P3 Read Write Count Activity Bag

There’s lots to look at in this book! Open the book at any page and play ‘I-spy with my little eye something beginning with…’ to explore all the different things you can see. 

See if your child can draw a map of their bedroom or another room in your home like Martha does. They could include things like their bed and their favourite toys and books.

There are lots of thoughts whizzing around in Martha’s head. Sometimes we can feel as if there are too many thoughts! You could talk to your child about this and try these exercises to help them manage their worries. You could also use the mindfulness cards for ideas.

At the beginning of the book you’ll find a diagram showing all the different animals and how fast they can run. You and your child could take turns to quiz each other on which animal is faster. Which is faster – a tortoise or a turtle? There are some surprises – did you know a hippo can run faster than a human being?

There’s lots of alliteration in the book (when two words start with the same letter – like ‘penguins on pogo sticks’). See how many other animals you and your child can find for the different modes of transport. How about polar bears on pogo sticks? Or lemurs in lorries?

How many different animals can your child spot in the book? Which is their favourite? How many have they seen in real life? If there’s a park or green space near you, you could go for a walk and see how many snails, squirrels and dogs you can spot.

Have a look at all the Galactic Fantastic alien cards with your child. Which is their favourite? They could have a go at drawing their on made up alien. Ask them to think about how tall they are, how much they weigh, how old they are and what their special skill is. Make sure they give them a name!

Pick a character, item and setting from the story cards and see if your child can come up with a story about them. Select one of each at random and then let your imaginations run wild! You could take it in turns with your child to build the story sentence by sentence, and to pick more cards to add to the story.

The mindfulness cards have ideas to help your child relax. One of them suggests doing a yoga pose. In this video, Cosmic Kids Yoga show you some poses you could try – some of them are quite tricky!

Your child might know their shoe size, but do they know how long their feet actually are? Why not measure them and find out? Maybe one is bigger than the other!

What an opportunity to find out what their tallest toy is! Ask them which one they think it is and then they can go and find out.

See if your child can use the tape measure to measure the length of a room in the house. See if they can keep track of where they are with a piece of scrap paper on the floor.

Some things are easier to measure than others. A clever way to measure a tricky shape is to put a bit of string around it and then measure how much string you’ve use. See if your child can do this themselves with a funny shaped toy.

You can find more ideas for using the measuring tape here.