using the 3D Street View in Google Earth (https://earth.google.com/).
Discuss with the children why they think the bridges were built – what are they crossing? (For
example, roads, valleys, rivers, canals, etc.) Who uses the bridge? Is it for cars, people, trains
etc.? Discuss the materials they are made from and consider why they need to be strong
materials. Have some examples that the children can handle and explore. You could also
discuss the different shapes and patterns that the children can see in the bridges.
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Provide the children with a selection of building bricks and construction sets, which the
children can use to build their own bridges. If you wish, children can perform this task using
their play mats from the previous session. Children can use small world toys and animals to
retell the story of ‘The Three Billy Goats Gruff’, using their bridges. Explore making bridges of
different sizes, including bridges that will have room for a troll to live underneath.
Once children have grown in confidence, provide variety of man-made and natural a building
materials for them to experiment with. These might include: lolly sticks, plastic boxes,
wooden blocks, cardboard rolls and drinking straws. Explore how these materials might be
combined to make bridges. If appropriate, encourage children to talk about the materials
they select and what they are made from. Try out balancing the materials, then using tape
and glue to secure them. Test the children’s designs by placing small world toys on top of
the bridge to see if it will support them. Can they make their bridge stronger so that it would
support a bigger toy?
Express: Phase B
Set up a more advanced challenge for the children. Place two table edges (or chairs)
approximately 60 centimetres (two feet) apart. Explain to the children that the tables
represent the land and the gap in between is a valley with a river flowing through it.
Provide a small ball that has some weight to it (such as a tennis ball), which the children can
imagine is their ‘goat’. Challenge children to design a bridge that will cross the gap and will
allow the ball to travel from one side to the other when given only a single push.
Children may wish to begin this challenge by drawing some of their ideas and identifying the
materials they would like to use. More confident children may be able to list their materials
either pictorially or through emergent writing.
Next, provide the children with some sticky tape, safety scissors and sheets of card in various
sizes, as well as any other materials that children have identified and are available. With adult
assistance, help the children to explore ideas for how they might make their bridge. As a
starting point, children could simply hold separate sheets of card next to each other, and then
roll the ball across them. But then present the next part of the challenge – can they get the
ball across the gap without anyone touching any part of the bridge?
Explore taping the sheets together and observe what happens. More than likely, the sheets
will sag in the middle due to the weight of the ball. How might we support the bridge and
make it stronger? Or are there other ways we can build it using the sheets of card?
Allow enough time for children to explore their own ideas, before you offer prompts. You
should also have your images of real bridges to hand, for the children to use for ideas. If
necessary, show the children how they can roll the sheets of card to make a cylinder. Tape
these together. Explore how the cylinders could be used to make a row of supports – or even
a pipe that the ball could run through, if it is made sturdy enough.
Once children have discovered how to roll the card to strengthen it, they should be on their
way to making a bridge that will carry the ball across the gap. The challenge will also provide
opportunity to discuss the IEYC Personal Goals and those that are important for this task.
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Take photographs of each stage of the children’s designs and exploration, to create a record
of their learning. The images could then be used by the children to create a sequenced
display, showing how their ideas and bridge-making skills evolved.
Activity 3: Trip-trap to the beat!
Phase A


songs and rhymes
language activities
Once Upon a Time

2.69a Using technology in practical activities
2.70a Using technology to perform simple functions
2.82a Singing songs, making sounds, exploring musical instruments and their sounds and
joining in musical activities
2.85a Exploring rhythm and beat by clapping, tapping, banging, stamping and moving
Explore: Phase A
Provide children with a selection of musical instruments for them to explore, with adult
assistance. Instruments might include tambourines, bells, maracas, claves, blocks, drums,
castanets, triangles, drums, guiro and cymbals. Allow time for children to explore the sounds that
each instrument can make, and how they are played. Reinforce vocabulary such as ‘hit’, ‘scrape’
and ‘shake’, when playing instruments. Encourage children to try different instruments and
compare the way they are played.
Explore making soft sounds with the instruments, imagining that the sound will represent the
little goat ‘trip-trapping’ across the bridge. Begin with individuals playing, showing how they can
make a soft sound with their instrument, before having everyone play their soft sounds together.
Use a toy, picture card or puppet for the small goat to show him walking across the bridge.
Next, explore a medium/slightly louder sound for the bigger goat. Again, begin with individuals
playing before playing as a group. Use your prop to show the bigger goat crossing the bridge.
Finally, explore making a loud sound for the biggest goat, stomping across the bridge.
Using your props, start again with the small goat – encouraging children to play their soft sounds
– and then progress to the bigger goat and the biggest goat, inviting the children to gradually
get louder as they play for each character.
Repeat the exercise, this time encouraging the children to play their instruments to the beat of
‘trip-trap, trip-trap’. Some children may find this challenging and need adult assistance to guide
them.
Repeat your sound story, using the props to show the goats crossing the bridge, with the children
accompanying their movement with their instruments.
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Express: Phase A
Gather the children together. Recap the soft, medium and loud sounds that you explored for
each of the goat characters. Encourage children to practise these as you hold up a picture, toy or
puppet of each of the goats.
Remind the children that there is a fourth character in the story – the hungry troll who lives
under the bridge. How might we represent him using our instruments? Perhaps he will be very
loud – louder than the biggest goat! Or perhaps you could use instruments that can be scraped,
such as guiros, to represent his nails/claws scraping against the bridge as he climbs up it.
Practise a sound for the troll, using appropriate instruments.
Explain that you are now going to share the story and the children will be helping to provide
the sound effects! Read your chosen version, stopping the story when each of the goats ‘trip-trap’
onto the bridge, so that the children can play their instruments – softly for the little goat, then
louder for each of the other goats. When the troll appears, children can add the chosen sound to
represent him. Continue through the story and then repeat a second time, so that children can
grow in confidence at joining in.
If you wish, you could extend your session by recording children playing instruments for each
character and saving these as a sound file on computer. When you next read the story, click on
the relevant sound file each time to listen. Alternatively, you could use Recordable Pegs, which
the children can hold and press at the relevant times.
Activity 3: Trip-trap to the beat!
Phase B

1.8b Demonstrating consideration in group situations
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2.1b Interpreting non-verbal messages and responding accordingly
word groups
activities
2.81b Experimenting making sounds and music in a wide range of activities
2.82b Expressing ideas, moods and feelings through songs, sounds, music and musical
instruments
Explore: Phase B
Provide children with a selection of musical instruments for them to explore, with adult
assistance. These might include tambourines, bells, maracas, claves, blocks, drums, castanets,
triangles, drums, guiro and cymbals. Allow time for children to explore the sounds that each
instrument can make, and how they are played. Reinforce vocabulary such as ‘hit’, ‘scrape’
and ‘shake’, when playing instruments. Encourage children to try different instruments and
compare the way they are played. Explore tempo (fast and slow) and dynamics (loud and
quiet).
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Explain to the children that they are now going to be matching sounds to the characters in
the story. Start with the small goat. Talk about whether he would make a quiet/soft sound
or a loud sound. Explore making soft sounds with the instruments, imagining that the
sound will represent the little goat ‘trip-trapping’ across the bridge. Begin with individuals
playing, showing how they can make a soft sound with their instrument. Then, have everyone
play their soft sounds together. Next, encourage the children to play together on a beat, by
repeating the chant ‘trip-trap, trip-trap’. Children can hit, scrape or shake their instrument on
each beat/word. It will take some practise for children to play softly and to the beat. Repeat a
few times, until children feel confident.
Next, explore a medium/slightly louder sound for the bigger goat. Again, begin with
individuals playing before playing as a group, using the chant to help children play in rhythm.
Finally, explore making a loud sound for the biggest goat, stomping across the bridge.
Afterwards, use picture cards of the goats as prompts. Repeat the chant ‘trip-trap’, and hold
up different cards to encourage children to change the sound they are making to match the
character. Start with the goats in sequence, beginning with the little goat, then the bigger
goat, and finally the biggest goat. Next, randomise the sequence, in order to encourage
children to pay attention and respond to the visual cue.
Once children are confident in matching their sounds to a beat, and altering the dynamics
for each goat, you could introduce tempo. The little goat is small and moves quickly. Speed
up your chant of ‘trip-trap, trip-trap’ and encourage the children to play their instruments
to match the quickened beat. Slow the beat for each of the other goats, so that the biggest
goat will have the slowest beat of all, with a longer pause between each ‘trip’ and ‘trap’ to
emphasise his loud and heavy hooves. Combine the chant with the picture cards to repeat the
sequence, using tempo and dynamics for each character.
Finally, consider the character of the troll. How might we use instruments to represent the
troll? Explore the children’s ideas. Perhaps they will decide their troll is very loud and slow,
and explore making these sounds with their instruments. Alternatively, they might imagine
him with sharp claws, scraping against the bridge as he climbs up it. For the latter, prompt
children to consider which instrument might best represent that (such as the guiro). Children
may also have other ideas. Encourage discussion and exploration of the instruments to match
the sounds that the children have invented for the troll, perhaps deciding on one or two that
best match the character.
If you wish, you could also develop a chant for the troll, by exploring words that might
describe him. For example, big, giant, scary, smelly, slimy, wet, green, etc. Choose two or three
to make a repeating chant, which the children can match their sounds to, playing on the beat
of each sound/syllable in the word.
Express: Phase B
Staying in their groups, revisit the story of ‘The Three Billy Goats Gruff’. As you tell the story,
introduce your chants for each of the goats (when they cross the bridge) and the troll (when
he appears), for the children to play their instruments to.
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Afterwards, discuss if there are any other moments in the story where we might add a sound
effect. Explore the children’s ideas. These might include, the goats eating the grass, the
biggest goat hitting the troll with his horns, the troll landing in the river with a splash, and so
on. Explore using instruments or voices to make relevant sounds for each.
Before you explore the story for a final time, consider choosing just two or three instruments
for each of the goats, rather than everyone playing all of them together. Decide which
instruments might best suit the character. For example, you could use shakers for the little
goat, scrapers for the bigger goat, and drums for the biggest goat. If you have explored other
old sounds, assign instruments and children to play these, such as cymbals for the clash of the
new
goat’s horns, or tambourines for the splash of the troll. Have a practise session, by holding up
cards of the characters from the story, so that children can get used to playing when it is their
turn and holding instruments still and quiet when it is not their turn.
Repeat the story, this time pointing to the relevant children at the appropriate time to play
their instruments. Continue through the story, creating your own ‘sound story’ to accompany
the narrative. Afterwards, discuss with the children if they thought their story with sounds
was a better version of the story.
You could extend this session by recording the children’s sound stories on computer, with
a child or adult reading the text. Children could also draw and scan their own pictures to
accompany this, or you could use story-sequence images from the following site:
An adult can then import these into presentation software, such as Microsoft Photo Story, so
that the images can be arranged into a slideshow to match the accompanying sound file. In
this way, you can create a digital book that the children can enjoy.
Activity 4: What a performance!
Phase A

Once Upon a Time

songs and rhymes
language activities
2.18a Using illustrations to tell stories
2.72a Storing and retrieving information using computers, tablets, cameras and other
forms of ICT
2.82a Singing songs, making sounds, exploring musical instruments and their sounds and
joining in musical activities
2.90a Exploring role play involving costumes and props
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Explore: Phase A
old new
In this session, children will be creating masks for the characters in ‘The Three Billy Goats
Gruff’ and then rehearsing a performance of the story that will include music and sound
effects.
old new
Begin by explaining to the children that they are going to be performing the story of ‘The
Three Billy Goats Gruff’, and that, to help them to get into character, they will be making
masks to wear. If you wish, children could make a goat mask and a troll mask, or choose one
to focus on.

Goat masks – there are a number of websites that provide free downloadable goat masks.
Provide these to the children in black-and-white, in order to allow them to colour and
decorate the masks themselves. The following websites provide good starting templates:
Twinkl.co.uk/resource/t-t-529-the-three-billy-goats-gruff-role-play-masks
Twinkl features a host of resources to support your exploration of the story, including
these role-play masks.
Maskspot.com/download/goat-mask/
The Mask Spot website features a colour and black-and-white goat mask.
It is possible to download the colour masks and use them as the starting point for creating
your own black-and-white versions by drawing around the basic shape, then adding your
own details. You could then have three different mask templates to choose from: one for
the small goat, one for the bigger goat and another for the biggest goat. Children can then
choose which goat they would like to be. Prepare these before the session, by gluing the
masks to thin card and then cutting them out.
Children can then use paints, crayons or other materials to colour their masks. Have some
versions of the story available so that children can refer to the illustrations for ideas.
Provide support as necessary.

Troll masks – provide the children with paper plates to decorate for their ‘troll’. You may
want to pre-cut eyeholes in the plates using a craft knife before the session (and ensure
that any knives are out of children’s reach before the session begins). Look together at
different illustrations of the troll and/or look at popular images of trolls from movies
and books, such as the character from the DreamWorks animated movie, Shrek. Use art
and collage materials to decorate the plates. Perhaps children could start by choosing or
mixing a suitable green for the skin, and then use collage materials like wool, string and
ribbon for hair. Ears could be cut out of card and then glued in place, as well as any other
features such as horns, beards, teeth and so on.
Children could also help you to decorate a ‘troll cave’ for your story. This could simply be
a large box (big enough for a child to crawl comfortably inside), painted grey or black and
draped with ‘weeds’, netting and other available materials that will make it feel like a wet,
slimy river cave. Alternatively, you could push a couple of tables together, and drape with
blankets. Children could then help with deciding what the troll might have inside his cave
– perhaps some plates and cutlery, as he likes eating, or maybe even a collection of nice
pebbles he might have found on the river bed. Explore the children’s ideas and work together
to make an interesting addition to your role-play area.
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Express: Phase A
Set up your performance area, with a bridge (which could be a bench or a row of PE mats),
blue blankets for the river and your troll cave (see above). An adult can narrate the story,
while children take on the roles of the three goats and the troll. Any remaining children can
provide a musical accompaniment, by playing their instrument when each goat goes ‘trip-
trapping’ across the bridge. You could also have some sound effects, such as the clash of
cymbals for when the goat hits the troll, and perhaps a cry of ‘splash’ followed by shakers and
tambourines, as the troll takes a bath in the river at the end!
Have an adult assist with the musicians, while another adult helps with the performers.
Begin with the three goats looking for grass on their dry side of the river, while the troll can
be sleeping in his cave. Then once the first goat attempts to cross the bridge, the troll can
be encouraged to wake and stomp out of his cave, demanding to know who is ‘trip-trapping
across the bridge!’. An adult can narrate and provide any speech for the characters, while the
children simply use body actions to represent the character. More confident children may be
able to join in the repetition of familiar lines.
Recap the story, and then encourage children to swap roles, so that everyone gets a chance
to play both a character and an instrument. An adult could photograph the story at different
stages, to make a record of your storytelling session. Show the children how the photos can
be viewed and printed out from a computer. These can then be mounted on card, for children
to sequence with an adult, to retell the story.
Activity 4: What a performance!
Phase B

