When Michael Rosen Met Julia Donaldson-We're Going on a Story Hunt-Interactive Story Session

I really loved going into Phoebe's Reception class a few weeks ago as a volunteer to organise an outdoor play session for them so I offered to do another one this term.

They really enjoyed the tuff trays so I wanted to use them again but in a different way. I thought an interactive story session would be fun where we would make our way around the outdoor area and We're Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen is a great book for going on a journey. I then came up with the idea to muddle it up with some other books so that they had to hunt for a different storybook character in each area which then gave the journey a purpose. 

When the children came out I told them I had brought a bag full of books with me but when I went into the bag there was only one book in there - when we opened the book and discovered the other characters inside we realised that all the books must have jumbled themselves together! They loved this idea!

   

They were focusing on Julia Donaldson books earlier this year so I used her characters to link back to their earlier learning. I photocopied the book so it was large enough for all the group to see and printed two pictures of each of the Julia Donaldson characters I was using. I stuck one in the book along with some altered text and laminated the other picture that was going to be hidden.

   

It started with a 'ladybird hunt' from What the Ladybird Heard. The ladybird was hiding in the long wavy grass which was shredded green paper.

Tiddler was hiding in the river - I used my stone effect tray liner, sellotaped the laminated picture to the bottom of a stone and put in some other stones too so the children had to pick out the stones from the water-filled tuff tray to find the one with Tiddler on. 

Superworm was in the oozy mud. I made this with equal parts flour and water, plus cocoa powder to colour it. They loved the chocolatey smell! I put this in an inflatable tray (£2 from Amazon) inside the tuff tray which worked really well to contain the mess and also made the mud deeper.

    

Stickman was hiding in the forest. There is an area with lots of planks, sticks and branches which the children use for building so I just stuck the Stickman picture to a twig using my glue gun and mixed it in with them.

The Gruffalo's Child was in the snowstorm. I made snow using bicarbonate of soda mixed with shaving foam (not gel). You have to really rub this together for quite a while but eventually it becomes like powdery snow that is actually cold to the touch and can be moulded into a ball. I put some white pom poms round the edge as snowballs and some 'chunks of ice' (these were plastic crystals from Home Bargains, they're sold as decorative items to put into vases but they make great fake ice!)

The mud and snow trays were definite favourites!

  

Finally, the cave! I made this out of a cardboard box which I shaped using paper mâché and lined the bottom with an off-cut from my stone tray liner that I used for the river. I then painted it grey, added some stems of wheat as trees and hung a piece of black plastic (an inside-out plastic envelope) inside to make it look dark and to hide what was in the cave.

   

I asked for a brave volunteer to put their hand in the cave as I read "It's a ..... Gruffalo!"
The Gruffalo picture was stuck to a cardboard tube to make him stand up. 

 I added purple prickles and horns to the little pictures of the bear through the rest of the story (the bonus of having a photocopied version!) and stuck a Gruffalo picture over the close-up at the door. 

We then had to retrace our steps to get away from the Gruffalo, hiding the characters back in their areas on our way.

There is a raised section in the centre of the outdoor area where I'd laid out a big parachute as their bed. They acted out all the words, walking up the steps, walking back down again to shut the door and then there was lots of squeals of excitement as they all tried to fit in 'their bed'!

            

This activity worked so well for their age - I did it for four separate groups of four & five year olds, 15 children in each group, and they were all totally engaged, reciting the story with me, naming the characters and getting their hands straight into the mud and snow etc.

      

Three other things to mention that really helped it run smoothly - 

- I split the children into five groups of three and gave them a sticker to help them remember their group number. I preassigned each group to two areas, so there was six children searching for each character, and made sure they all got to do at least one of the messy areas (river, mud or snow). On the way back each group of three put one of the characters back in an area they hadn't searched, so they all got involved in three of the five areas. They all got chance to get their hands in the trays they hadn't searched too but I didn't want any of them leaving upset that they hadn't had a fair turn.

 - A washing up bowl of water and a couple of old towels next to the mud tray came in very handy for hand washing!
- When they found the characters I asked them to put them into a bowl so that they were easy to carry around with us and didn't get lost.

I would really recommend this activity for 3 to 6 year olds in particular. It took quite a bit of preparation time-wise but none of it was complicated or expensive and the children got so much good stuff from it - fresh air, exercise, sensory play, problem solving skills, communication, teamwork, drama, encouragement of a love of reading and good old fun!