A Quiet Night In

Literacy Activity 1 - Story Time (Listen Phase)

Tom reads 'A Quiet Night In' by Jill Murphy in the video below. Enjoy watching the video! Can you answer these questions?

1. What sound does an elephant make? Can you make it?
2. Can you count how many elephants there are in the Large Family?
3. Can you name the elephants in the Large Family?
4. Whose birthday is it?

Literacy Activity 2 - Story Role Play (Act Phase)

Have a go at acting out the story. Can you remember the sequence and the characters? You can follow along with Tom's video if you like, or just pick one scene to recreate.

Resources needed:

• Printed Elephant Family (download below)
• Printed Communication Board
• Colouring pens or pencils
• Scissors

Activity steps:

1. Print out the Elephant Family and the Communication Board
2. Colour in your own elephant designs
3. Cut them out
4. Using your elephants, act out a scene from the book, or for a real CHALLENGE you could retell the whole story. Use the Communication Board to help remember the sequence and to aid communication.

Literacy Activity 3 - Making a Story Map (Map Phase)

It's time to make a story map! You can either use the resources below, or for a real CHALLENGE you could make your own map with your own drawings, arrows and labels.

Resources needed:

• Printed Symbols for Story Map and Story map 4 OR a blank sheet of paper if you intend to do the CHALLENGE!
• Pens or pencils

Activity steps:

1. Re-watch the story video above, following along with your elephants from activity 2
2. Make a story map using Symbols for Story Map and Story map 4 placing them in the order of the story. Note that this worksheet has 4 boxes to fill, however if this is too many/not enough, please make your own on another piece of paper

OR FOR A REAL CHALLENGE

Using Symbols for Story Map make a story map on a blank sheet of paper. Don’t forget to write labels too and arrows too! If you’re feeling really confident, you could even make your own map from scratch without the symbols!

Literacy Activity 4 - Let's write! (Write Phase)

It's time to write some sentences! Enjoy completing the worksheet, or if you fancy a real challenge, why not compose your own sentences in our CHALLENGE?

Resources needed

• Printed Composing Sentences worksheet, OR a blank sheet of lined paper if you intend to do the CHALLENGE!
• Pen or pencil

Activity steps

1. Retell the story using your story map from activity 3
2. Complete the Composing Sentences worksheet

OR FOR A REAL CHALLENGE

Choose a character and verbally compose a sentence about them. Repeat the sentence a few times before writing the sentence in shared writing. Shared writing is where the adult fills in the trickier parts of a sentence using a different colour pen. You can find instructions on how to do shared writing in more detail in the document how to do shared writing. You can also use Shape Coding when composing the sentence, more information can be found about this in the Shape Coding - how to guide.

Fine motor skills activities

• Have a go at making play-dough elephants with the video below!
• Complete the Handwriting Worksheets to practice your handwriting skills or warm up before writing your sentence in Activity 4
• Complete the jungle animals Cutting Skills worksheet to practice your cutting skills

Sensory activities

• Create a sensory bag of fun
  • Can you create a bag of elephant food?
  • You can use rice, pasta, oats or anything else you can find around your home
  • Enjoy squishing, rattling and playing with your new sensory bag!
• Using your imaginations - can you be an elephant?
  • Get a straw, a tray of water and a splash of washing up liquid
  • Can you practice blowing bubbles like you have an elephant trunk?

Literacy extension activities

• Complete the fill in the missing words worksheet. Once you have watched the story, see if you can complete the missing words sheet. If you need help, watch the story again and see if you can find the answer! 
• Complete the wordsearch if you want a real CHALLENGE!