1.4b Developing the interpersonal skills needed to form positive relationships
1.9b Reflecting on actions and consequences
1.11b Being respectful towards others
responsibilities
1.22b Recognising that the needs of others may be a priority
Once Upon a Time

activities
2.24b Expressing preferences in a range of fiction and non-fiction
2.81b Experimenting making sounds and music in a wide range of activities
2.90b Exploring characters, storylines and roles through drama activities involving
costume and props
Explore: Phase B
Explain to the children that you are going to be sharing a different story about goats, which
they might find similar to the story of ‘The Three Billy Goats Gruff’. Just like ‘The Three Billy
Goats Gruff’, it is a very old story – and one that has been told many times, in many ways and
in many different languages.
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Share the story of Aesop’s Fable, ‘Two Goats’ (also known as ‘Two Goats and a Bridge’). In the
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story, two goats meet on a bridge, determined to cross to the other side. Both are stubborn
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and neither will give way. In some versions of the story, they lock horns and fight, and end up
in the river. In other versions, one of the goats realises that giving in and being considerate is
the best course of action.
It is recommended that you watch the animated version (link below), as this has a beautiful
‘shadow puppet’ style approach, which the children could explore for their own retelling. If
this isn’t possible, there are a number of alternate versions. Some good examples include:
Youtube.com/watch?v=QjjRbq6RnMw
YouTube hosts this beautifully animated version of Aesop’s Fable, ‘Two Goats and a Bridge’.
Kidsgen.com/short_stories/two_goats.htm
The Kids Gen website features a simple variation of the story, ‘Two Goats and a Bridge’,
with a link to an alternative animated version of the story. (Note: this site does feature
advertising.)
Before you start the story, share the title of the story and ask the children to predict what they
think the story might be about. They may believe that there will be another troll involved!
Explore their ideas before sharing the story.
Afterwards, discuss what the story had in common with ‘The Three Billy Goats Gruff’. Both
stories feature goats, a bridge, a desire to cross to the other side of a river (or chasm), and
an obstacle that must be overcome. Instead of a troll, this time it is the stubbornness of the
goats that prevents them from crossing.
old Explain that the story was told by a man called Aesop. He liked to make up stories about
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animals, and used his stories to teach us important lessons. What lesson do the children think
he was trying to teach us in the story, ‘Two Goats and a Bridge’? Explore the children’s ideas.
Consider some real-life examples of when someone might be stubborn and not want to back
down. Link the theme of the story to the IEYPC Personal Goals of Morality, Cooperation and
Respect. Consider how Aesop’s lesson might be applied to your setting.
Express: Phase B
Remind the children that the story is a very old one, but has been told and retold many times,
in different ways. If you wish, you could share the original Aesop’s Fable and compare with
your modern version – which version do the children prefer?
Read.gov/aesop/013.html
The Library of Congress website features the original version of Aesop’s Fable, ‘Two Goats’.
Explain to the children that they are now going to be creating their own retelling of the story,
to continue the tradition of taking a story and sharing it in your own way.
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are a number of ways that children can approach their performance. Provide
suggestions and examples to help the children to choose. These might include:

Puppet theatre – children can create their own stick puppets and simple backdrops
with which to tell the story. The Twinkl website (Twinkl.co.uk) provides a great source of
examples (puppets, backgrounds etc.) that children could use as a starting point. Children
can then rehearse and perform their stories – perhaps covering a table with a black cloth,
and then having children kneel behind the table to perform with their puppets. Simple
props could be placed on the table itself (such as cut-out hills and a bridge), whilst a
backdrop could be attached to the wall behind them using sticky-tack.

Shadow puppets – the animated version of the story (see links above) uses a shadow
puppet technique to tell the story. If children are interested in copying this technique, allow
time for them to explore making shadows using cut out characters and torches. Simple
instructions for making a shadow puppet theatre can be viewed here:
Youtube.com/watch?v=-hL28SkHf1g
YouTube hosts this demonstration of how you can make a shadow puppet theatre, using
just a cardboard box and a sheet of tissue paper.
Have an adult assist in building the theatre, and then explore together how the story can
be retold, using characters and shapes.

Role-play performance – children can create masks for the two goat characters, and
use props to act out the story. (Explore: Phase A has links to online mask templates and
resources.) Set up an area for your story to represent the river (or chasm), the two areas
of land, and the bridge. This could be achieved using a combination of PE equipment
(e.g. benches and/or mats) and blankets. Re-explore the musical instruments that you
introduced in the previous session, and consider how these might be used to give sound
effects to the story. One child could play an instrument for each goat, while another
provides additional sound effects. Work with the children to help narrate and rehearse the
production.
Children could work as a whole class or in small groups to create their performance. Use this
opportunity to compare and contrast the different approaches to performing and retelling
stories.
Allow enough time for children to present their version of the story. Discuss any similarities
and differences, and the ways that props, puppets and other elements were used to add
interest to the story. Do the children have an overall favourite? Consider why it is important
to keep retelling stories and sharing them with new people – particularly if the story has a
lesson to it. Do they think Aesop would like their version of his story?
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experiences:
Provide a different assortment of race track pieces (see Activity 1) for children to explore each
day (or week). Give children track patterns that they can try to copy by placing their track
pieces in the correct positions to build the pattern:
Can you build...?
Children can use their completed tracks to retell their own stories of ‘The Tortoise and the
Hare’.
Provide trays of different materials, such as sand, rice, lentils, dried pasta, etc. Encourage
children to mark out their own race tracks, and then use small world animals to tell their own
stories.
Have an assortment of paints and plastic animals. Invite children to explore the patterns and
tracks that they can make by dipping the plastic animals in paint, and then walking or racing
them across sheets of paper.

Learning Block are:

Adaptability

Communication
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Cooperation

Enquiry

Morality

Resilience

Respect

Thoughtfulness

Learning Block is:



The characteristics of the kinds of children the school is helping to develop, and

Encourage the use of positional vocabulary and the language of instruction by telling stories
using small world animals and your race track pieces. Place animals in different places on the
track. Who is leading? Who is in front/behind? Who is next to the tree/stream/pond/etc.? Can
we move this animal so that it can catch up with the others? What instructions do we need to
give the animal so that it can find its way?
Provide children with a different assortment of 2D shapes each day to make a tortoise shell
pattern. Explore how shapes can fit together to make patterns. Present children with a pattern
that has already been started, and then challenge them to continue the pattern to fill your
sheet of paper.

Emphasise the pleasure and importance of being active, by having a ‘hasty hare warm up
session’ each morning. Use dance music or exercise videos for children to perform to. Talk
about how exercise is good for waking up our bodies and making us ready to learn.
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Some useful links include:

Wakeupshakeup.com/
Wake up! Shake up! provide their own course of activity DVDs and music CDs for
classroom exercise.
Gonoodle.com/
GoNoodle provides a free online library of short exercise and relaxation routines,
delivered by a cast of colourful animated characters. Ideal if you wish to incorporate your
interactive whiteboard into your routines and really engage the children.
Youtube.com/watch?v=O5ChXC-rHLE
YouTube hosts this demonstration of a 3–minute exercise routine to wake up our bodies.
You could also set up some age-appropriate challenges for children to attempt. These might
include:

Throwing/aiming (throwing beanbags into buckets/hoops)

Balancing (moving along a narrow beam)

Dribbling (controlling a ball with feet)

Shooting (aiming a ball between two posts, rolling or passing to a partner, etc.)

Hand-eye coordination (catching a ball)
Encourage children to practise their favourite challenges and be supportive of each other.
These challenges could be linked to the ‘going for gold’ achievements (see Activity 3).
questions:
Are
Are
Is
Is
Is

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Activities
Activity 1: Watch me go!
Phase A


songs and rhymes
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creative activities
2.88a Responding to a range of stimuli through movement and dance
2.89a Exploring movement and dance in the natural world

are of interest

PHYSICAL WELL-BEING
4.11a Developing confidence, control and coordination using small and large equipment
Explore: Phase A
Prior to your session, set up your classroom in preparation for the ‘Big Race’. You could create
a banner or sign that hangs across one wall, with bunting or paperchains going around the
other walls. When the children arrive, announce that they have been invited to a very special
event – a race!
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Ask the children if they have ever been in a race. Explore their responses, offering prompts
as necessary. Explain that, although the fastest person in a race is usually the winner, the
most important aspect is joining in, having fun and being a ‘good sport!’ Shall we meet the
characters who are taking part in the race?
Reveal a toy or picture card of the hare. You could have this in a box, that children can open.
Ask the children if they know what type of animal it is. Explain that a hare is similar to a
rabbit. Explore the features of the animal, such as the long ears, fur, long legs, etc. How do we
think a hare might move? Do we think they would be fast?
Reveal the next competitor – the tortoise. Again, ask the children if the recognise the animal.
Talk about its features, such as the shell, short legs, bumpy skin, etc. Do the children think
that the tortoise would be a fast animal? Explore their ideas.
Explain that you are going to be sharing a story, called ‘The Tortoise and the Hare’. In the
story, the two animals are going to have a race, to see who is the fastest. Ask the children
which animal they think will win the race.
Have some simple track pieces (e.g. cardboard tiles) that the children can use to help you
build a race track. Encourage the children to turn and position the pieces so that they make
one continuous track shape. You can then place the toys or picture cards on the starting line.
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The following site can provide images and other supporting resources:
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Twinkl.co.uk/resources/story-resources/story-books-aesops-fables/story-books-the-
tortoise-and-the-hare
Twinkl is an online library of resources and activities, which include sequencing cards,
puppets, colouring sheets and display banners.
Share your chosen version of the story with the children. There are a number of different
retellings of the original Aesop’s fable available online and in picture book format. Some
examples include:
The Orchard Book of Aesop’s Fables, by Michael Morpurgo, Orchard Books, 2014.
Aesop’s Fables: The Hare and the Tortoise, by Miles Kelly, Miles Kelly Publishing, 2016.
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Youtube.com/watch?v=SUngzUtFr7Q
YouTube hosts this simple animated version of the story, ‘The Tortoise and the Hare’.
As you share the story, children can move the toys or pictures of the characters around the
race course. Lie the hare on his side when he takes a nap, and move the tortoise towards the
finish line as he wins the race.
After sharing the story, ask the children if they were surprised that the tortoise won the race?
How was the tortoise able to win the race? Explore how the tortoise and hare might have
been feeling at the end of the story – sad, happy, etc.?
Express: Phase A
Gather the children in the hall or other area where there is plenty of space to move around.
Begin with a warm up session by asking the children to walk on the spot, and then walk
around the space. Encourage children to travel safely around each other and look for spaces.
Now, we are going to move very slowly. Demonstrate shuffling your feet as you move around
the space. Ask the children to imagine that they are now the tortoise, moving slowly around
the race course. Encourage them to pretend they have a big, heavy shell on their back (the
tortoise’s home). Do they think that they could stand up straight with the shell on their back,
or would it be easier to curl up like a tortoise to carry their shell in a crawling position? Use
small beanbags (or suitable alternatives) to represent a tortoise’s shell. Place one bean bag
on each child’s back as they crawl slowly around the room, encouraging them to imagine that
the beanbag is their precious and heavy ‘shell home’, and that they need to take great care
of it. Encourage children to describe the slow, careful movements the tortoise makes as he
moves across the ground. Ask children to imagine how the tortoise would move if it came
across an obstacle such as a rock – would he be able to climb over it, or would it be easier to
go around it?
Return to walking on the spot. Now, it’s time to become the hare. Shall we jump up and
down? Demonstrate this movement for the children to copy by jumping up and down on
the spot. If your setting has a child’s trampoline, it might be useful to use this as a way of
introducing ‘bouncy hare jumps’. Encourage children to think of words to describe how the
hare moves, for example, bouncy, springy, fast, quick, hopping, high, etc. Next, move around
the space, jumping with both feet, again encouraging safe movement and looking for spaces
to move into. Return to jumping on the spot, and then have everyone rest. Can the children
think of new words to describe how the hare moves? Encourage children to compare the
differences between how the tortoise and the hare move.
Explain that you are now going to share a song, and the children can join in with the
movements. Sing the following to the rhythm of ‘The Farmer in the Dell’:
The Tortoise and the Hare (walk on the spot)
Hi-ho, to race we go
The Tortoise and the Hare.
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The Hare jumps around (jump around the space)

The Hare jumps around
The Hare jumps around.
The Tortoise shuffles round (shuffle slowly around the space)
The Tortoise shuffles round
The Tortoise shuffles round.
The Hare runs around (run around the space)
The Hare runs around
The Hare runs around.
The Hare falls asleep (stop and rest head on hands)
The Hare falls asleep
The Hare falls asleep.
The Tortoise shuffles by (shuffle slowly around the space)
The Tortoise shuffles by
The Tortoise shuffles by.
The Tortoise wins the race – hooray! (Jump up with arms in the air)
The Tortoise wins the race – hooray!
Hi-ho, what a show
The Tortoise wins the race – hooray!
If you wish, you could play a further listen and respond game, where the children run or
hop around the space, imagining that they are the hare. When you call ‘sleep’, everyone must
stop moving and rest their head on their hands. When you call ‘awake’, everyone can move
again. You could also use lively music instead of verbal commands. When you stop the music,
everyone pretends to sleep, and then children are free to move when the music starts again.
End your session by winding down to some slower, more relaxing music. Model moving
gracefully to the music, matching your movements to the slower tempo. Finally, everyone can
pretend to fall asleep, just like the hare in the story.
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Activity 1: Watch me go!
Phase B

responsibilities

2.2b Using the language(s) of instruction and/or other languages (if appropriate)
future events
activities
2.19b Exploring different forms of print and following the conventions of text
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familiar words
2.28b Distinguishing differences and giving meaning to different marks and symbols
2.37b Sequencing and ordering numbers
2.38b Exploring written numerals
2.52b Counting and using money in a range of real-life and play contexts
2.58b Collecting simple data and representing pictorially
2.67b Operating and controlling toys, objects and devices that use switches, control
buttons, pulleys, levers, knobs and mechanisms to produce movement, sound, light
and actions
Explore: Phase B
Prior to your session, set up your classroom in preparation for the ‘Big Race’. You could create
a banner or sign that hangs across one wall, with bunting or paperchains going around the
other walls. When the children arrive, announce that they have been specially chosen to help
prepare the event.
Explain that this year there are two competitors – the Tortoise and the Hare. Display images
of the two competitors for the children to view (see link below for resources). Explore the
features of the two animals. Children may already be familiar with these animals. Discuss
which animal they think will the win the race.
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In small groups with adult assistance, set up some activities for children to explore, which
will help them to get everything ready for this special event. Activities might include:

Tickets and seating – decide together how many chairs you will need for your ‘stadium’
so that everyone in the class can have a seat and watch the race. Number these by taping
number cards to the back of each chair. Work together to put the chairs in sequential order.
Children can then make tickets using art materials, ensuring that there is a numbered
ticket for each chair.

Fan badges – provide black-and-white images of the Hare and Tortoise characters (see link
below for resources). Children can then choose the character that they wish to support and
colour them in using art materials. These can then be glued on a pre-made badge (card
with a safety pin taped to the reverse). Include a variety of shapes of badge for the children
to choose from. Children can then wear their badge to show who they are a fan of!

