1,2,3 Storytelling
1. Look at the front cover together. Ask: What can you see? What kind of place is this? What might happen in this story? Read the whole story to your child. Emphasise the rhyming words (elf and self, bears and chairs, yoga and ogre).
2. Read the story again and ask your child about each page and the illustrations. For example: What can you see in the forest? Who is sitting in the tree? Which other story has three bears in it? Encourage them to join in with repeated and rhyming words.
3. Ask your child to share the story with you. They tell you the story using the pictures on each page. Ask: Did you like the story? Why? Which was your favourite part? Why? Who was your favourite character? Why?
Watch Emma read The Foggy Foggy Forest here
Activities
Talk
Ask lots of questions to encourage your child to guess who is hiding in the fog, for example: What can this be in the foggy, foggy forest? Discuss the shapes of the trees – round, tall, narrow, shorter, taller. Discuss the character shapes that you can see.
Once a character is revealed, take time to describe them, for example: Who can you see on top of the
toadstool? How do you know? Were we right? Describe the elf. What colour are his clothes? How is he feeling? What is he sitting on? Describe the toadstool. Do you know any other stories with an elf? How many bears are they? What are the bears eating? Do you know another story with three brown bears?
Play
Magic Wand Says
Give instructions that match the characters in the story, for example: “Fly like a fairy, gallop like a
unicorn, walk like a bear, skip like Goldilocks, stomp like an ogre”.
Foggy, foggy forest adventure
Give instructions to help your child pretend to move around the forest, for example walk next to the river, take 3 steps. Walk along the path. Stop there’s a bear hiding behind the tree! Creep past the tree.
Other books to read and watch at home
The Yoga Ogre – Peter Bently
Goldilocks and the Three Bears
Cinderella
Little Red Riding Hood
You Choose: Fairy Tales – Pippa Goodheart
The Great Fairy Tale Disaster – David Conway
Unicorns Don’t Love Rainbows – Emma Adams
Winnie the Witch – Korky Paul
Fairytale Frankie and the Tricky Witch
Make
Make shadow puppets of the story characters
Make wooden spoon puppets of the story characters
Bake fairy cupcakes
Make the three bears’ porridge
Songs
Fog Song
(Tune: Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star)
Foggy, foggy, misty sight,
Hiding things from left and right,
Like a cloud that hugs the ground,
Soft and silent, without a sound.
Foggy, foggy, can’t see clear,
Shapes are blurry everywhere.
Foggy, foggy, all around
Soft and quiet on the ground.
Hiding trees and hills so tall,
Like a misty magic wall
Foggy, foggy, all around
When Goldilocks went to the house of the bears
When Goldilocks went to the house of the bears
When Goldilocks went to the house of the bears,
Oh what did her two eyes see?
A bowl that was huge,
A bowl that was small,
A bowl that was tiny and that was all,
She counted them: one, two, three.
When Goldilocks went to the house of the bears,
Oh what did her two eyes see?
A chair that was huge,
A chair that was small,
A chair that was tiny and that was all,
She counted them: one, two, three.
Repeat with a bed and bear for the final two verses.
Five Little Fairies
Hold up five fingers and take one away each time
Five little fairies playing by the pond
One fell in and lost her wand
Mama called the wizard who did respond
“No more fairies playing by the pond!”
Fairy Story Fingers
(Tune: the Finger Family Song)
Hold up five fingers and wiggle one in turn for each character
Elf finger, elf finger, where are you?
Here I am, here I am, how do you do?
Fairy finger, fairy finger, where are you?
Here I am, here I am, I’ll wave my wand for you!
Unicorn finger, unicorn finger, where are you?
Here I am, here I am, I’ll blow my horn for you!
Witch finger, witch finger, where are you?
Here I am, here I am, I’ll cast a spell on you!
Ogre finger, ogre finger, where are you?
Here I am, here I am, I’ll do some yoga too!
The Foggy Foggy Forest is written and illustrated by Nick Sharratt and published by Walker Books