Early development

Sensory story: 'We're Going on a Lion Hunt'

Primary

Communication and language

﻿Hi, my name's Charlotte and I'm the teacher that's going to be doing today's session with you. In today's session, we're going to be reading the story "We're Going on a Lion Hunt," written and illustrated by David Axtell and published by Macmillan Children's Books. In today's session, we're going to be reading through the story and we're going to be adding different multisensory activities and stimuli to help engage your child with the story. Throughout it, your child may interact with the stimuli, they may notice it or they may react to it. This will all depend on your child's level of development but don't worry if they don't react to it if your child is not at that level yet. It's all about building up those skills. Throughout the video today, I'm going to be reading a page of the story to you and modelling the different activities that you could do. I'm then going to give you time to do these activities with your children yourself before moving on to the next page. Let's get ready to read the story. For this lesson, you will need some green paper, card or tissue paper that's cut at the top to look like grass. Some scissors to do this with. A tray or bowl of water. Some shaving foam mixed with brown food colouring in a bowl or a tray. A smooth piece of wood and a plastic cup. A pair of shoes and a lion roar recording. Press pause now whilst you get these things ready. Getting ready. Now that you've got these things ready, it's time to find a quiet area to work in with your child. You'll also need your resources next to you. Make sure your child is comfortable and ready to learn. This may be on the floor or at a table. Please make sure your child knows that you're going to start a new activity as they need to be ready to learn. Press pause now whilst you get these things ready. It's time to look, listen, learn. Are you ready? Let's go. "We're Going on a Lion Hunt" by David Axtell and published by Macmillan Children's Books. "We're Going on a Lion Hunt." Long grass, chop, chop, chop. At this point of the story, I'd like you to get your green card and to get your scissors and I'd like you to cut along the edge so that you form grass just like this. Once you've done that, I'd like you to start to explore this resource to begin with without the story and I'd like you to run it up and down your child's arm. You could run it across their face and you could just get them to look at it as well. If you had real grass, they could also smell it as you'd have that fresh grass smell too. If you don't have green card but you do have yellow or brown card, that's absolutely fine because it could look like the dried grass they may see in different parts of the world. I'm going to read that to you now again and model to you what to do at the same time as the story. Long grass, chop, chop, chop. How does that feel? Press pause now to pause the video so you can explore the resources that I've just shown you. Then press resume once you've finished so that we can carry on with the story. Puddles, splish, splosh, splash. For this part of the activity, you will need your tray of water, just like I have here. And when we read through the next line of the story, we're going to use the water and splish and splash in the water. Please put this in front of your child and when we read the line, you can do this for them. If your child is able to though, however, please allow them to do it as they get more from the activity and from the story. Puddles, splish, splosh, splash. As well as splishing and sploshing in the water of the tray, you could also flick the water across your child's face if you think that that they will be okay with that as it allows them to feel the sensation of the water. Press pause now to pause the video so you can explore the resources that I've just shown you. Then, press resume once you're finished so that we can carry on with the story. Ugh! Mud, squelch, squelch, squelch. For this part of the story, you will need your tray with some shaving foam and brown food colouring or mud or I've used sand to make mine a kind of light mud colour. This is for your child to put their hands in and to feel that squelchiness of the mud instead of going outside and doing it and I would definitely recommend having something to clean their hands with right by you as well. I'm going to read through the story again and I'm going to model what to do and then I'm going to give you time to do it your yourself. Ugh! Mud, squelch, squelch, squelch. How does that feel on your hand? Ugh. Press pause now to pause the video so you can explore the resources that I've just shown you. Then press resume once you're finished so that we can carry on with the story. For this part of the story, you will need a cup, and you'll need a board. Bridge, clop, clop, clop. For this part of the story, you're going to use your cup and the wood or the board to make that clopping sound as if you're walking over it. So I'm going to model and then I'll give you time to do it yourself. Bridge, clop, clop, clop. Bridge, clop, clop, clop. Now it's your turn. Press pause now to pause the video so you can explore the resources that I've just shown you. Then press resume once you're finished so that we can carry on with the story. Ooh, a cave, tip toe, tip toe. For this part of the story, you will need a shoe or a pair of shoes and you will also need the wooden board again or the block of wood or something else to model tip toeing on. So I'm going to read that story again and when I reach the tip toe bit, I'm going to model tip toeing with the shoe. Ooh, a cave, tip toe, tip toe. This shows the child what tip toeing looks like but you could also model it by doing it yourself. If you'd like your child to do the tiptoeing and they are able to, then that is an even better way to engage them in the story. But if they're unable to, don't worry, you can still model it. I'm going to read it again and model it together and then it'll be your turn. Ooh, a cave, tip toe, tip toe. Press pause now to pause the video so you can explore the resources that I've just shown you. Then press resume once you're finished so that we can carry on with the story. Aaah, a lion! Roar. At this point of story, I would like you to act scared when we're reading the story and I'd like you to either use a soundtrack of a lion roar or roar yourself, depending on how your child will react. I'm going to model that again and then it'll be your turn to do it. Aaah, a lion! Roar. Now it's your turn. Press pause now to pause the video so you can explore the resources that I've just shown you. Then press resume once you're finished so that we can carry on with the story. The next part of the story is exactly the same as the first part of the story, except backwards and a little bit quicker. I'm going to read through the story all the way through from the beginning to the end and you can just use the same sensory stimuli as you did in the first half for the second half of the story. Let's read the story together and put everything that we've done so far into place. I'm now going to read the whole story for you so that you could add in all of the sensory stimuli in one go. "We're Going on a Lion Hunt" by David Axtell. Long grass, chop, chop, chop. Puddles, splish, splosh, splash. Ugh! Mud, squelch, squelch, squelch. Bridge, clop, clop, clop. Ooh, a cave, tip toe, tip toe. Aah, a lion! Back through the cave, tip toe, tip toe. Back over the bridge, clip clop, clip clop. Back through the mud, squelch, squelch, squelch. Back through puddles, splish, splosh, splash. Back through the long grass, chop, chop, chop. Back home to bed. The end. Well, that's it for today's story. I hope your child enjoyed listening to it and using the different sensory stimuli that matched it. That's it for today's session. There are more ideas on the way but I hope to see you next time. Bye. To make the sensory story easier, you could use symbols or drawings to support your child's understanding of the key vocabulary. You could also include additional resources that could support your child's understanding of key vocabulary using resources that they know. To make it harder, after reading the story multiple times, each time you use a resource, offer your child two different resources and get them to choose which one comes next in the story. Some more ideas include reading more stories from around the world, such as "Too Much Talk" by Angela Medearis, read "We're Going on a Bear Hunt" by Michael Rosen as a similar story and you could also listen to songs linked to African culture. As well as watching this video, you could also watch some other videos that might benefit your child from Oak National Academy teachers. These include speech and language videos, sensory integration videos, physical therapy videos and occupational therapy videos. Not all of these videos will be relevant for your child, so please choose the ones which are. We'd love for you to share your work with us at Oak National. If you'd like to, as the parent or carer, please share your child's work on Instagram, Facebook or Twitter tagging @OakNational and #LearnwithOak.

Sensory story: 'We're Going on a Lion Hunt'

Sensory story: 'We're Going on a Lion Hunt'

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