Build the race course – provide an assortment of tiles with different pathways drawn
onto them. Allow enough time for the children to explore the tiles and experiment with
different ways of putting them together to make an interesting race course.
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To make it more interesting, you might want to suggest that the race course has multiple
pathways, like a maze. Once children are happy with their course, they can make flags from
art materials to show the start and finish points.
The following site can provide images and other supporting resources:
include sequencing cards, puppets, colouring sheets and display banners.
Once your event is prepared, children can pretend to purchase tickets using play money, and
then take their assigned seat. Talk about the badges that the children have chosen to wear.
Count how many children are supporting the hare and how many are supporting the tortoise.
You might want to display this information using a simple pictogram.
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Share your chosen version of the story with the children. There are a number of different
retellings of the original Aesop’s fable available online and in picture book format. Some
examples include:
The Orchard Book of Aesop’s Fables, by Michael Morpurgo, Orchard Books, 2014.
Aesop’s Fables: The Hare and the Tortoise, by Miles Kelly, Miles Kelly Publishing, 2016.
Youtube.com/watch?v=SUngzUtFr7Q
YouTube hosts this simple animated version of the story, ‘The Tortoise and the Hare’.
As you share the story and the race begins, a child could place puppets, models or toys to
represent the hare and the tortoise on the starting line of your race course. These can then
be moved as the story progresses. Lie the hare on his side when he takes a nap, and move
the tortoise towards the finish line as he wins the race. Children can cheer on their chosen
character during the story, offering advice and encouragement.
After sharing the story, ask the children for their thoughts on the ending. Were they surprised
that the tortoise won the race? Which character do the children like the most? Did any of the
children change their opinion of who they wanted to support?
Explain that the very first telling of the story was told by a man called Aesop. The children
might remember him, as he also wrote the story of ‘The Two Goats’ (see Learning Block 2,
Activity 4). What do the two stories have in common? Discuss how both stories use animals as
characters and teach us an important lesson. These types of stories are called fables. Share
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lesson/moral of ‘The Tortoise and the Hare’ (slow and steady wins the race). Why might
being ‘slow and steady’ be a good thing? Explore the children’s ideas. Consider why the author
might have chosen a hare and a tortoise to teach us this lesson. Encourage children to think
about the IEYC Personal Goal ‘Morality’ (doing the right thing). Do they think the hare or the
tortoise demonstrated this or any other IEYC Personal Goal?
Express: Phase B
Set up the following play experiences for children to explore the theme further:

Stay on the path – challenge the children to guide a programmable toy along a race course
to reach the finish line. (Children could use the race course that they designed in the
Explore session.) If necessary, demonstrate giving the toy instructions to follow. You may
need to reinforce basic directional vocabulary first. The following action song is ideal for
practising left and right, and forward and back commands:
Youtube.com/watch?v=Vgyer0IauyQ
YouTube hosts this fun action song which teaches left, right, forward and back
commands.
Work together to give the toy commands to carefully guide it along the path to reach the
finish line. Once children grow in confidence, you could set up a timed competition to see
which team can guide the toy to the finish line in the quickest time.
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race to the finish – create a simple board game with counters for the hare and the
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tortoise, and a race course comprised of squares or circles. One player is the hare and the
other is the tortoise. The tortoise starts the race. Have a 1–3 dice for the tortoise player to
roll. They then move the number of spaces shown on the dice. Then the hare takes a turn.
The hare player rolls a 1–6 dice. If they roll a 1–3, they have decided to take a nap, so they
don’t move! If they roll a 4–6, they can move the number of spaces shown on the dice. Play
continues until one player crosses the finish line. Discuss with the children if they felt the
game was fair. Explore how the game could be made easier or harder for each competitor.
You could end your session by providing art and collage materials for children to create a
picture of their favourite scene from the story. Encourage children to add emergent writing to
their artwork to describe how the hare and the tortoise moved, or ask an adult to scribe for
less confident children. Use the children’s words to begin a word bank linked to the story, and
display it near an area where children can create their own stories about the hare and the
tortoise throughout this Learning Block.
Activity 2: Looking after Tortoise
Phase A


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2.43a Counting groups of objects
creative activities
2.78a Exploring art in the environment

3.8a Using materials to carry out simple investigations
3.11a Identifying patterns in the natural world
are of interest
3.22a How to take care of living things and the environment
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Explore: Phase A
Set up an assortment of play activities for the children to enjoy, which will help to teach
them more about the life of a tortoise. These might include:

Shell prints – have some images of tortoise shells for the children to look at. (Google
images will provide plenty of examples, which can be printed out (copyright permitting)
or viewed on a tablet device.) Encourage the children to talk about the colours that they
can see. Have sheets of paper and various objects that the children can print with, such
as cotton reels, corks, sponge, egg carton cups, different 2D shapes, and so on. Encourage
children to choose paints that are similar to those in the pictures (brown, yellow, orange,
black, etc.), and then explore printing their own tortoise shell patterns.

Build me a shell – as with the above, have images of tortoise shells for the children to
explore. Provide a range of different-sized 2D shapes, such as hexagons, triangles and
squares, and encourage the children to arrange these onto sheets of paper to make
different shell patterns. Explore overlapping them, placing them inside each other, as well
as placing them side-by-side, to create different effects.

Out of my shell – prior to the session, create a selection of turtles with different coloured
shells cut from round circles of card. Create a head shape that is attached to a tail (see
diagram below). To create a turtle, take two circles of card, glue the feet into position on
the bottom card, and then place glue around the edge, leaving a gap where the head and
tail piece will lie. Place the head and tail piece onto the bottom circle, and then glue the
two circles together.
The head piece can now be moved in and out of the shell by pulling or pushing on the
tail. Use your models for sorting and counting games. Children can begin by sorting them
based on the colour of their shell, and then count how many tortoises are in each group.
(How many have green shells?) Explain to the children that tortoises can pull their heads
into their shells. They do this to hide and when they want to go to sleep. Have a row of
tortoises. Pull some heads inside and leave some outside the shell. How many tortoises are
sleeping? How many are awake? Encourage children to gently push or pull on the tails to
make a given number of sleeping tortoises, and so on.
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Time to sleep – many tortoises like to go to sleep for the winter months. This is called
hibernation and they don’t like to wake up for many weeks – it is a very long sleep indeed,
and they prefer it if they are comfy and are not disturbed! Have a toy tortoise that the
children can make a comfy hibernation home for. Provide children with a box (for the
tortoise’s home) and a range of different materials, some suitable for bedding material
(e.g. tissue or kitchen roll, cotton wool, straw, etc.) and some that are unsuitable (e.g.
wood, cardboard, beads, pebbles, etc.). Help the children to explore and sort the materials
into soft and hard categories, and then decide which you will use to make a comfy
home. Children can place the chosen materials inside the box, arranging them to make
a comfortable bed. They can then place their tortoise inside and put the lid in place. You
might want an adult to make some holes in the lid or the sides of the box, so that the
children will know their tortoise can safely breathe!

Feeding tortoise – tortoises like to eat vegetables and fruit. They ar very healthy eaters!
Create a simple opening and closing tortoise head (see diagram below). Use this with
some green sheets of card, cut to resemble lettuce leaves (or you could use real lettuce).
Encourage children to put the lettuce in the tortoise’s mouth. Count how many leaves you
are feeding the tortoise. How many does he have in his mouth now?
Play a memory game. Spread out the leaves. While children close their eyes, place some
inside the tortoise’s mouth. When they open their eyes, children can be encouraged to
count how many leaves the tortoise has gobbled up while they weren’t looking! Remove
them from the tortoise’s mouth, and count to check answers.
Express: Phase A
Children can make their own tortoise model to decorate. Provide a paper plate for the shell
and pre-cut card for the head, tail and legs. Confident children may want to use the templates
to draw round and cut out their own, or cut them freehand.
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Provide the printing materials that the children experimented with in the Explore session, as
well as paint and collage materials. Have some images of tortoise shells and tortoise skin
available, so that children can look at them for ideas and inspiration.
Once the shells and the body parts are decorated, these can be glued to a bottom plate (with
the body parts glued in between the two plates, to make a completed tortoise model. The
children can then use their models to tell their own stories, or use for role play – perhaps
making their own comfy hibernation box to keep their tortoise snug and warm, while it sleeps
for the winter.
Activity 2: Looking after tortoise
Phase B


activities
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2.74b Using the senses to categorise materials and textures

3.20b Exploring the needs of wild-life, domestic animals, birds, sea-life, insects and other
life forms that are of interest
Explore: Phase B
Set up an assortment of play activities for the children to enjoy, which will help teach them
more about the life of a tortoise. As well the activity ideas provided in Explore: Phase A, you
may also want to include:

Shell match up – print off matching pairs of images showing tortoise shells from in the
internet (copyright permitting). A Google Images search will provide a wide range of
examples. Mount these onto squares of card. Begin by looking at the different cards. Can the
children tell what they are showing? Discuss the shapes and colours of the tortoise shells
and work together to match the cards into pairs. Next, play a memory game. Shuffle and
deal the cards face down in a grid. Children can turn two cards over at a time. If they match,
they can remove them from the grid. If they don’t match, both cards are turned back over.
Challenge the children to try and match all the cards by carefully comparing the shapes,
colours and patterns.

Lettuce pick up – as well as playing the ‘Feeding tortoise’ game (see Explore: Phase A),
children could also play the following, which will help develop fine motor control. Create
some pretend lettuce leaves out of card. You might want to curl the edges of these slightly
around a pencil so that they are not all flat, and will be easier for the children to try and pick
up. Provide children with clothes pegs or a folded piece of card, to act as the ‘mouth’ of their
tortoise. They then have to try and pick up as many of the lettuce leaves as they can and put
them in a dish. This could be a timed challenge, or children could compete in pairs to see
who can collect the most. Encourage fairness and cooperation when playing together and
use this opportunity to talk about which IEYC Personal Goals were used.
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Touch test – tortoise shells are made out of the same substance as our nails (keratin) and, as
children will discover by touching their nails, these have a sense of feeling just like the rest
of our bodies. This means that tortoises can feel through their shells. If you wish, you could
share this humorous video with the children, showing a tortoise enjoying being brushed by a
toothbrush! (Note: the music accompanying this video may be considered inappropriate for
young children, and therefore should be muted):
Youtube.com/watch?v=qWZRGZInJkw
YouTube hosts this amateur video footage showing a tortoise responding to the touch
of a toothbrush against its shell.
Talk about how the tortoise would not be able to see what is touching his shell, and
can only go on his sense of touch to decide what it is. Children can experience this for
themselves by being presented with a selection of simple everyday objects. Blindfold them
and gently brush or move one of the objects over the back of their hand. Can they guess
what object it is? If they find it difficult, allow them to feel the shape of the object with
their hand. Which method was easier? Repeat with further objects.
Express: Phase B
As with Express: Phase A, children can work individually on their own tortoise model. Provide
a wide range of materials for children to use for their model-making. As well as the paper
plate method (see Express: Phase A), children could also use different containers as the basis
for their shell, such as margarine pots or paper bowls. These could be covered with papier-
mâché, before children paint and decorate their shells. As an alternative, children could build
their own bumpy shell by cutting out the cups from an egg carton, and then gluing them onto
a paper plate/bowl.
Have images of tortoise shells and skin available for children to refer to as they decorate
their models. Some children may want to explore techniques for allowing their turtle head to
pop in and out of the shell – perhaps using a similar method as the one used for the ‘Out of
my shell’ activity (see Explore: Phase A).
The children can then use their completed models to tell their own stories, or use them for
roleplay – perhaps making their own comfy hibernation box to keep their tortoise snug and
warm while it sleeps for the winter.
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Activity 3: Going for gold
Phase A

1.1a Exploring personal identity
1.4a Developing positive friendships
1.8a Being considerate towards individuals
1.10a Exploring how actions can have positive and negative outcomes
1.12a Being treated fairly
1.17a Seeking help and support appropriately
1.19a Recognising and expressing personal feelings and emotions
1.22a Recognising that gratification is not always instant

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2.30a Developing and applying fine motor skill control within a range of relevant contexts
2.34a Exploring writing and spelling through games, play, art and digital means

3.3a Exploring similarities and differences in people
Explore: Phase A
In this session, you will be retelling the story of ‘The Tortoise and the Hare’ and exploring
the two main characters in more detail. It would be helpful to have soft toys to represent the
hare and the tortoise, to help the children to identify with the characters.
Begin by talking about feelings. Ask the children, who is feeling happy today? Invite children
to show you their happy face. Show the children some flash cards with illustrations or
photographs of people demonstrating their emotions, and ask the children if they can help
you to describe how the person might be feeling. Model a happy, sad, angry and excited face
for the children to copy. Practise holding up a card and saying the emotion, and encouraging
the children to show the emotion back to you.
Leave the cards displayed so that they can be referred to throughout the session. Next, reveal
your two toy characters (or you could use images instead). Do the children remember who
these characters are? What happened to them, can anyone remember? Support the children
as they share their ideas and encourage them to link emotions to events in the story.
Explain that you are going to be reading the story again, and this time we are going to ask
the characters questions and find out more about how they were feeling.
Begin reading your version of the story. As you reach certain points in the story, hold up
one or both of the toys for the children to interview. You may need to support children by
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modelling this, until the children have gained the confidence to ask their own questions. The
stages of the story you focus on and the questioning will differ depending on the version of
the story you are sharing, but what follows is a rough guideline:

The challenge is issued – the hare is always bragging and showing off about how fast he
is. Pause the story at this point. Have your tortoise toy whisper into your ear. Then reveal to
the children that he is feeling very sad. Ask the children why they think the tortoise might
be sad. Focus on the way the hare is always showing off and laughing at the tortoise for
being so slow. Prompt the children to think about what they could say to the tortoise to
cheer him up. Some children will remember the end of the story and might reassure the
tortoise that he will win the race. You could then have the tortoise whisper in your ear
again. Reveal that the tortoise is grateful for the kind words, but how could a slow tortoise
ever win the race? He is feeling very nervous. Ask the children if they have ever felt nervous
about doing something that they were unsure about. Give some of your own examples of
when you have felt nervous. Explain that it is okay to feel nervous. Often, we feel nervous if
we are doing something that is new and challenging.

The starting line – ask the children how we think the two characters might be feeling?
The hare toy could be jumping around with excitement. Help the children to explore the
feelings of the two characters. What words of encouragement might they give to each
character? Talk about how we can give praise and encouragement to each other, to help
give us confidence at doing new things. Encourage children to think about times when
someone has given them encouragement.

Left behind – the hare is a fast runner, and soon leaves the tortoise behind. How do
we think the two characters might be feeling now? The hare might whisper in your ear
that he is sure he will win, and that the challenge is too easy. Do the children agree?
How do they think the tortoise will be feeling at this point? Should we offer some more
encouragement?

Hare takes a break and the tortoise passes by – the hare whispers in your ear that he is
feeling a little bit tired and is going to take a nap. Lie him down on his side, to pretend
that he is asleep. Ask the children if they think the hare is right to take a break. What will
happen if he doesn’t wake up in time? Ask them if they have ever run anywhere and felt
hot, thirsty and tired? Sometimes taking a short break can be helpful if it means we can
catch our breath. Meanwhile, the tortoise is still plodding on. Have him whisper in your ear
that he believes you should never give up. Ask the children if they agree with him. Explore
any examples the children might have of times when they have started something, but
found it very difficult and wanted to give up. It might have been a physical activity, such as
riding a bike or swimming, or another activity, such as trying to learn a game or spell their
name. Prompt and support the children as they share their own experiences.

