The Gruffalo - a story about a clever mouse (and a Gruffalo)

The Gruffalo, written and illustrated by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler and published by Macmillan, is a lovely story involving woodland animals and a Gruffalo. The mouse manages to trick all the other animals and when he meets the Gruffalo he manages to trick him too.

Activities

• Rhyming words

• Playdough creatures (making playdough)

• Story telling with playdough

• Den building (inside)

• Animals home's discussion

• Owl ice-cream

• Scrambled snake

• Gruffalo crumble

• Fruits discussion

• Den building (outside)

• Stone/rock character painting

• Story telling with character stones

• Stone hiding (in the garden or in the local area)

Indoor

Even though the story is based in a wood there are some lovely indoor activities that you can do around The Gruffalo book. For older children you can look at the rhyming words involved (there are lots) and think of other words that also rhyme that could be used in their place. You can be as silly as you want and children love thinking of different words that rhyme. They could even make their own words up and think of meanings. Children like playing with playdough so you could use it to make the different characters in the story. When you read the story again they can re-enact as you read with their playdough characters. If you don't have playdough handy there are recipes on the web but I tend to use 2 cups of flour, 1 cup of salt and a cup of water and mix together (with hands). If you have food colouring I add this to the water because you get a more even colour and it doesn't dye your hands as you mix it. If it is too dry add a bit more water but if it is too wet add more flour. If you store the playdough in the fridge in an air-tight container it will last at least a week. Don't forget to put photos of the creations in the busybookbank members forum. I would love to see them. Finally your child/children could make a den. This could be under the table using sheets/blankets/towels or I used to use my mum's clothes horse and drape sheets over that. Children can be really creative and all homes are different so they may be able to think of a good place to make their den. You can talk about what animals do to make their homes comfy (owls using twigs and feathers, foxes using leaves etc.) and the different names for animal homes, for example a badger lives in a sett and a squirrel lives in a drey etc.

Cooking/Food

Different foods are mentioned in the story such as owl ice-cream, scrambled snake and Gruffalo crumble. Everyone of course also wants to eat the mouse. It depends how creative you are as to how creative you want to be with the food. For owl ice cream you could use a scoop of ice cream and add wafers for the wings and add eyes using raisins or chocolate buttons and a piece of orange for the beak. Your child/children can get creative with how their owl ice-cream looks. You can of course make your own ice cream. I have never done this but it could be fun and then you can make the flavour you want. For scrambled snake you could make scrambled eggs (this is a good time to teach your child/children how to crack an egg) and add spinach for the green part (it's healthy so they might eat, they might not) and for Gruffalo crumble you could make a crumble using different fruits. My mum makes a crumble from scratch whereas I cheat and buy tinned fruit, put it in a bowl, add crumble mix (it comes in a packet), put it in the oven and my crumble is done. Your child/children can get involved by putting the fruit in the bowl, sprinkling the crumb on top and of course keeping an eye on the time so they can let you know when it is ready. You could talk about different fruits and which ones they think will taste best together and why.

Outdoor

The story is based outside so there are a few activities that I can think of to go along with The Gruffalo. One of them is building a den. I know I mentioned this in the indoor activity section but you can build some awesome dens outside too. I used to build one with my brothers and sister in the summer and we left it up until it rained and we spent the summer playing in and out of it and adapting it when our friends/cousins came round to play. It can be built like a tent over the washing line, tree branches can be used to peg sheets on to or find a corner of the garden and put your sheets/blankets/towels there. Pegs are useful for den building as they hold things together and are light and easy to get hold of. The fun thing about dens is that you can get as creative as you want and they can be any size. Another activity to do is to find some large stones or small rocks and paint the characters from the story on to them. If you don't want the paint to come off then they need to be covered in something waterproof like gloss or see through nail-polish. You could encourage your child/children to tell you the story in their own words using the stones to help prompt them. You could also hide them in the garden for your child/children to find or you could take them on a day out and hide them round the local park or area for others to find. You could talk about how it will be a nice surprise for another child to find their painted stones.