CFE Levels Early and 1 (Ages 4-8)
Resources created by Scottish Book Trust
Nick Sharratt learning resourceCreative activities inspired by Shark in the Park on a Windy Day! and Vikings in the Supermarket
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About this resourceAbout Nick Sharratt Activities based on Vikings in the SupermarketActivities based on Shark in the Park on a Windy Day!
About this resourceThis resource gives cross-curricular activity suggestions to help you find out more about Nick Sharratt and explore his books Vikings in the Supermarket and Shark in the Park on a Windy Day! with your class or book group. Adapt and use these activities as you see fit! Whether you own a class set or just one copy, we hope there’s something in here which inspires you to set up some fun, creative learning around the books.
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About Nick Sharratt
Nick Sharratt knew from a very early age that he wanted to be an artist.He grew up in Suffolk and Manchester and was trained in graphic designat St Martin’s School of Art in London. Sharratt has illustrated close to 250books, ranging from board books for babies to novels for youngteenagers. He has worked with authors including Julia Donaldson, JeremyStrong, Michael Rosen, Giles Andreae, Kaye Umansky, Kes Gray andmost notably Dame Jacqueline Wilson. He has also written around 40 ofhis own books.
Nick has won several awards including the Children’s Book Award for Jeremy Strong’s The Hundred Mile-An-Hour Dog, The Sheffield Children’s Book Award in 1996 for his own Cheese and Tomato Spider and again in 2001 for Kes Gray’s Eat Your Peas. He won the Red House Children’s Book Award for Pants and was also shortlisted for the Kate Greenaway Medal. Nick is currently providing illustrations for the second series of the hugely successful BBC Children’s drama Tracy Beaker Returns. Most recently, Shark in the Park on a Windy Day! was shortlisted for the Bookbug Picture Book Prize 2017.
Activities based on Vikings in the Supermarket
Exploring forces and buoyancyScience>Year One>Working Scientifically, Everyday Materials, Art and Design >Year One
Tidy Clyde the pirate sails the seas in his pirate ship. Can your learners make their own pirate ships and make them go? There’s a great lesson plan and presentation on the TES website here (you’ll need a free login): http://bit.ly/2fdQgOv. Look for the KS1 PowerPoint and lesson plan, where pupils can find out about buoyancy and construct their own simple boat.
The design of the sail could present an opportunity for your pupils to design a pattern, or even invent a pirate character. Ask them to come up with a name for their pirate and think of some things their pirate likes (perhaps they can think of what their pirate likes to eat for lunch, just like Clyde). They can then design a flag to let others know who’s in charge of the ship and what they like best!
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Enjoyment and Choice: Hold a Class Vote English>Year One>Reading – comprehension, English>Year Two>Spoken Language, English>Year Two>Writing - vocabulary, grammar and punctuation
With seven fantastic poems, the book gives you a great chance to get pupils discussing and voting for their favourite! You could get pupils to design a quick class survey, asking others for their favourites and reasons for their choice. Pupils could interview each other and collect results, then the winning poem can be announced! As an extension, you could challenge some of your pupils to do a presentation about their findings in assembly or to another class, accompanied by performances of some of the poems.
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Create your own illustrated book of poems English>Year Two>Writing – composition, Art and Design>Year Two
Writing for a genuine audience is a great motivator for pupils, so why not try creating an illustrated book of poems or stories to distribute around the school or community?
Here’s one suggested approach based on Vikings in the Supermarket:
You wouldn’t expect to find Vikings in a supermarket. But good writing is all about the unexpected! Give pupils some examples of places around the community, and ask them to think of things they wouldn’t expect to find there. For instance, dragons in the dentist!
Pupils can compose poems made up of different ideas. For example:
There’s a dragon at the dentist, There’s a wizard on the train!There’s a dinosaur in the playground, There’s a monster on the plane!
Of course, if you don’t want your pupils to try rhyming or scanning then they can still create poems by listing their ideas in the above style, just without rhymes or a set pattern of syllables. If you do want to explore some activities to help with rhyming and scanning poetry, try our Ross Collins resource: http://bit.ly/2fe4nDs.
After this, pupils can produce illustrations to accompany their poems. These could be full page illustrations, series of images in panels like a comic, or illustrations set near to the text of the poem.
After this, collate the pupils’ poems into a book and distribute it around the school or community – perhaps at the dentist’s, doctor’s, or wherever else your pupils have named in their poems!
Differentiation: for older pupils, story writing could be undertaken: pupils can choose one of their ideas and come up with questions to drive the story. How did the dinosaur get in the playground? What does it want? What further surprising things might happen?Also, younger pupils could create purely illustrated or oral texts. Oral texts can be produced using a storybuilding approach – you can find out more about storybuilding in our Catherine Rayner resource: http://bit.ly/2fe2dnr.
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Build a castle with a moving drawbridgeDesign and Technology>Year One>Technical knowledge, Art and Design>Year One
'Posh paint’ features a royal family who are fed up with their boring grey castle! Use the idea of a castle as a stimulus for a STEMactivity – this blog post gives some useful ideas: http://bit.ly/2fLoUUp. Youcan also find lots of good ideas on this Pinterest page: https://uk.pinterest.com/sonjamohr/simple-machines-projects-for-kids/. Once pupils have finished building their castle, get them to decorate it: this could open up opportunities to create repeating patterns or introduce colour mixing.