Tortoise wins the race – ask the children if they have any questions for the two characters
now that the race is over. You might want to provide one or two of your own, to help the
children gain confidence. These might include asking how they feel, whether they still
think they are the fastest/slowest racer, and what advice they would give to others who are
facing a difficult challenge.
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Afterwards, recap some of the themes you have explored – about being nervous and sticking
to a challenge, even if we don’t feel like it is easy. When we keep trying at something, we will
get better and eventually achieve our goals. You could link this to the IEYC Personal Goal of
Resilience.
Provide materials for the children to draw either the hare or the tortoise. Encourage children
to think of words to describe how their tortoise or hare is feeling. Confident children may like
to add words to their drawing using emergent writing, while others may require an adult to
scribe for them.
Express: Phase A
In small groups with an adult, discuss the idea of a goal – something that we want to achieve. In
the story, the goal was to win the race. Talk about the qualities that the Tortoise displayed to
achieve that goal, such as being resilient and brave. Ask the children if they have something
that they would like to be able to do. Offer suggestions, such as tying their own shoelaces,
writing their name, catching a ball, riding a bike, learning to swim, dressing themselves
independently, and so on. You might want to emphasise that it is okay to ask others for help,
such as an adult. Talk to the children about who they might ask for help in your setting, as
well as at home. Consider staff members and other children in the class, as well as family
members. If appropriate, use this opportunity to talk about staying safe when seeking help.
End the session by asking children to draw or paint a picture that shows them achieving
their chosen goal. Perhaps it is a skill such as kicking a football, swimming in a pool, riding a
bike, flying a kite, writing a story, and so on. Use this opportunity to talk about how everyone
can develop new skills – even teachers! Offer support and guidance as necessary, to enable
children to explore their idea fully and translate it into a picture.
Take a portrait photograph of each child. Then attach the photograph to their drawing/painting
using a length of ribbon. Children will then have their own reminder of their goal, with the
ribbon representing the ‘race course’ journey that they will go on to achieve their goal. If you
wish, you could use different-coloured ribbon for each child, and display these on a wall, so
that the children can follow the criss-crossing ribbons to match the child to their goal.
Portrait
Portrait
Portrait
Goal
Goal
Goal
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Your goal chart can be expanded by featuring photographs of the children working on their
goals. If a child is able to achieve a goal during the course of this unit, or make significant
progress, you could add some sparkly golden stars around their portrait and along their
ribbon. Be sure to remind the children that, like the tortoise, often it can take us a long time
to achieve our goal, but – if we keep trying and stay positive – eventually we can reach it.
Activity 3: Going for gold!
Phase B

1.1b Exploring what makes them unique
1.4b Developing the interpersonal skills needed to form positive relationships
1.11b Being respectful towards others
1.13b Exploring new interests and setting new goals
1.14b Developing a healthy mindset towards competition
1.25b Sharing feelings with others

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future events
activities

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4.5b Making safe choices and avoiding danger
4.6b How to seek help
Explore: Phase B
Begin your session by inviting the children to recap the story of ‘The Tortoise and the Hare’. If
you wish, you could provide story cards for the children to sequence and act as a prompt for
their retelling. These can be downloaded and printed from:
Twinkl is an online library of resources and activities, including story sequencing cards for
‘The Tortoise and the Hare’.
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Afterwards, explain to the children that you are going to become one of the characters in the
story, and that the children will have the opportunity to ask them questions. Demonstrate
that you are now in role by wearing an item of clothing. This might be a hat, scarf, a pair of
glasses, a headband with rabbit ears, and so on. You could also have some speech bubbles
available, displaying a question word in each one:

Why?

What?

When?

Where?

Who?

How?
Children can then refer to those during the interview session.
Explain that you are now the Hare.
Another adult can prompt the children to ask the hare questions. If children are finding this
task challenging, model some starting questions and encourage the children to develop them
further. These might include:

How are you feeling now the race is over?

Why did you decide to challenge the tortoise?

How do you think the tortoise felt to be called slow?
you think it was fair to challenge the tortoise to a race?
Do

Why did you decide to take a nap?

Where did you choose to take a nap?

Was taking a nap a good idea?
you think the tortoise deserved to win?
Do
How you choose to play the hare will depend on your own version of the story and how it
has been developed in your setting. Use this opportunity to further develop the ideas and
experiences children have talked about, in particular those linked to social and emotional
development. Perhaps the hare does not demonstrate the IEYC Personal Goals of Cooperation
and Respect, and has a hard time coming to terms with losing – or he could be sad and feel
that he has no friends, but wants to become a better person. Encourage children to think
of ways in which the hare might become a happier and friendlier person. Try and keep the
character consistent throughout the questioning.
Have a clear focus on how you want the questioning to develop by supporting, guiding and
prompting children when necessary.
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Afterwards, remove your costume accessories to signify that you are now the teacher again.
Ask the children to tell you what they have learned from asking questions to the hare. Do
they think he was a nice character? Has any of the children’s opinions of the hare changed?
Express: Phase B
In pairs or small groups with an adult, the children will be exploring the character of the
tortoise. Begin by revisiting the story and talking about how the tortoise might have felt at
various stages in the story (you could use the prompts from Explore: Phase A) as a guide. Link
your discussion of the tortoise to the personal goal of Resilience, and to the theme of having
a goal and not giving up – even when things become tricky and challenging.
Then, invite one of the children to become the tortoise. They could use a prop to signify
that they are in character, such as a scarf, a pair of glasses, or a blanket worn as a cape to
represent their shell. The other children in the group can then ask questions.
To help the child get into character, suggest that this is the moment when they have won the
race and are feeling happy to have achieved their goal.
Again, an adult may need to provide support and guidance to ensure questions are relevant
and linked to the story. Once children have had some practise, you can swap roles – allowing
another child to become the tortoise and answer questions. Encourage the child playing the
tortoise to try and stay in character and answer as they think the tortoise would.
Afterwards, gather the children together. Choose a confident volunteer who performed well
during the group session to play the tortoise, and to answer questions from the whole class.
End your session, by discussing the idea of a goal – something that we want to achieve. In
the story, the goal was to win the race. Talk about the qualities that the tortoise displayed to
achieve that goal, such as being resilient and brave. Ask the children if they have something
that they would like to be able to do. Offer suggestions, such as tying their own shoelaces,
writing their name, catching a ball, riding a bike, learning to swim, and so on. You might want
to emphasise that it is okay to ask others for help, such as an adult. Talk to the children about
who they might ask for help in your setting, as well as at home. Consider staff members and
other children in the class, as well as family members. If appropriate, use this opportunity to
talk about staying safe when seeking help.
If you wish, children could go on to create their own achievement display (see Express: Phase
A) by drawing or painting a picture that shows them achieving their chosen goal, and then
linking this via a length of ribbon to a portrait photograph. The finished piece will then
represent their own journey/race course to their goal.
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Activity 4: Animal sports day
Phase A


songs and rhymes
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2.89a Exploring movement and dance in the natural world

3.2a Exploring body parts
3.10a Exploring what makes things move
3.11a Identifying patterns in the natural world
3.14a Exploring features of living and non-living things
are of interest
EYC Learning Strand 4: Healthy Living and Physical Well-being

PHYSICAL WELL-BEING
Once Upon a Time
Explore: Phase A
Provide a range of plastic animals that children can play with in the water and sand tray, and
on your race track (see Activity 1). As children play with the animals, use the opportunity to
explore what children may already know about them – their names and any of their features.
Help the children to make up stories that might involve the animals, perhaps with them
challenging each other to a race, like the two animal characters in ‘The Tortoise and the Hare’.
If possible, share the picture book, Maisy’s Sports Day, by Lucy Cousins, Walker Books, 2016.
Use the book as a stimulus to talk about different sports day events, such as the egg-and-
spoon race, wheelbarrow race, and so on. The book also features a selection of animal
characters. Discuss these with the children, linking the use of animal characters to ‘The
Tortoise and the Hare’. Ask the children if they think animals really could do these things – or
whether the story has been made up, and is make-believe?
Explain to the children that, after the tortoise and the hare had their race, the other animals
have decided they would like to get involved too, and have their own races. There is going to
be a running race, a flying race and a swimming race!
In small groups, have a selection of picture cards of different animals for the children to
explore. Include a small selection of land animals, birds and insects, and sea animals. Try and
include some examples from the children’s host country, as well as their home countries. With
an adult assisting, view the images and pick out those that the children recognise. Do they
know the names of the animals?
Prompt the children to try and describe the animal. What colours and patterns can we see?
Does the animal have legs/wings/fins? As you explore the collection, start to think about
those animals that might best suit each of your three events. Start with the flying race. What
types of animals might like to take part? Help the children to identify the animals that have
wings. Children may also want to demonstrate how they think their animal might move. Next,
focus on the animals that are shown in water. Some of these might be fish, and have fins,
others might be aquatic animals, like an otter (ensure the picture shows them in water!). Sort
the images into another group for your swimming competition.
Finally, the remaining animals will be entering the running competition. Do we think they
will be good at running? Talk about how we run and what parts of our body we use. Examine
the images and talk about the legs of the different animals – which might walk on four legs,
and which might walk on two? Which animals do they think would be the slowest (like the
tortoise) and fastest (like the hare)?
If you wish, each child could pick one of the animal cards for each event. Place on a
numbered/squared track, and then use a 1–3 dice for the children to roll to race the animals!
Encourage them to take turns rolling the dice and moving the number of squares shown.
The first animal to reach the finish line is the winner. Repeat for your other two events. As
you play each game, an adult can act as the commentator, giving a running report of the
positioning of the competitors and any dramatic changes as competitors pull ahead or fall
behind.
As an alternative to using the picture cards, children could be given playdough to make a
model of their chosen animal to use on your race board.
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Express: Phase A
Gather the children in the hall or other location where they have plenty of space to move.
Begin by asking the children to imagine that they are flying. Model moving about the
space with arms outstretched. Then pretend to flap your wings as you move, holding them
in position again as you glide. You might want to have some gentle music playing as the
children perform, such as:
Carnival of the Animals, Tortues (Tortoises), by Saint-Saens, France.
Clair de Lune, by Claude Debussy, France.
Moonlight Sonata, by Ludwig Van Beethoven, German.
Afterwards, demonstrate breaststroke motions as you pretend to swim through the sea,
moving slowly and gracefully around the space. Fade out the music and have everyone stop
and be still. Then, play a faster and more up tempo piece, and have the children run around
the space. Encourage safe movement and awareness of others. Suitable music might include:
Flight of the Bumblebee, by Rimsky-Korsakov, Russia.
Ride of the Valkyries, by Richard Wagner, Germany.
You might want to vary your movements by imagining you are different animals, such as a
heavy elephant – and stomp around the space, or a long-legged ostrich, making big high
steps. Explore animals that the children were familiar with from the Explore session. Display
the relevant images so that the children can be reminded of them.
Afterwards, bring the children together again. Share the following song, encouraging the
children to join in with the actions while standing on the spot:
Can you fly like a bird? (Stretch arms to side and flap them up and down)
Flip-flap, flip-flap.
Flying through the sky,
I can fly like a bird,
Come and fly up high.
Can you swim like a fish? (Perform the breaststroke action)
Splish, splash, splish, splash.
Swimming through the sea.
I can swim like a fish,
Come and swim with me.
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Can you run like a hare? (Run on the spot)

Hip, hop, hip, hop.
Running through the grass,
Hip, hop, hip, hop.
I can run like a hare,
Hip, hop, hip, hop.
Let’s not be last!
Hip, hop, hip, hop.
We can fly like a bird, (stretch arms to side and flap them up and down)
Swim like a fish, (perform the breaststroke action)
Run like a hare (run on the spot)
Who is going to win? (Invite the children to perform their favourite action as you pretend
to hurry towards the end. Everyone can give a cheer as they pass the finish line!)
Back in the classroom, children can make their own winner’s medal. Provide circular card
templates for the children to decorate, using art and craft materials. If you wish, you could
share some images of athletes wearing their Olympic medals – or even watch a medal giving
ceremony. Children might want to draw or paint one of the animals they explored on their
medal, or could paint it to represent the event – the swimming medal could be blues and
whites for water, the flying medal could have cotton wool clouds, and so on.
Thread ribbon through the finished medals for the children to wear.
Activity 4: Animal sports day
Phase B

1.1b Exploring what makes them unique
1.25b Sharing feelings with others

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activities
familiar words
2.23b Choosing and using books for a purpose
2.32b Creating a sequenced account and reading it
2.47b Separating objects into more than two groups and comparing group sizes

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Once Upon a Time
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Explore: Phase B
If possible, begin your session by sharing a story that features animals competing in a
sporting event. Examples might include:
Maisy’s Sports Day, by Lucy Cousins, Walker Books, 2016.
‘Froglet’s Animal Olympics series’, various authors, Franklin Watts. (There are a number of
titles in the series, which include Hippo’s High Dive, Lizzie Lizard’s Long Jump, Rattlesnake’s
Relay Race and The Jaguar and the Javelin.)
Use the book/s as a stimulus to talk about different sports day events. Ask the children if they
have ever competed in a sports day or other similar event. Can they describe the rules of the
event? Which sport/event do the children think that they are best at? Allow enough time for
children to share their experiences and opinions.
Revisit your chosen books. What do they have in common with the story, ‘The Tortoise and
the Hare’? Reach an understanding that they use animal characters instead of humans, and
feature sports events. Ask the children if they think that animals really could do these things
– or whether the stories have been made up, and are make-believe?
Explain to the children that, thanks to their success of their ‘Tortoise and Hare’ race (see
Activity 1), they have been chosen to organise three more sports events – a flying race, a
swimming race and a running race. And the competitors are all animals, eager to show off
their amazing skills!
Shall we meet the competitors? Display a number of picture cards featuring different animals
for the children to explore. Include a selection of land animals, birds and insects, and sea
animals. Try and include some examples from the children’s host country, as well as their
home countries.
Begin by picking out and naming the animals that the children recognise. Reveal the names
of the animals that they are less familiar with. Encourage children to share any pre-existing
knowledge that they might have about the animals. Look closely at the features, colours and
patterns of each animal, prompting children to describe them.
Set out three sorting hoops, one for each of your sporting events – running, swimming and
flying. Challenge the children to help you decide which event each animal would be best
suited to. Prompt children to consider features, such as legs, wings and fins, when making
their choices – as well as the habitats that might be featured in the images. If there are any
examples that children are unsure about – or might have questions about –use information
books and bookmarked websites to help the children find out more about the animal.
Once the animals have been sorted into the three hoops, re-explore each group and discuss
those which the children think might be the slowest animal (like the tortoise) and the fastest
animal (like the hare) in that category.
End your session by sharing the storybook, Animal Opposites, by Petr Horacek, Walker Books,
2015. This lift-the-flap book features an animal on the left page, with its opposite on the
right – which is revealed by lifting the flap. Explore the book with the children, and enjoy
predicting which animal might be hiding behind the flap.
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Once Upon a Time
Express: Phase B
In small groups with an adult, explain to the children that they are going to be making up a
story about one of the events, either the flying, swimming or running competition. For less
confident children, you might want to start with ‘The Tortoise and the Hare’, and have children
sequence story cards to retell the story. These can be downloaded and printed from:
Twinkl is an online library of resources and activities, including story-sequencing cards for
‘The Tortoise and the Hare’.
As you sequence the story, discuss the key events in the story – the two characters meeting
and challenging each other, the start of the race, the hare falling asleep, the tortoise passing
the finish line, and so on.
Using the picture cards that the children sorted (see Explore), encourage them to choose two
animals that they think might represent good opposites. One might be big and the other
small, for example – or one might have very short legs, like a caterpillar, whereas another
might have very long legs, like an ostrich. Consider the different options, and then choose the
two characters for the story.
Place blank speech bubbles next to each of the characters as a prompt. Discuss what the
characters might say to each other at the start of the story. One of them will be challenging
the other to the race. What might they say? Will they be teasing and making fun of the other,
perhaps? Offer some suggestions to help the children to think about each character.
You could repeat this with the next stage of the story, when they are both on the starting line.
What might they be saying to each other? Will one of the animals be certain that they will
win?
Next, think about what obstacle or event might take place so that one of the animals is able
to win. Perhaps, for the running event, the smallest animal finds a short cut – or a gust of
wind blows the bigger animal off course during the flying event. Have fun coming up with
different ideas, before choosing your favourite.
Finally, imagine the two characters at the finish line, at the end of the race. What might they
be saying to each other now? Perhaps, one is apologising to the other after having learnt
their lesson!
Children could go on to draw the scenes for their story, based on the ideas you have
discussed together. Confident children could be encouraged to practise their emergent
writing, by writing a sentence for each scene, and/or adding a line of dialogue for each
character. Provide guidance as necessary, to help the children to remember their story and
sequence it correctly.
Groups can then share their stories at the end of the session.
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The Gingerbread Man

