Gruffalo Sensory Small World

I decided it was time to bring a little of the Gruffalo to our world for Squirrel to explore; he loves sensory play, and we get a huge amount from it. We have been having a Gruffalo themed ‘sub’ unit to our Autumn Unit – round up to follow, and couldn’t resist this on a rainy afternoon in the West Country after watching it on TV.

From word practice, character, object and colour recognition, fine motor, hand control, lots relating to imaginative play and dozens of other developmental ‘clicks’, small world sensory brings a new dimension of exploration to a subject.

I collected some of our treasures, and found the beautiful orchestral soundtrack to the Gruffalo to ring through the kitchen as we swept ourselves away into the Gruffalos forest.

We used:
Stones
Sanitised feathers
Pine cones
Sycamore seeds
Beech leaves
Curls of birch bark
Acorns
Sticks
Chopped twine
Dyed rice in brown, orange, red and green
Laminated printed characters from twinkl

I arranged his shelves, a tray and a few tools beside the set up (i used an unused drawer perched on his water table) and enjoyed arranging a starting position for him to discover.

Then let him loose!

He found all the creatures, picked them out, told me their names and a few of their sounds (“hissss!”, “ruff!”, “eek!”, “raaaah!”) then replaced them again.

Stones are very important to Squirrel. He evacuated all of the stones. Then put them back in again. And again. And again.

Then we made a nest for the fox (and the mouse, for some reason Squirrel was terribly insistent that they stick together!)

And a ‘cave’ for the Gruffalo!

Owl spent a lot of time being kindly given feathers… and then having stones piled on top of him.

Then the rice. Oh my, sweepy sweepy poury poury!

Glorious rice!

 

The fox was fed lots of lovely red rice! “Red rice for fox!” is the most delicious thing to say, by the way. Give it a try. Very satisfying. Red rice for fox… red rice for fox… heh!

It all went down rather well, and kept him going for a good half an hour.

This post is part of Gruffalo Fortnight, an extension to Unit 2. Autumn and Harvest.

Glorious!