A Fox Called Herbert
We're delighted to be joining forces with Andersen Press to share free, accessible readings of their picture books via exclusive weekly virtual storytimes every Friday at 10am on our Facebook page.
Don't worry if you can't make it for 10, we'll keep a recorded video on our page for you to watch later!
This story time is A Fox Called Herbert by Margaret Sturton. Our brilliant creative learning team have created some activtiies for you to do after you've listened to Margaret's story time.
We'd love you to join us for this extra-special storytime at https://www.facebook.com/7Stories/videos/933773283708083/?vh=e
Activities
Proud!
This is a great activity to get everyone's voices heard and thinking positively about themselves, without feeling vulnerable.
Going around everyone, ask them to summarise one of the many things they love about themselves, or are proud of, in one word. They don't need to explain it, it only needs to make sense to them.
Give some examples that are about qualities or actions, such as, read, share, funny, or smart.
When I look in the mirror I see…
Encourage children to create a picture of themselves. They could draw, paint, or colour this in. The picture doesn't have to be a true representation, if they see themselves as a proud lion, they could draw that.
Next ask children to label parts of themselves by finishing the sentence "When I look in the mirror I see..." followed by something positive about themselves.
If they see themselves as a super hero, scientist, flower, etc they could add this to their picture too.
It can be anything that they value about themselves as a person and will help children see how to be kind to themselves.
A page of proud
Take a sheet of A4 paper and divide it up in to 8 equally sized boxes. You could do this by drawing with a pencil, or by folding it along the longest edge three times and opening it back out.
In these boxes children are going to answer self-esteem related questions, to help remind them how proud they are of themselves.
Children should write or draw their responses to these prompts:
- Draw a picture of themselves
- Something I do well…
- 3 things I like about myself…
- Something I do for others…
- Something I have improved at…
- I am grateful for...
- I am happiest when...
- I feel proud of myself when I...
Steps in the right direction…
This activity helps children to recognise and keep track of achievements they value and are proud of. You can use this staircase to start a discussion about behaviour and personal attribute children personally value.
Everyone should draw a simple staircase like the one below. Each staircase is different because it leads wherever you want to go!
Every time a child does something they are proud of, they write it under the step they are going to climb up on to. Because this is an ‘up only’ staircase, you can't move back down! If a child is having a day where they don't feel proud of themselves they could decide to do something that would move themselves up the staircase.
Dear future me,
This activity is all about raising aspiration and thinking of the kind of person children want to grow up to be. There may even be some things they could be doing now!
Ask children to think about who or what they would like to be when they are older. Will they be kind? Will they be happy? What will they still be doing? What will they have stopped doing? How will they make the world a better place?
Ask children to write a letter and drawing pictures for their future selves. the task of writing to their future self or drawing a picture of who they want to be and explaining what kind of person they will be.
You can keep these letters and drawings safe and give them back to the child to read when they are older.