experiences:
Expand your role-play area with a kitchen area, where children can pretend they are helping
the old woman to bake gingerbread. This should include play kitchen equipment or models
that have been made by the children (such as a pretend oven to put the gingerbread men in!).
Provide art materials and templates so that children can draw, cut out and decorate their own
gingerbread people.
Provide laminated images of different animals for children to explore and incorporate in their
own retelling of the story. Create a lift-the-flap display showing the path that the gingerbread
man runs along. Children can lift the flaps each day to view the different animals he meets
along his way. Include some that the children will be less familiar with, so that they can use
information books and other resources (with adult assistance) to find out more about the
animals.
In preparation for Activity 4, you could have a ‘where am I?’ postcard from a gingerbread
man for children to discover each day. The picture could be one from your indoor or outdoor
setting, or might even be a picture that some children will recognise from their host or
home country. Children can explore the features shown in the image and guess where their
runaway gingerbread man might have gone!

Learning Block are:

Adaptability

Communication

Cooperation

Enquiry

Resilience

Respect

Thoughtfulness
Once Upon a Time

Learning Block is:


Reinforce the names of body parts by playing a variation of the ‘beetle’ game. Children roll a
dice, and then draw the corresponding body part (or sculpt it out of playdough). For example:

Leg

Arm

Body

Head

Eyes

Mouth
Before the eyes and mouth can be added, a 4 must be rolled to create a head. Players take
turns to roll the dice. The first to complete their gingerbread person is the winner. Use the
game to reinforce related vocabulary and count body parts.
Use your pretend oven for counting challenges. Children can put their gingerbread men
into the oven, and then count them as they ‘run away’. Explore totals of different groups by
counting how many are in the oven and how many have run away.

Children can run around the space imagining they are a runaway gingerbread man. Encourage
them to move safely, with an awareness of others. Set up a hoop or area of mats to be
your oven. One child is the old woman, who must chase all the other children (who are
gingerbread men). If the old woman tags one of the gingerbread men, they must immediately
go and stand in the oven. As the game progresses, one of the captured gingerbread men can
become a new character, such as the horse, the cow or the fox. They can help the old woman
to capture the remaining gingerbread men.
You could also play a variation of the above game, where children are allowed to free a
captured gingerbread man by touching them. This will allow them to re-enter the game.
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Children can also enjoy playing hide and seek. One child (or an adult) is the seeker (such as
the old woman) and the others are gingerbread men. The gingerbread men have a minute to
hide in an assigned area (such as your outdoor space). Once the gingerbread men are hidden
they cannot move. The seeker must then try and find all the missing gingerbread men.
questions:
Are
Are
Is
Is
Is

Once Upon a Time

Activities
Activity 1: Gingerbread on the run!
Phase A


songs and rhymes
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language activities
2.76a Exploring how colour and texture can be changed
2.90a Exploring role play involving costumes and props

are of interest
Once Upon a Time
Explore: Phase A
If you wish, you could provide children with small world plastic animals to play with in the
sand tray, or using the play mats you may have created for other stories (such as ‘The Three
Billy Goats Gruff’). Include some of the animals that will appear in your version of the story,
‘The Gingerbread Man’. These might include, a horse, a cow, a chicken and a fox (depending on
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the animals featured in your story), as well as some small world people. Encourage children
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to make their own stories using the animals and people. While the children play, encourage
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them to talk about the different animals. Do the children know their names? Prompt them to
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describe their features.
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Afterwards, gather the children together on the carpet. Explain that you are going to share
old
a story. Reveal the title and/or cover of your ‘Gingerbread Man’ story. Ask the children if they
new
have ever tasted gingerbread biscuits. If you wish, you could have some for the children to try
while you read the book. (Note: always check for any food allergies beforehand.)
Share the story of ‘The Gingerbread Man’. There are several versions available online and in
picture book format. Some examples include:
The Gingerbread Man: Ladybird First Favourite Tales, by Alan MacDonald, Ladybird, 2011.
The Gingerbread Man (Flip-Up Fairy Tales), by Estelle Corke, Child’s Play, 2007.
The Gingerbread Man (My First Fairy Tales), by Mara Alperin, Little Tiger Press, 2015.
Twinkl.co.uk/resource/t-t-10794-the-gingerbread-man-story-powerpoint
Twinkl is an online library of teacher resources, including this PowerPoint version of the
story, ‘The Gingerbread Man’.
Youtube.com/watch?v=U89dkGrsYZY
YouTube hosts this animated version of the story, ‘The Gingerbread Man’.
As you read (or listen to) the story, encourage the children to join in with the repetition of the
language – such as when the gingerbread man chants ‘Run, run, as fast as you can…’.
Share the story a second time. This time, provide simple props, masks or picture cards so that
each child can take on a role in the story. For example, the old woman could wear an apron,
and the old man could wear a cap. The animals could be represented as masks or as picture
cards on string that the children can wear. As you explore the story, encourage each child to
join in with the actions and language related to their character.
End your session by asking the children if they liked the ending of the story. Did they feel
sad for the gingerbread man? Consider the old man and the old woman who baked the
gingerbread man. They must be sad because their gingerbread man ran away! Perhaps we
could make some of our own gingerbread men to give to them.
Once Upon a Time
Express: Phase A
Children can make and decorate their own gingerbread men, using art materials, playdough
and/or air-drying clay.
Brown-coloured playdough can be created by mixing in powder paint or brown food
colouring into playdough mixture. Have an adult demonstrate how they can roll out the
playdough and use a cookie cutter to cut out the shape of a gingerbread man. Alternatively,
children could sculpt their own 3D version using the playdough or clay. As children work on
their models, talk to them about the different parts (arms, legs, head, body). Decorate the
models using collage materials (beads, sequins, etc.) or sculpting them out of playdough/
clay. Encourage children to explore making different textures on their gingerbread man, for
example, scoring the surface with a plastic fork to create a rough texture for hair, or using a
roller to smooth out the face.
Have pre-cut gingerbread man shapes that children can decorate with paints or collage
materials. Confident children could use your template to cut around, to make their own, or
even cut their own version free-hand. Use the illustrations in your story to help the children
with ideas for how they might decorate their gingerbread man.
If you wish, you create a giant gingerbread man by inviting one of the children to lie down
on taped sheets of sugar paper and drawing around them. Children can then decorate the
gingerbread man by adding details, such as eyes, mouth, buttons, and so on.
End your session by placing the children’s models and cut-outs in a pretend oven to ‘bake’.
If you have a role-play kitchen oven, that would be ideal. Alternatively, you could decorate
a cardboard box to act as your pretend oven. The children will need to wait until the next
session to see if their gingerbread men have baked. (They might be in for an exciting
surprise!)
Activity 1: Gingerbread on the run!
Phase B

responsibilities
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contexts, for example roleplay, storytelling, giving and receiving instructions
future events
activities
2.90b Exploring characters, storylines and roles through drama activities involving
costume and props
Once Upon a Time

diagrams
old new
old new
old
Explore: Phase B
new
old new
Gather the children together on the carpet. Explain that you are going to share a story. Reveal
old
the title and/or cover of your ‘Gingerbread Man’ story. Ask the children if they have ever tasted
new
gingerbread biscuits. If you wish, you could have some for the children to try while you read
the book. (Note: always check for any food allergies beforehand.)
Share the story of ‘The Gingerbread Man’. There are several versions available online and in
picture book format. Some examples include:
The Gingerbread Man: Ladybird First Favourite Tales, by Alan MacDonald, Ladybird, 2011.
The Gingerbread Man (Flip-Up Fairy Tales), by Estelle Corke, Child’s Play, 2007.
The Gingerbread Man (My First Fairy Tales), by Mara Alperin, Little Tiger Press, 2015.
Twinkl.co.uk/resource/t-t-10794-the-gingerbread-man-story-powerpoint
Twinkl is an online library of teacher resources, including this PowerPoint version of the
story, ‘The Gingerbread Man’.
Youtube.com/watch?v=U89dkGrsYZY
YouTube hosts this animated version of the story, ‘The Gingerbread Man’.
As you read (or listen to) the story, encourage the children to join in with the repetition of
the language – such as when the gingerbread man chants ‘Run, run, as fast as you can…’.
Invite children to make predictions about what will happen next. What animal might
the gingerbread man meet next? Do we think he will be able to get away? Should the
gingerbread man get on the fox’s back to cross the river?
Share the story a second time. This time, provide simple props, masks or picture cards so that
each child can take on a role in the story. For example, the old woman could wear an apron,
and the old man could wear a cap. The animals could be represented as masks or as picture
cards on string that the children can wear. As you explore the story, encourage each child to
join in with any actions and language related to their character. Ask children to predict the
order in which the gingerbread man meets each of the characters. Which animal does the
gingerbread man meet next?
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End your session by hot seating the old woman or old man from the story. Invite the children
to ask questions to explore the character and how they might be feeling. An adult may need
to model some example questions, although children should display more confidence in
asking their own relevant questions, based on their previous hot seating experience (see
Learning Block 3, Activity 3).
If you wish, you could invite confident volunteers to take on the role of the gingerbread man
and the fox, to answer questions and explore their characters.
Express: Phase B
Children can work individually or in pairs to create their own story mat to retell the story of
‘The Gingerbread Man’. Have your own example for the children to view. This can be set out
on a large sheet of sugar paper or card. The story starts in one corner, with the old woman’s
house, then follows a winding path to the river.
Children can draw or collage the animals onto their mat, or use small world plastic toys
to represent them. The mat can then be used as a map to help children retell their own
version of the story. Encourage children to talk about the sequence of events in their story by
introducing language such as ‘in the beginning’, ‘the next thing that happened’, ‘at the end of
the story’, and so on.
Children can also make and decorate their own gingerbread man out of card or playdough to
use with their story mat.
End your session by placing the children’s gingerbread men in a pretend oven to ‘bake’. If
you have a role-play kitchen oven, that would be ideal. Alternatively, you could decorate
a cardboard box to act as your pretend oven. The children will need to wait until the next
session to see if their gingerbread men have baked. (They might be in for an exciting
surprise!)
Once Upon a Time
Activity 2: Making gingerbread
Phase A


songs and rhymes
language activities
2.50a Exploring increasing and decreasing quantities through action songs, rhymes and
games
Once Upon a Time

old new
Explore: Phase A
At the end of the previous session, the children will have placed their pretend gingerbread
men in the oven to ‘cook’. With the children gathered, you can open the oven to reveal… that
the gingerbread men have gone! Just like in the story, they must have escaped. We’ll have to
try and find them.
Prior to the session, hide the children’s gingerbread men around your indoor and/or outdoor
setting. Allow time for the children to search for the gingerbread men. If you wish, you could
have an adult wear a fox mask and pretend to be the wise fox, who can give clues as to
where the different gingerbread men can be found (e.g. under a stone; where we hang up our
coats; where we like to read, etc.). The following site has a simple fox mask template:
Firstpalette.com/tool_box/printables/foxmask.html
First Palette is a crafts website that features a downloadable fox mask template.
When children have found all the gingerbread men, gather everyone together on the carpet.
Count the number of gingerbread men. You could have a hoop or box to represent your oven.
As you count each gingerbread man, place them in your ‘oven’.
Next, sing a counting song, encouraging the children to join in (sung to the rhythm of ‘Merrily
We Roll Along’):
Gingerbread in the oven
In the oven, in the oven
Oh no – one has run away!
Remove one of the gingerbread men from the oven. How many gingerbread men are left in
the oven? Help the children to count the remaining gingerbread men. Then, continue your
song – removing one gingerbread man each time. Count those that are in the oven and those
that have run away. Continue until all the gingerbread men have run away again.
Oh dear, the oven is empty. Perhaps it’s time to make some ‘real’ gingerbread men to put back
in the oven. Let’s hope these gingerbread men don’t run away too!
Express: Phase A
Display your ingredients for making gingerbread. Help the children to name the ingredients.
Have an adult prepare the gingerbread (see below for a simple recipe). Children could help
with handing you ingredients, weighing the ingredients using a balance scale, mixing the
dough and rolling it out. You might want to introduce this activity in small groups so that all
children take an active role in preparing and mixing their gingerbread men.
Once Upon a Time
There are many online recipes for making gingerbread men. The following is just one
example:
Ingredients:

60g brown sugar

300g self-raising flour
teaspoons of ground ginger
2
teaspoon of cinnamon
½

125g unsalted butter
large egg
1

90g golden syrup

Currants, chocolate chips, orange peel, cherries, icing (for decoration)
1. Add the sugar, butter and syrup to the bowl. Mix together, and then add the egg. Beat
the mixture.
2. Mix the flour, ginger and cinnamon in a separate bowl. Sieve into your butter/syrup mix
while stirring.
3. Once you have a soft dough, place this on a floured surface. Roll out the mixture, and
then cut the gingerbread men shapes using cookie cutters
4. Children can now decorate their own gingerbread man.
5. Place the gingerbread men on greased baking paper, about two inches apart.
6. Bake in the middle of the oven (approx. 170 degrees C.) for about eight to ten minutes,
until the edges are firm. Remove from the oven and allow to cool.
Children can then enjoy their own real gingerbread man – who hasn’t run away! (Note:
always check for any food allergies beforehand.)
Activity 2: Making gingerbread
Phase B

Once Upon a Time

2.2b Using the language(s) of instruction and/or other languages (if appropriate)
2.40b How numbers represent quantities and sets
2.41b Identifying ‘more than’ or ‘fewer than’ groups of objects
2.43b Counting groups of objects beyond 10 in quantity
2.44b Exploring how totals remain the same when quantities of objects are separated
2.50b Exploring early addition and subtraction through practical contexts
2.64b Exploring how to measure weight in practical contexts

Once Upon a Time
old new
Explore: Phase B
At the end of the previous session, the children will have placed their pretend gingerbread
men in the oven to ‘cook’. With the children gathered, you can open the oven to reveal… that
the gingerbread men have gone! Just like in the story, they must have escaped. We’ll have to
try and find them.
Prior to the session, hide the children’s gingerbread men around your indoor and/or outdoor
setting. Allow time for the children to search for the gingerbread men. If you wish, you could
have an adult wear a fox mask and pretend to be the wise fox, who can give clues as to
where the different gingerbread men can be found (e.g. under a stone, where we hang up our
coats, where we like to read, etc.). The following site has a simple fox mask template:
Firstpalette.com/tool_box/printables/foxmask.html
First Palette is a crafts website that features a downloadable fox mask template.
When children have found all the gingerbread men, it’s time to play some further games with
these mischievous gingerbread men!