Some songs and rhymes Music>Year One
Here are some songs and rhymes based on themes in the book for your pupils to sing:
Busy Farmer Ben: http://bbc.in/2atQ4xb
Big ship sails on the ally ally oh: http://bbc.in/2fLlktB
If you enjoyed 'A Tartan Tale’ you’ll find some Scots songs from Scottish Book Trust here: http://bit.ly/2fLqu8D
There are also lots of sailing songs available on the Scottish Book Trust website: http://bit.ly/2fLpj9y
If you and your class loved Vikings in the Supermarket English>Year One>Reading - comprehension
Check out some of the books on our list of poetry collections: http://www.scottishbooktrust.com/reading/book-lists/16-lovely-poetry-books-3-7
Alternatively, have a look at our list of books about royalty: http://www.scottishbooktrust.com/reading/book-lists/royal-reads-3-7
Or you could pick from our list of funny books: http://www.scottishbooktrust.com/reading/book-lists/12-funny-books-to-enjoy-during-scotlands-big-laugh-3-7
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Activities based on Shark in the Park on a Windy DayDesign your own park English>Year One>Spoken Language, English>Year Two>Writing - composition, Mathematics>Year One>Number – addition and subtraction, Art and Design >Year One
This activity idea can be a springboard for lots of cross-curricular learning!
Ask your pupils about their local park. Do they go to the park? What have they enjoyed doing there? What do they see adults enjoying at the park?What other things might they like to see at the park? You could use the quick activity sheet for the book to get pupils to draw what they might find at the park – the sheet can be found here:scottishbooktrust.com/learning/learning-resources/resource/bookbug-picture-book-prize-2017-learning-resources
Tell your pupils that they have been asked to design a new park for thecommunity. Get them to mind map different things that should be in thepark. They need to think about all the different people who visit the parkand the things they might need and want!
After this, get them to plan the park. They could do this in groups, decidingwhere the best place for certain attractions and facilities could be. Getthem to draw a map of their park and label all of its features.
After this, ask them to design tickets for attractions in the park, and work out how much money someone would need to bring to go to every attraction. You could also get them to design Danger signs giving instructions on what to do if you see a shark!
If you want to incorporate some extended writing, older pupils can writeletters to persuade the local council that a new park is needed, or write aspeech for a local dignitary to read out on park opening day.
Discussion English>Year One>Spoken Language
Here are some questions to help you discuss the themes of the book:
l Tim and his dad help out someone in need. Why do you think peoplehelp others? Can you think of a time someone helped you?
l Tim and his dad go to the park together. Do you enjoy doing thingstogether with other people? Is it sometimes enjoyable to do somethings on your own too?
l Most towns have some kind of park in them. Obviously people thinkit’s important to have a park! Do you think it’s important to have alocal park?
Write or build a story about the park English>Year One>Spoken Language
Encourage pupils to write a story set in a park. You can do story buildingwith Early Level pupils, where you gather them in groups, give them thesetting and perhaps a character to start off with and ask them promptquestions to build a story. For instance, what is their character doing in thepark; who do they meet; do they run into a problem, and how do they getaround it?
First Level pupils can try writing stories or comic strips. One good storyidea might be to ask them to imagine that there is a town without a park,or where a park has been taken away from the community. How do thecharacters overcome this problem?
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Numeracy activities Mathematics>Year One>Number – addition and subtraction
For Early Level counting activities, you can count the number of animalsand people in the park or the number of leaves on a page.
Make a kite Design and Technology>Year One>Technical knowledge, Make
Making a kite is a great activity to talk about strengthening materials. Youcan ask pupils for their suggestions as to how it could be done: they canrevise and improve their designs along the way. This set of instructions is agreat place to start: www.instructables.com/id/Easy-Paper-Kite-for-Kids/?ALLSTEPS
Learning about the seasons Science>Year One>Seasonal Changes
Ask your pupils to investigate how the park would look in differentseasons. What colour would the trees be, and why? Why might the pondturn to ice, and why would it turn back to water in spring? Why wouldn’tyou see as many birds in the park in winter? Ask your pupils to produce asummer and winter guidebook for the park, telling visitors about the factsthey have learned.
If you want to investigate ice further, try the activity on page 6 of our RossCollins resource: http://bit.ly/2atQiV3
Take part in the John Muir Award Science>Year One>Plants
The John Muir Award challenges participants to discover a wild place, findout about it, conserve it in some way and share the experience with otherpeople. A local park can be the wild place your pupils discover, andthere’s lots for them to find out about: what kind of trees and plants growthere, what kind of animals you can find, what the park’s history is, howyou can get around in the park, and so on.
Conserving your wild place can take many forms! Find out more on theJohn Muir Trust website: www.johnmuirtrust.org/four-challenges
Some songs and rhymes Music>Year One
Here are some songs and rhymes related to the book for your pupils to sing:
l The North Wind Doth Blow: http://bbc.in/2atPkInl The Leaves on the Tree: https://learnenglishkids.
britishcouncil.org/en/songs/the-leaves-the-treel Come Little Leaves: www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-T0eocxFosl Five Little Ducks Went Swimming One Day:
www.bbc.co.uk/learning/schoolradio/subjects/earlylearning/nurserysongs/F-J/five_little_ducks
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If you and your class loved Shark in the Park on a Windy Day English>Year One>Reading – comprehension
Check out our list of books that use pages creatively:scottishbooktrust.com/reading/book-lists/13-books-that-use-pages-creatively-3-7
This list gives you 8 books celebrating the great outdoors:scottishbooktrust.com/reading/book-lists/walk-on-the-wild-side-3-7
And here are 10 books about dads: scottishbooktrust.com/reading/book-lists/10-books-about-dads-3-7
