Three Billy Goats Gruff
Over the next few weeks the children will be involved in lots of activities linked to Three Billy Goat’s Gruff.
Watch the YouTube video of the story here
Hopefully your child will have already spotted the display on the gate as they leave Nursery. Please use this as a talking point to see if your child can recall different parts of the story. These are some additional activities you could try at home.
Communication and Language
This story, like Three Little Pigs, follows a repetitive pattern where many key phrases appear again and again in the story. Can you encourage your child to join in? e.g. ‘Someone’s trip-trapping on my bridge!’
Physical Development
The bridge is an important part of this story. The children begin to understand that the bridge is used to take the goats safely over the river. Encourage your child to build bridges in your garden and balance to get across safely. As well as making large scale bridges your child could make some small scale bridges for toy animals or cars to cross.
Mathematics
The concept of size features in this story- Talk to your child about The Three Billy Goats Gruff. Explain that they have the same name, so what makes them different? Discuss the different sizes of the goats and ask if the children know another story with creatures of different sizes? Make the Goldilocks link and discuss the three bears and their differing sizes. Use language such as bigger and biggest, smaller and smallest, medium-sized and so on. Make comparisons with the children and the adults in your family. ‘Is Mummy bigger or smaller than Jazib? Is Iyla's baby brother bigger or smaller than her? Do some ordering activities with objects in your home.
Expressive Arts and Design
We encourage the children to explore many different ways of moving. In the story the goats ‘trip-trap’. What does your child think that movement looks like? Think about other animals and how they move. Can your child ‘dash’ as fast as a panther? Can they ‘stomp’ as loud as an elephant?
Personal, Social and Emotional Development
There are many emotions to discuss when reading this story – Children may assume that the troll is angry but discuss with your child why he might be angry. Perhaps he feels lonely living under the bridge with no friends? If your child enjoyed the last session from Oak Academy then you can move on to this next session by following this link.
Understanding the World
Encourage children to find out something new about goats. Talk to your child about ways we can find information; discuss books, the internet, asking people and so on. Support your child to find out some facts about goats so they can report back to the class what they have found when they return. What do they like to eat? Do all goats have horns?
How will they present their information? Will they draw pictures and/or can you help them to write the information?