Run-away gingerbread – have a hoop or box to represent your ‘oven’. Count the gingerbread
men as you place them in your oven. Then, sing a counting song, encouraging the children
to join in (sung to the rhythm of ‘Merrily We Roll Along’):
In the oven, in the oven
Oh no – one has run away!
Remove one of the gingerbread men from the oven. How many gingerbread men are left
in the oven? Help the children to count the remaining gingerbread men. Then, continue
your song – removing one gingerbread man each time. Count those that are in the oven
and those that have run away. Which group has more or less gingerbread? How many
gingerbread men should we put back in the oven to make the groups equal?

Hide and seek – blindfold one child, and then choose a hiding place for a gingerbread man.
Encourage the children to give directions and instructions to the blindfolded child to find
the gingerbread man. Reinforce directional vocabulary, such as ‘forward’, ‘left’ and ‘right’, and
so on.

Who is missing? – display three or four of the children’s gingerbread men, ideally choosing
examples that are unique and have different decorations. Display them all together. Ask
children to close their eyes. Remove one of the gingerbread men. Challenge the children to
describe the gingerbread man that has run away.
old new
Once Upon a Time
Express: Phase B
Display your ingredients for making gingerbread. Help the children to name the ingredients.
If you wish, you could use recipe cards for the children to follow. The following websites
provide good examples:
Twinkl.co.uk/resource/t-t-4455-gingerbread-people-recipe
Twinkl offers an online library of teaching resources, including these simple recipe cards
for making gingerbread.
With adult assistance, children can help with weighing out ingredients, mixing the dough and
rolling it out.
There are many online recipes for making gingerbread men. The following is just one
example:
Ingredients:

60g brown sugar

300g self-raising flour
teaspoons of ground ginger
2
teaspoon of cinnamon
½

125g unsalted butter
large egg
1

90g golden syrup

Currants, chocolate chips, orange peel, cherries, icing (for decoration)
1. Add the sugar, butter and syrup to the bowl. Mix together, and then add the egg. Beat
the mixture.
2. Mix the flour, ginger and cinnamon in a separate bowl. Sieve into your butter/syrup mix
while stirring.
3. Once you have a soft dough, place this on a floured surface. Roll out the mixture, and
then cut the gingerbread men shapes using cookie cutters
4. Children can then decorate their own gingerbread man
5. Place the gingerbread men on greased baking paper, about two inches apart.
6. Bake in the middle of the oven (approx. 170 degrees C.) for about eight to ten minutes,
until the edges are firm. Remove from the oven and allow to cool.
Children can then enjoy their own real gingerbread man – who hasn’t run away! (Note:
always check for any food allergies beforehand.)
Once Upon a Time
Activity 3: All change!
Phase A


2.9a Using word endings to describe more than one object; applying past, present and
future tenses
2.10a Using intonation to express ideas and retell accounts
Once Upon a Time

creative activities

3.9a Exploring solids and liquids
are of interest
Explore: Phase A
In this session, children will be exploring ways of changing the story of ‘The Gingerbread
Man’. The following activities provide hands-on experiences to introduce the theme:

Sail away – ask the children why they think the gingerbread man didn’t want to cross
the river on his own. Explore what happens when gingerbread gets wet by soaking a
gingerbread man in a small tray of water. Encourage children to handle the gingerbread as
it absorbs the water. Talk about the changes that are occurring. What has happened to the
gingerbread? What was it like before? Consider an alternative ending for the story, where
the gingerbread man decides to refuse the fox’s help. How else might he cross the water?
Explore the children’s ideas. Suggest that the gingerbread man could make a boat to float
his way across the river. Provide a small world figure to represent the gingerbread man, and
some different materials that the children can explore for their boat. These might include
foam/sponge, polystyrene, wood, paper, foil, and so on. Encourage children to explore
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the different materials in the water tray. Which materials float and which materials sink?
Does size and shape make a difference? Sort the materials into those that float, and then
decide which of those materials would be best for carrying the small world figure. Again,
experiment to find a material that will support the weight of the plastic figure and carry it
across to the other side of the water tray.

Animal mix-up – what if the gingerbread men met a different assortment of animal
characters on his way to the river? Prior to the session, print out some images of animals
that the children will be familiar with but are different to those in the story that you have
shared. You might want to include animals that you explored for the animal sports day
activity (see Learning Block 2, Activity 4) and/or those that are native to your host country
or the children’s home countries. You should also print out images that match the animal
characters in your version of the story, and mount them onto card. You will also need a
simple story mat, displaying a map of the story.
Animal
print
Animal
print
Animal
print
Animal
print
Begin by taking the animal characters that feature in the story and placing their cards in
the correct order, face down, along the path. Children can then use a small world figure or
one of the gingerbread men that they made, to trace along the path. When they get to the
first of the cards, ask the children if they can remember which animal the gingerbread man
met first? Turn over the card to see if they were right. Continue along the path, prompting
children to guess the correct animal. Help children to retell the story as they proceed along
the path, repeating any familiar lines such as ‘run, run, as fast as you can…’.
Next, shuffle your other animal cards and place face down onto the mat. Invite the children
to start the story again. This time, reveal each card in turn. Can the children name the
animal? Retell the story, incorporating the new animal characters as each one is revealed.
While keeping them face up, ask the children to tell you which was the first (second, third,
etc.) animal that the gingerbread met along his way. Give the cards to the children for
them to make up their own stories, choosing which animals will appear along the path.
Once Upon a Time

Home, sweet home – what if the gingerbread man made it safely across the river? Where
might he have ended up? Explore the children’s ideas, which may lead into further
activities. You might want to suggest that the gingerbread man story had a happy ending,
and the gingerbread man found his own perfect home to live in. Provide play bricks and
construction sets for the children to make their own home for a gingerbread man. Perhaps
he will have his own gingerbread family or invite the animals over for dinner (to stop them
wanting to eat him up!). Support the children in exploring their ideas and representing
them through small world play, using the resources you have available.
Express: Phase A
Remind the children of the different animal characters they explored previously. Support the
children in creating their own retelling of the story, by drawing (or cutting out and gluing)
pictures of the animals onto circles or squares of card.
Animal
Animal
Animal
When complete, an adult can tape their animal pictures to a long thread of string, wool
or ribbon to represent the path in the story. Children can then ‘follow along’ the path,
meeting each of their animals in turn. This ‘story thread’ can then be used to retell the story,
incorporating familiar dialogue and language from the story. If you wish, children could add
the old woman’s house to the start of the thread and an image at the end of the thread that
shows what happens to the gingerbread man (perhaps he gets eaten or lives happily ever
after in his new home!).
Once Upon a Time
Activity 3: All change!
Phase B


word groups
activities
2.19b Exploring different forms of print and following the conventions of text
familiar words
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2.23b Choosing and using books for a purpose
2.24b Expressing preferences in a range of fiction and non-fiction
2.63b Comparing and ordering weight
2.80b Freely experimenting with art and design and presenting ideas through artwork

3.8b Selecting materials to carry out simple investigations
3.9b Exploring how solids and liquids can change
Explore: Phase B
In this session, children will be exploring ways of changing the story of ‘The Gingerbread
Man’. The following activities provide hands-on experiences to introduce the theme:

Sail away – ask the children why they think the gingerbread man didn’t want to cross
the river on his own. Explore what happens when gingerbread gets wet by soaking a
gingerbread man in a small tray of water. Encourage children to handle the gingerbread as
it absorbs the water. Talk about the changes that are occurring. What has happened to the
gingerbread? What was it like before? Consider an alternative ending for the story, where
the gingerbread man decides to refuse the fox’s help. How else might he cross the water?
Explore the children’s ideas. Suggest that the gingerbread man could make a boat or raft
to float his way across the river. Provide a small world figure to represent the gingerbread
man, and some different materials that the children can use to create a boat/raft. These
might include pieces of foam/sponge, polystyrene, wood, paper, foil, cork, lolly sticks,
drinking straws, and so on. Encourage children to explore the different materials in the
water tray. Which materials float and which materials sink? Sort the materials into those
that float, and then decide how the materials might be combined together to make a boat/
raft to support the small world figure across the water tray.
Once Upon a Time

Animal mix-up – what if the gingerbread men met a different assortment of animal
characters on his way to the river? Prior to the session, print out some images of animals
that the children will be familiar with but are different to those in the story that you have
shared. You might want to include animals that you explored for the animal sports day
activity (see Learning Block 2, Activity 4) and/or those that are native to your host country
or the children’s home countries. Mount these onto card. You will also need a simple story
mat, displaying a map of the story.
Animal
print
Animal
print
Animal
print
Animal
print
Shuffle the animal cards and place them face down onto the mat. Invite the children to
help you tell the story of ‘The Gingerbread Man’. This time, instead of the usual animals
he encounters, you can flip over a card to reveal a new animal. Incorporate your new
character into the retelling. Continue until all the animal cards have been revealed. Then
turn them over so that the images are hidden. Can the children remember which animals
the gingerbread man met along his way, and in which order? Repeat the game – shuffling
old
a new set of characters onto the story mat. Alternatively, you could give the cards to the
new
children for them to make up their own stories, choosing which animals will appear along
their story path.

Gingerbread home – what if the gingerbread man made it safely across the river? Where
might he have ended up? Explore the children’s ideas, which may lead into further
activities. You might want to suggest that the gingerbread man story had a happy ending,
and the gingerbread man found his own perfect home to live in. Provide junk and art
materials for the children to build a home for the gingerbread man. They might want to
imagine it is made of sweets, chocolate and gingerbread. The following storybook will
provide plenty of inspiration:
The Gingerbread Family: A Scratch-And-Sniff Book, by Grace Maccarone, Little Simon,
2010.
Once Upon a Time
Express: Phase B
Remind the children of the different story endings and animals that they have explored.
Support the children in creating their own retelling of the story, by making a story strip (see
diagram below – and provide a completed example for the children to refer to).
Each child will need a long strip of card to represent their pathway (that the gingerbread
man follows). Children can then choose the animals that the gingerbread man meets along
the path, and draw these onto squares of card. Provide a selection of non-fiction and fiction
books, posters and other resources that the children can choose from and refer to when
drawing their animals. Alternatively, they can cut out printed images to glue onto the card.
Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal
Children will also need to draw a picture for the start of the story (e.g. the old woman’s
house) and the end of their story (which might be the house made of gingerbread, or the
gingerbread man sailing away!). These can then be glued to the start and end of the strip.
Tape a paperclip to the back of the animal pictures. This will allow them to be placed in
any order along the strip, for the children to retell their story. The animal pictures can then
be moved around so that the children have the option of creating stories with a different
sequence of animals and/or adding new ones.
Activity 4: A modern day retelling
Phase A

Once Upon a Time

2.69a Using technology in practical activities
2.70a Using technology to perform simple functions
2.71a The use of computers, tablets and a range of ICT to convey information
2.72a Storing and retrieving information using computers, tablets, cameras and other
forms of ICT

3.15a Exploring significant features of the local landscape
3.18a Representing the environment through model making, drawings and artwork
Once Upon a Time
Explore: Phase A
Prior to the session, create a treasure hunt around your indoor and outdoor setting, with
picture clues that the children can follow. The treasure hunt will map out the journey of an
escaped gingerbread person, who has been sending postcards from all the places they have
been to around your setting. The children will need to study the images on the postcards to
decide where to go next to find the next clue.
Using a digital camera, choose locations around your indoor and outdoor setting – some of
which will be familiar to the children, and one or two that might be more challenging. Ensure
that in each photograph there is enough information for children to be able to guess at the
location.
Print out the photographs and laminate, ensuring that there will be one for each group. Place
these in a bag at each location, ready to be found – and at your last location you could have a
cut-out cardboard gingerbread person for the children to finally discover.
When the children arrive in the classroom, look very sad. Explain that you wanted to surprise
the children by baking some more gingerbread men, but guess what has happened? The
children may be able to predict that they have run away again! Remind the children of how
well they did at hunting down the gingerbread men last time they ran away (see Activity 2).
Perhaps they will be able to find the gingerbread again.
But where should we start? Reveal your first photograph and explain that the gingerbread
man has left us a clue. Perhaps if we can work out where he took this photograph, we might
be able to find him.
In small groups with an adult, provide children with the first photograph. This is their
first clue. Prompt the children to explore the image and talk about any features that they
recognise. Where do they think it was taken? Children can then guide the adult to where
they think the gingerbread man might be hiding. If they have the location correct, they will
find the next clue – another photograph to solve. If children are struggling with a particular
location, offer further prompts and clues to help them narrow down the location.
Once the children have found all the photographs, the final one will lead them to the
gingerbread man. They can then bring their gingerbread man back to your setting.
With all the children gathered, look back at the different photographs. Can the children
remember where they found each photograph? Some children may be able to remember the
order in which they visited each location. Sequence the photographs to retell their own story
of how they chased after the gingerbread man!
Express: Phase A
Using the cardboard gingerbread man that they found, children can now make up their own
story of a runaway gingerbread man, using a camera to tell the story. In their groups, with
adult supervision, encourage children to choose locations where the gingerbread man might
run to. They can then place the gingerbread man in the chosen environment and an adult or
confident child could take a photograph. Think about interesting places that the gingerbread
man might find himself. Perhaps he will try and climb to the top of the slide or climbing
Once Upon a Time
frame, or hide in the vegetable patch. You can use sticky tape, fixed to the back of the
gingerbread man, to place him in lots of exciting and interesting places!
Back in your setting, transfer the images to computer, and then print them out. Children can
then glue them onto a large sheet of paper or card to show the journey of their gingerbread
man as he ran around their setting! Wool or ribbon could be glued in between each
photograph to show the path of the story.
Encourage children to make up their own stories by following the path and using the
photographs as a stimulus for their adventure. Who might they meet at each location? What
will the gingerbread man say to them as he runs away?
Activity 4: A modern day retelling
Phase B


Once Upon a Time
future events
activities
2.71b How computers are used in the environment and the language associated with
operating them

diagrams
Once Upon a Time
Explore: Phase B
Remind the children of their learning from the previous session, when they changed the story
of ‘The Gingerbread Man’. Invite confident volunteers to share their stories, using their story
strips as a prompt. Explain that you are going to share another version of the story, and you
want the children to think about what is different in this retelling.
Share the picture book, The Gingerbread Boy, by Richard Egiekski, HarperCollins, 2000. Begin
by looking together at the cover. What do the children think will be different about this
retelling of the story? Children may notice the urban city background. In this version of the
story, the action takes place in New York City, in the United States. The Gingerbread Boy
escapes the oven and runs through the city. As well as animals, he meets a cast of everyday
human characters too, until he finally meets up with a familiar sly old fox in Central Park. If
available, encourage children to explore maps and globes to identify the United States and
New York City.
As you read the story, continue to prompt the children to discuss the changes that have been
made to the story. Compare and contrast with the traditional version that the children will
already be familiar with. You should also compare the urban environment of New York City
with your own local area, or cities that the children may be familiar with from their host and
home countries.
Afterwards, ask the children which version of the story they prefer, and prompt them for
reasons why. Do they think the writer of the story did a good job in changing the story?
Tell the children that they are going to be reinventing the story too, by basing the locations
and characters around your local setting. Begin by discussing some of the locations that
might feature in your story – imagining that a gingerbread boy or girl has escaped from your
oven! Locations might include those in your immediate indoor and outdoor setting, as well as
other locations in the wider area, such as streets and parks. You could use local maps and the
3D street view function in Google Earth (Google.com/earth/) for ideas.
In small groups with adult assistance, provide children with a digital camera to take
photographs for each of their scenes. They will want to start by taking a photograph of
your oven (this could be a play oven or a real oven in your kitchen area), and then thinking
about where their gingerbread character might run to next. (Note: children will be adding
characters to their photographs later so, for the moment, they only need to focus on the
scenes themselves.)
Provide support as necessary to guide the children around your indoor and outdoor setting to
choose interesting locations. If you wish, this could be extended into a field trip of your local
area, perhaps visiting a local park, to add further interesting locations. You may even have a
local stream or river in your locality which would serve as your final location.
Note: always be aware of any health and safety issues when exploring in the environment.
Always check your health and safety policy, and perform a full risk assessment.
Back in your setting, children can be shown how to load and view their photographs onto
computer and print them out.
Once Upon a Time
Express: Phase B
Children can begin by sequencing their photographs to tell a story. Encourage them to think
about how the locations might link together to create a retelling of their own journey as they
explored your setting and local area.
Once the photographs are in order, children can glue these onto a large sheet of paper or
card. They might want to link the photographs with a wavy lane to show the path of their
story, from beginning to end, or they could create a story map, by positioning the photographs
to suggest their relationship/distance to each other.
Next, prompt the children to think about the characters that their gingerbread person will
meet at each location. These could be children, teachers, animals (such as cats, dogs, birds,
etc.), people who help us (police officers, doctors, etc.), and so on. Children can then draw
pictures of the characters to glue onto each photograph.
Children can then make a cut-out gingerbread character out of card, decorate it, and then
use it to retell their story by moving their gingerbread character from one scene to the next.
Encourage repetition of familiar dialogue and language from the traditional story.
Once Upon a Time
Exit Point
Celebrate the children’s learning by setting up a range of collaborative activities that
children can work on with family and friends. These activities can each link to the stories
(see suggestions below), and will enable children to share their learning as well as their
knowledge of the stories.
If you wish, children could dress up as their favourite book character for the Exit Point. This
might be a character from one of the books that you have explored in this unit, or could be
a character from one of the children’s own favourite books. Allow time for children to parade
their costumes and talk about their character, and why they chose it.
Collaborative activities might include:

Building a troll bridge (Three Billy Goats Gruff): in your hall or outdoor space, provide
equipment that children and adults can use to build a bridge. This could be small scale
equipment, such as building bricks and construction toys, or larger equipment such as
wooden planks (in different sizes), milk crates, boxes, outdoor play equipment, and so on.
When children have built a stable bridge that they can cross, encourage them to use their
bridge to tell the story of ‘The Three Billy Goats Gruff’.
enormous soup (The Enormous Turnip): children and adults can provide vegetable
An
ingredients for the soup. Some of the ingredients might have been grown by the children
during the course of this unit. With adult supervision, children can help with the preparation
of the vegetables to add to your pot. Children can also be encouraged to share what they
have learned about vegetables, linking this in to the story of ‘The Enormous Turnip’. Cook
the soup, which children and adults can then enjoy together at the end of the session.

Making a race course (The Hare and the Tortoise): provide separate card tiles that children
can draw a linking race track onto (see Learning Block 3, Activity 1). These can then be
decorated using art and collage materials to add details such as trees, bushes, sand and
pebbles, streams and rivers, and perhaps even a nest/bed for the hare to sleep in. Once the
tracks are complete, children can retell the story of ‘The Tortoise and the Hare’ using their
own models or small world toys.

Baking a giant gingerbread man (The Gingerbread Man): children and adults can follow
the recipe guidelines from Learning Block 4, Activity 2, to create a giant gingerbread man.
Instead of cutting out individual gingerbread men, provide card templates to cut around,
to make individual body parts – (body, legs, arms, head). Once baked in the oven, these
can then be assembled to make your giant gingerbread man. Assist the children with
decorating the gingerbread using cherries, chocolate chips, icing and so on. Take some
photographs to celebrate your achievement before cutting the gingerbread into slices for
children and adults to enjoy.
During your Exit Point, children can also share the various artwork, stories and models that
they have created over the course of this unit. If time allows, you may want to end the session
by having the children act out one of the stories – with children taking on the roles of the
narrator and the characters.
Be sure to congratulate the children afterwards on becoming excellent storytellers and truly
bringing amazing stories to life!
Once Upon a Time
Appendix 1
Home Letter: This draft letter should be adapted to fit the context of
the setting.
Dear ______________,
Our next International Early Years Curriculum (IEYC) unit of learning will be ‘Once Upon a
Time’, through which children will be exploring the theme of ‘Stories and Storytelling’.
Each Learning Block will provide new learning experiences.

Exploring pushes and pulls with ‘The Enormous Turnip’

Buying and selling vegetables at our own market

Planting and growing our own vegetables

Making a delicious vegetable soup!

Exploring size with ‘The Three Billy Goats Gruff’

Building our own bridge for a troll

Making sound effects to tell a story

Performing a story with props and music.

Making a race course for ‘The Tortoise and the Hare’

Finding out about tortoises and how to look after them

Setting our own goals

Creating a sports day for different animals

Making a character from ‘The Gingerbread Man’

Baking our own gingerbread

Changing the story of ‘The Gingerbread Man’

Creating a modern day version of the story
Once Upon a Time
Our learning will help us to develop the IEYC Personal Goals of:

Adaptability

Communication

Cooperation

Enquiry

Morality

Resilience

Respect

Thoughtfulness
Our learning will also help to develop the IEYC International Dimension as children will learn
about:



In an environment that enables them to:

Develop knowledge and an increasing understanding beyond that related to their own
nationality and identity.
We would like to form a ‘learning-link’ partnership with you, in this way we can work together
to help your child learn in the best possible way.
Please help by capturing your child’s curiosity; this means keeping your child’s teacher
informed about what he/she is most interested in during this IEYC unit of learning and
finding out what he/she would like to learn more about. This helps us to plan relevant
learning experiences that will appeal to your child’s curiosity.
You can do this by (insert the way you would like the home to inform you - it may be by writing a
note in the child’s home communication book, or another means that your setting uses on a daily
or weekly basis).
We hope this IEYC unit of learning will help your child learn new knowledge, increase their
understanding and develop new skills that they can demonstrate to you.
We look forward to sharing what we have learned at the end of the IEYC unit of learning
when we hold our Exit Point. We will send details of when this will be in advance.
We look forward to forming a successful learning-link partnership with you so that we can
support your child’s learning together!
To find out more about the IEYC, please visit: www.greatlearning.com/ieyc
Once Upon a Time
Appendix 2
The Learning Strands, Learning Outcomes, Personal Goals and
International Dimension Linked to the Activities in Once Upon a Time
Note: A full description of the IEYC Learning Strands, Learning Outcomes, Personal Goals and
the International Dimension can be found in the document entitled ‘The IEYC Learning Strands
and Learning Outcomes’.
IEYC LEARNING STRAND 1: INDEPENDENCE AND LEARNING OUTCOMES: INDEPENDENCE

INTERDEPENDENCE AND INTERDEPENDENCE
PHASE A – learning PHASE B – learning By the end of the IEYC, children will have
experiences with the experiences providing more typically developed –
youngest children in mind. of a challenge.
Children will experience Children will experience
and learn about: and learn about:
1.1a Exploring personal 1.1b Exploring what makes Knowledge and an increasing understanding of:
identity them unique
1. Themselves as a unique individual with a
1.4a Developing positive 1.4b Developing the cultural heritage, positive qualities, abilities,
friendships interpersonal skills needed to views, feelings and personal needs
form positive relationships
1.6a Expressing personal Skills of being able to:
choices 1.6b Expressing own views
and ideas 5. Convey ideas
1.7a Making choices with
others 1.7b The importance of the 6. Express and self-regulate emotions
views and ideas of others 7. Form positive relationships and respond to
1.8a Being considerate
towards individuals 1.8b Demonstrating own and others feelings
consideration in group 9. Play, cooperate and collaborate with others in
1.10a Exploring how actions situations
can have positive and a variety of situations
negative outcomes 1.9b Reflecting on actions and 10. Approach routines and tasks with increasing
consequences confidence and independence
1.11a Being empathic and
sensitive towards others 1.11b Being respectful
towards others
1.12a Being treated fairly
1.13b Exploring new interests
1.14a Fair competition and setting new goals
1.15a Playing alone, 1.14b Developing a healthy
alongside and with others mindset towards competition
in a wide range of contexts
1.15b Initiating and
1.16a Participating in group participating in different types
activities of play by taking on new roles
1.17a Seeking help and and responsibilities
support appropriately 1.16b Co-operating, taking
1.19a Recognising and turns and following the rules
expressing personal of group activities
feelings and emotions 1.17b Overcoming challenges
with increasing independence
Once Upon a Time
1.20a Recognising 1.18b Offering support to

situations that impact on others when able to
feelings and emotions
1.19b Recognising and
1.22a Recognising that interpreting feelings and
gratification is not always emotions in others
instant
1.22b Recognising that the
1.24a Sharing experiences needs of others may be a
with others priority
1.25a Exploring emotional 1.23b Demonstrating
and social contexts through independence and increasing
play confidence in new situations
1.26a The pleasure and 1.25b Sharing feelings with
delight of gaining new others
experiences
1.26b The joy and satisfaction
1.27a Learning of experiencing and learning
independently, alongside something new
and from others
1.27b Being a member of a
team and learning with others
Once Upon a Time
IEYC PERSONAL GOALS: LINKED TO INDEPENDENCE AND INTERDEPENDENCE

Children should have learning experiences that help To support development of the IEYC Personal Goals,
them develop the personal qualities of: children should be active learners in an environment
that enables them to:
ENQUIRY Be curious and ask questions
Engage in new experiences
Express new findings and make connections in
learning
Develop personal interests through exploration
ADAPTIBILITY Explore new roles
Explore different ideas
Become increasingly at ease in a variety of situations
RESILIENCE Approach challenging tasks
Persevere with tasks when success is not instant
MORALITY Demonstrate appropriate behaviours depending on
the context
Identify when actions are right and wrong
Reflect on choices
COMMUNICATION Express ideas using verbal and/or non-verbal means
Use different forms of communication in a wide-
range of contexts
Receive, interpret and respond to various forms of
verbal and non-verbal messages
THOUGHTFULNESS Reflect on own and others learning
Overcome challenges by considering solutions
Demonstrate kindness and consideration
Consider personal strengths
Consider areas for improvement
COOPERATION Learn and play considerately alongside and with
others
Develop collaboration skills
Become aware that there are different roles and
responsibilities in groups
Take turns and share
RESPECT Demonstrate care and consideration for people,
living things and the environment
Participate in activities which impact positively on
people, living things and the environment
Consider the feelings and needs of others
THE IEYC INTERNATIONAL DIMENSION: LINKED TO INDEPENDENCE AND INTERDEPENDENCE

To support development of the IEYC International To support development of the IEYC International
Dimension, children will learn about: Dimension, children should be active learners in an
environment that enables them to:
Learning and playing with others beyond their Develop knowledge and an increasing understanding
immediate friendship group beyond that related to their own nationality and
identity
The characteristics of the kinds of children the school
is helping to develop and demonstrating them in
developmentally-appropriate ways
Once Upon a Time
IEYC LEARNING STRAND 2: COMMUNICATING LEARNING OUTCOMES: COMMUNICATING

COMMUNICATING THROUGH COMMUNICATING THROUGH COMMUNICATING THROUGH SPEAKING AND
SPEAKING AND LISTENING SPEAKING AND LISTENING LISTENING
2.1a Using gesture and body 2.1b Interpreting non-verbal Knowledge and an increasing understanding of:
movement to communicate messages and responding
accordingly 11. A mother tongue language, language of
2.3a Expressing ideas instruction and other languages if appropriate
and experiences through 2.2b Using the language(s)
language of instruction and/or other 12. The roles and needs of listeners and
languages (if appropriate) speakers
2.3b Responding to the ideas Skills of being able to:
2.5a Describing objects, and experiences of others
people, places and events 13. Express themselves in a variety of contexts
through language
that are present and not 16. Participate in discussions
present 2.4b Asking increasingly
complex questions, providing 17. Follow and give simple instructions
2.6a Using language skills answers and explaining consisting of two or more parts
in play situations and a reasons
variety of developmentally-
appropriate contexts 2.5b Using increasingly
for example role play, complex language to
storytelling, giving and describe objects, people,
receiving instructions places and events that are
present and not present
2.7a Using language to
recall events 2.6b Exploring and
increasing vocabulary
2.8a Using language in through play and
imaginary play situations developmentally-appropriate
2.9a Using word endings contexts, for example role
to describe more than play, storytelling, giving and
one object; applying past, receiving instructions
present and future tenses 2.7b Using language to
2.10a Using intonation to recall, retell and sequence
express ideas and retell events
accounts 2.8b Using language to
2.11a Listening to familiar describe roles, events and
sounds and identifying storyline in imaginary play
them; joining in stories, situations
poems, action songs and 2.9b Using language to
rhymes discuss the past and present
2.12a Identifying and and to make predictions
anticipating repetition about future events
in stories, poems, songs, 2.10b Extending vocabulary,
rhymes and other language exploring language patterns
activities and sounds, word meanings
and word groups
Once Upon a Time
2.13a Listening to 2.11b Demonstrating

others and joining in listening skills, taking turns
listening activities in conversations and joining
for developmentally- in language activities
2.12b Identifying and
2.14a Following using aspects of language
conversations and stories such as rhyme, rhythm and
alliteration in a range of
related activities
2.13b Concentrating on
what others are saying
and responding at the
appropriate time
2.14b Joining in
conversations and
discussions
COMMUNICATING THROUGH COMMUNICATING THROUGH COMMUNICATING THROUGH READING
READING READING
Knowledge and an increasing understanding of:
2.15a Identifying own 2.16b Exploring and
name(s) observing the use of print, 18. How print conveys meaning
logos, labels and signs in the 19. What has been read to them
2.16a Exploring and environment
observing the use of printed 20. What they have read
materials and resources 2.17b Stories and literature
valued by other cultures Skills of being able to:
2.18a Using illustrations to
tell stories 2.18b Using illustrations to 21. Use phonic awareness to decode simple
make predictions words
2.19a Exploring books and
reading for pleasure 2.19b Exploring different 22. Recognise and read some common words
forms of print and following and familiar sentences
2.21a Exploring words the conventions of text
through games, play, art and
digital means 2.20b Exploring how print
conveys meaning and
2.22a Repeating and recognising letters and
retelling familiar stories, features of familiar words
filling in missing words/
phrases/events 2.22b The structures of
stories: characters, settings,
2.27a Following simple events, beginning, middle,
texts when being read to end
2.23b Choosing and using
books for a purpose
2.24b Expressing
preferences in a range of
fiction and non-fiction
2.27b Recognising and
reading common words and
familiar sentences
COMMUNICATING THROUGH COMMUNICATING THROUGH COMMUNICATING THROUGH WRITING
WRITING WRITING
2.29a Creating marks and 2.28b Distinguishing
symbols that have personal differences and giving 23. The link between letter sounds and written
meaning in a range of play meaning to different marks words
situations and symbols
Once Upon a Time
2.30a Developing and 2.29b Writing for a range of Skills of being able to:
applying fine motor skill purposes and meaningful
control within a range of real-life and play contexts 24. Apply phonic awareness in writing activities
relevant contexts 25. Write and spell some common words and
2.32b Creating a sequenced
2.34a Exploring writing and account and reading it simple sentences
spelling through games,
play, art and digital means 2.33b Using phonic
awareness to write words
2.34b Writing and spelling
some common words within
simple sentences
COMMUNICATING THROUGH COMMUNICATING THROUGH COMMUNICATING THROUGH NUMBER
NUMBER NUMBER
2.35a Sorting and grouping 2.35b Identifying common
objects properties in and between 26. How numbers represent quantities
groups of objects 27. A range of mathematical language
2.36a Counting through
play activities, action songs, 2.37b Sequencing and Skills of being able to:
rhymes and games ordering numbers
28. Count beyond 10
2.40a Exploring one-to-one 2.38b Exploring written
correspondence numerals 29. Order numbers and identify which number
comes before and after; is one more or less than
2.41a Using mathematical 2.40b How numbers a given number
language to describe groups represent quantities and sets
containing more or less 30. Add two single digit numbers together using
objects 2.41b Identifying ‘more than’ practical materials
or ‘fewer than’ groups of
2.43a Counting groups of objects 31. Subtract two single digit numbers using
objects practical materials
2.43b Counting groups
2.44a Separating a quantity of objects beyond 10 in
of objects into groups with quantity
smaller number values
2.44b Exploring how totals
2.45a Selecting a given remain the same when
number of objects quantities of objects are
separated
2.46a Creating groups of
objects 2.47b Separating objects
into more than two groups
2.48a Comparing groups of and comparing group sizes
objects
2.48b Exploring the total
2.50a Exploring increasing number of objects in groups
and decreasing quantities by counting ‘how many
through action songs, altogether’
rhymes and games
2.50b Exploring early
2.52a Exploring money addition and subtraction
through practical contexts
2.52b Counting and using
money in a range of real-life
and play contexts
COMMUNICATING THROUGH COMMUNICATING THROUGH COMMUNICATING THROUGH SHAPE AND
SHAPE AND MEASURES SHAPE AND MEASURES MEASURES
2.53a Exploring size and 2.53b Ordering and Knowledge and an increasing understanding of:
shape through real-life and classifying size and shape in
play contexts practical contexts 33. The names of a range of shapes and
measures
Once Upon a Time
2.54a Exploring size and 2.54b Selecting sizes and Skills of being able to:
shape through construction shapes according to given
materials, puzzles, criteria 34. Compare quantities and objects according to
modelling and creative shape and measures
activities 2.55b The names of given
2D and 3D shapes 35. Solve simple mathematical problems
2.55a Exploring size and involving shape and measures
shape in everyday objects in 2.56b The mathematical
the environment language associated with 2D
and 3D shapes
2.56a Describing objects
according to size and shape 2.57b Using positional
language
2.57a Identifying similarities
and differences between 2.58b Collecting simple data
shapes and representing pictorially
2.60a Using language 2.59b Sequencing the

associated with time; passage of time in relation
morning, afternoon, day, to familiar routines and
night, mealtimes, etc. significant events
2.61a Exploring length and 2.61b Comparing and

height through play and ordering length and height
practical activities 2.62b Exploring how to
2.62a Using language measure length and height
associated with length and in practical contexts
height 2.63b Comparing and
2.63a Exploring weight ordering weight
through play and practical 2.64b Exploring how to
activities measure weight in practical
2.64a Using language contexts
associated with weight 2.66b Exploring how to
measure capacity in practical
contexts
COMMUNICATING THROUGH COMMUNICATING THROUGH COMMUNICATING THROUGH ICT AND

ICT AND COMPUTING ICT AND COMPUTING COMPUTING
2.69a Using technology in 2.67b Operating and Knowledge and an increasing understanding of:
practical activities controlling toys, objects
and devices that use 37. The uses of computers and technology in
2.70a Using technology to switches, control buttons, familiar contexts
perform simple functions pulleys, levers, knobs and
Skills of being able to:
2.71a The use of computers, mechanisms to produce
tablets and a range of ICT to movement, sound, light and 38. Operate a range of technology
convey information actions
40. Select and programme technology according
2.72a Storing and retrieving 2.70b Giving instructions, to the task and purpose
information using programming and operating
computers, tablets, cameras digital toys, devices and
and other forms of ICT computers
2.71b How computers are
used in the environment
and the language associated
with operating them
2.72b Using computers and
other forms of ICT as tools
to record, link and extend
experiences that happened
away from the computer
Once Upon a Time
2.73b Presenting ideas

and information using
technology
COMMUNICATING THROUGH COMMUNICATING THROUGH COMMUNICATING THROUGH THE EXPRESSIVE
THE EXPRESSIVE ARTS AND THE EXPRESSIVE ARTS AND ARTS AND CREATIVITY
CREATIVITY CREATIVITY
2.74a Using the senses 2.74b Using the senses to
to explore materials and categorise materials and 41. The uses of a range of art tools, materials
textures textures and musical instruments
2.75a Exploration of 2.75b Exploration of 42. A range of songs and music

colour, texture, materials, colour, texture, materials, Skills of being able to:
textiles, space, line and textiles, space, line and
shape involving tools, shape involving tools, 43. Experiment and express ideas using a range
manipulation, techniques manipulation, techniques of art tools, materials and musical instruments
and construction and construction to create
unplanned and planned 44. Represent ideas through music, movement,
2.76a Exploring how colour effects dance, role-play and drama
and texture can be changed
2.77b Designing and
2.77a Exploring and creating creating 2D and 3D artwork
2D and 3D artwork for a range of purposes
2.78a Exploring art in the 2.79b Using the styles of
environment selected artists to inspire
2.79a Using illustrations to drawings and artwork
inspire drawings and artwork 2.80b Freely experimenting
2.80a Freely experimenting with art and design and
with art materials and presenting ideas through
initiating own art adventures artwork
2.82a Singing songs, 2.81b Experimenting making

making sounds, exploring sounds and music in a wide
musical instruments and range of activities
their sounds and joining in 2.82b Expressing ideas,
musical activities moods and feelings through
2.85a Exploring rhythm and songs, sounds, music and
beat by clapping, tapping, musical instruments
banging, stamping and 2.90b Exploring characters,
moving storylines and roles through
2.86a Freely expressing drama activities involving
ideas through movement costume and props
and dance
2.87a Exploring movement
and dance through role play
and imagination
2.88a Responding to a
range of stimuli through
movement and dance
2.89a Exploring movement
and dance in the natural
world
2.90a Exploring role play
involving costumes and
props
Once Upon a Time
IEYC LEARNING STRAND 3: ENQUIRING LEARNING OUTCOMES: ENQUIRING

ENQUIRING ABOUT PEOPLE ENQUIRING ABOUT PEOPLE Knowledge and an increasing understanding of:
3.1a Exploring the senses 3.1b Using the senses to 45. Similarities and differences in people, living
make discoveries things, the environment and materials
46. How things can change
3.3a Exploring similarities
and differences in people 47. Features in the environment
3.4a Exploring how we Skills of being able to:
move
48. Investigate by:
ENQUIRING ABOUT THE ENQUIRING ABOUT THE
WORLD WORLD Posing questions
3.8a Using materials to carry 3.7b Asking questions, Exploring ideas

out simple investigations experimenting with ideas Making observations
and finding out about the
3.9a Exploring solids and wider world Providing simple explanations
liquids
3.8b Selecting materials
3.10a Exploring what makes to carry out simple
things move investigations
3.11a Identifying patterns in 3.9b Exploring how solids
the natural world and liquids can change
3.12a Exploring natural 3.11b Classifying and
materials and objects comparing objects in the
3.14a Exploring features of natural world
living and non-living things 3.12b Classifying and
3.15a Exploring significant comparing natural and man-
features of the local made materials
landscape 3.16b Planning
3.16a Observing nature in investigations involving
the local environment nature; researching, making
predictions and drawing
3.18a Representing the conclusions
environment through model
making, drawings and artwork 3.18b Representing the
environment through maps,
3.19a Exploring young and plans, drawings, photographs
old animals and diagrams
3.20a Exploring wildlife, 3.19 Exploring wildlife
domestic animals, birds, habitats
sea-life, insects and other
life forms that are of 3.20b Exploring the needs of
interest wild-life, domestic animals,
birds, sea-life, insects and
3.21a Exploring growing other life forms that are of
things interest
3.22a How to take care 3.21b Exploring the needs of
of living things and the growing things
environment
3.23a Observing changes in
plants over time
Once Upon a Time
IEYC LEARNING STRAND 4: HEALTHY LIVING AND LEARNING OUTCOMES: COMMUNICATING

PHYSICAL WELL-BEING

HEALTH AND SELF-CARE HEALTH AND SELF-CARE Knowledge and an increasing understanding of:
4.4a Exploring food and 4.4b Healthy eating, sleeping 49. The importance of healthy eating and
drink, textures and tastes and choices physical activity
4.5b Making safe choices 50. How to stay safe and how to seek help
and avoiding danger
Skills of being able to:
4.6b How to seek help
52. Demonstrate control, coordination and
PHYSICAL WELL-BEING
increasing confidence in a range of physical
4.9a Exploring movement activities
including walking, running,
kicking, skipping, climbing,
rolling, crawling, hopping,
jumping, sliding, throwing,
catching and swimming if
appropriate
4.10a Developing gross
motor skills using a range
of equipment
4.11a Developing
confidence, control and
coordination using small
and large equipment
4.12a Playing games
and using equipment
independently, in pairs and
with groups
4.13a Following
instructions, copying and
repeating actions
Once Upon a Time
Appendix 3
Example of an ‘IEYC Learning Journey’

This example can be easily adapted for your setting; it provides a starting point to capture
each child’s unique Learning Journey. The template is a simple way of recording what children
have learned about through the IEYC and child-initiated learning. Learning Journeys are an
effective way to inform planning and next steps in learning.

Teachers, children and families should contribute to an evidence base that demonstrates
children’s knowledge, skills and increasing understanding to support the Learning Journey.

The evidence base may include photographs, samples of learning, anecdotal records and
observations.

The evidence base is a way of gathering an insight into what children know, understand
and can do.
evidence based Learning Journey can be used to track progress over time and is a
An
reliable assessment tool – building a picture of children’s learning and development over
time.

This example can be replicated for all four Learning Strands, and used for recording and
tracking what has been covered throughout the unit, linking to next steps for learning and
development.
Once Upon a Time
Child’s Details:
IEYC Unit Title:
Implementation Date:
IEYC LEARNING STRAND 1: INDEPENDENCE AND INTERDEPENDENCE
IEYC Learning Child-initiated Working towards Reflections and

Experiences IEYC Learning IEYC Learning Evaluations
Experiences Outcomes
Phase A Phase B Links with Links with
Learning Learning Phase A Phase B
Experiences Experiences Learning Learning
(e.g. 1.6a) (e.g. 1.6b) Experiences Experiences
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Once Upon A Time IEYC v4

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Once Upon A Time IEYC v4

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Once Upon a Time

Stories and Storytelling

An Overview of Once Upon a Time 5

Putting Once Upon a Time into Action 16

Learning Block 1: Explore and Express – The Enormous Turnip 19

Learning Block 4: Explore and Express – The Gingerbread Man 118

Exit Point 148

The IEYC Process of Learning

An Overview of Once Upon a Time

A Mindmap of the Learning Experiences Included in Once Upon a Time

From tiny Soup, glorious The grass is Building Trip-trap to

Helping hands THE ENORMOUS THE THREE BILLY What a

Watch me go! THE TORTOISE AND THE GINGERBREAD A modern

Looking after Going for Animal Gingerbread Making

A Suggested Pathway through Once Upon a Time

Learning Block 1 Learning Block 2 Learning Block 3 Learning Block 4

3. From tiny seeds…

4. What a performance 4. Animal sports day 4. A modern day retelling

Suggestions for Enabling the Environment

Books for pleasure

Four lands of Once Upon a Time

The Tiny Seed, by Eric Carle, Puffin, 1997

The Big Picture for Teachers

The power of storytelling

The Enormous Turnip

The Three Billy Goats Gruff

The Tortoise and the Hare

The Gingerbread Man

The Big Picture for Children

Putting Once Upon a Time into Action

Meet the storyteller

Learning Block 1: Explore and Express

The central learning focus for this Learning Block is:

Suggestions for this Learning Block’s continuous provision and play

The IEYC Personal Goals children will be helped to develop in this

The IEYC International Dimension children will experience in this

Suggestions for linking to Language and Mathematical development

the dog pulls the cat pulls the farmer pulls

Suggestions for linking physical development to complement the

Learning Block 1: Explore and Express

IEYC Learning Strand 1: Independence and Interdependence

IEYC Learning Strand 2: Communicating

COMMUNICATING THROUGH READING

IEYC Learning Strand 3: Enquiring

Activity 1: Helping hands

IEYC Learning Strand 1: Independence and Interdependence

IEYC Learning Strand 2: Communicating

(title) character character character character character character

Activity 2: It was this big!

IEYC Learning Strand 1: Independence and Interdependence

IEYC Learning Strand 2: Communicating

IEYC Learning Strand 3: Enquiring

IEYC Learning Strand 4: Healthy Living and Physical Well-being

Activity 2: It was this big!

IEYC Learning Strand 1: Independence and Interdependence

IEYC Learning Strand 2: Communicating

COMMUNICATING THROUGH WRITING

IEYC Learning Strand 3: Enquiring

Activity 3: From tiny seeds…

IEYC Learning Strand 1: Independence and Interdependence

IEYC Learning Strand 2: Communicating

COMMUNICATING THROUGH SHAPE AND MEASURES

IEYC Learning Strand 3: Enquiring

Activity 3: From tiny seeds…