Biscuit Bear by Mini Grey (Red Fox)
During a baking session with his mum, Horace makes Biscuit Bear, but despite all his best efforts to the contrary he is
made to wait until the next day to eat him. In the middle of the night, however, the bear comes to life and finding himself
alone decides to make some friends of his own, using flour, butter and sugar to make a whole circus of delectable friends.
And so the fun begins until it attracts the attention of a hungry visitor…
Overall learning aims of this teaching sequence.
To listen with enjoyment and respond to stories…. and make up their own stories, songs, rhymes and poems.
To enjoy listening to and using spoken and written language in play and learning.
To use language to imagine and recreate roles and experiences.
To talk confidently about picture books using prediction, asking questions, making connections with their own
experience.
To think about the story meanings conveyed in the illustrations.
To explore the story through role-play, storytelling.
To create and write their own stories.
This teaching sequence is designed for a Nursery or Reception class.
Overview of this teaching sequence.
This teaching sequence is approximately 2-3 weeks long if spread out over a series of sessions.
This is an original and amusing story, with a darker side that will have immense appeal for both children and adults. Its
bold imaginative illustrations and quirky use of graphics provide lots for children to pore over and to talk about together,
as they delight in the wealth of extra detail (such as biscuit-covered wallpaper and bedclothes, and the clocks) that enrich
its telling.
Early Years Foundation Stage Statutory Framework 2012:
Prime Area: Communication and Language
Specific Area: Literacy
Listening and attention:
Reading:
Listen attentively in a range of situations;
Read and understand simple sentences;
Listen to stories, accurately anticipating key events and respond to
Use phonic knowledge to decode regular words
what they hear with relevant comments, questions or actions;
and read them aloud accurately;
Give their attention to what others say and respond appropriately,
Read some common irregular words;
while engaged in another activity.
Demonstrate understanding when talking with
Understanding:
others about what they have read.
Follow instructions involving several ideas or actions;
Writing:
Answer ‘how’ and ‘why’ questions about their experiences and in
Use phonic knowledge to write words in ways
response to stories or events;
which match their spoken sounds;
Speaking:
Write some irregular common words.
Express themselves effectively, showing awareness of
Write simple sentences which can be read by
listeners’ needs;
themselves and others.
Use past, present and future forms accurately when
Spell some words correctly and make
talking about events that have happened or are to happen in the
phonetically plausible attempts at others.
future;
Develop their own narratives and explanations by connecting ideas or
events.
Cross Curricular Links:
Understanding the World:
Use cookery as a chance to explore changes in materials; what happens to flour when butter is added? What does
the biscuit dough feel like before and after it is cooked?
Make icing to decorate the bears; what happens to the icing sugar when water is added? What happens to it
when it is left?
Melt chocolate to decorate the bears with. What is the chocolate like before it is melted? How does it change
when it is heated? What happens when it is cooled again?
Expressive Arts and Design:
Make and paint biscuit bears from saltdough or clay. Use Hama beads, googly eyes etc. to add decorations.
©The Centre for Literacy in Primary Education.
You may use this teaching sequence freely in your school but it cannot be commercially published or reproduced or used for anything other than educational purposes
without the express permission of CLPE.
Make a storybox of the setting.
Physical Development:
Make with the children and work with playdough and saltdough to create shapes with cutters and work on gross
and fine motor skills. Investigate and explore the language of the story; mix, roll, shape, stamp.
Investigate different gymnastic movements, jumping, rolling etc. to perform as the acrobats in the circus.
Mathematics:
Investigate quantities, capacity, weighing and measuring as part of biscuit and play/salt dough making.
Use 2D shape cutters with playdough.
Count in twos to add eyes to bears.
Investigate the seasons as referenced in the shop display. After looking at the winter display illustration, design a
display for spring, summer and autumn – what could you put in the display that would make people know what
season it was?
Ideas for Continuous Provision:
Reading Area:
Book displays
Make a collection of other similar stories including different versions of The Gingerbread Man or The Runaway
Chapatti. This will be a useful collection to draw upon for reading aloud.
Make a display of books by Mini Grey and encourage children to browse and share them together. Set aside time
for the class to talk together about their favourite books.
Mark making/ writing:
Place a variety of interesting writing materials such as home-made books, postcards and sentence strips in the
writing area for children to use.
Make shopping lists for the cake shop.
Small world play:
Provide opportunities for children to revisit and talk together to explore this story for themselves in as many ways
as possible.
Some ways to do this could be with:
o Storyprops: create stick puppets of all the characters including some made from the photographs of the
children’s home-made biscuit bears, and create a tabletop theatre from a cardboard box
o Storybox: Create a circus storybox with the children. Fill it with a variety of small model circus animals as
well as a selection of circus characters-people, clowns, acrobats- and biscuit bear himself. Suggest
children use the box to make up the next adventure, inviting children to tell these to the class at
storytime.
Malleable:
Playdough: make bear-coloured playdough (see recipe) and provide bear cutters and a variety of materials such
as paper, feathers, buttons, card, tissue, straws etc. for the children to use to dress their bears.
Role play:
Classroom role-play:
Work with the children to remodel the classroom role-play area as the cake shop The Golden Bun and make buns,
cakes and biscuits using salt water dough. Enlist the children’s help in writing signs for the shop, make price lists
and cards, or receipts for the shoppers, sometimes writing as teacher-in-role alongside the children as part of the
play.
Ask children to make posters to advertise the shop using magazines and other collage materials.
Outside role-play:
Fill a large box with a variety of circus costumes, hats, pieces of lion cloth material and other props. Make sure
that you include a pinny for Biscuit bear. Where possible include a CD of circus music and make a large clock.
Tape out or draw a large ring in the outside area for children to use as the circus ring.
Teaching Approaches:
Reading aloud and rereading
Role Play and Drama
Illustration and Artwork
Performance storytelling
Writing Outcomes:
Shared Journal
Shared write of part of the story based on
children’s predictions
Recipe writing
Storymap
Bookmaking
©The Centre for Literacy in Primary Education.
You may use this teaching sequence freely in your school but it cannot be commercially published or reproduced or used for anything other than educational purposes
without the express permission of CLPE.
Teaching Sessions:
Before beginning this book:
Look at different kinds of biscuits and talk about how the children think they are made and where they come
from. Talk about shapes, sizes, flavours and about whether they are eaten all the time or in moderation. Ask
children about their favourite kinds of biscuits. This information can be collated as a data handling mathematics
activity.
Introducing the book:
Children enjoy an increasing range of books;
Children can respond to what they hear with relevant comments, questions or actions.
Show the children the cover of the book, reading the title of the book together, and inviting them to comment on
anything that they find interesting.
What sort of story do they think it might be?
What do they think might happen in this story?
What do they think the character on the front is like?
If some children are already familiar with the story suggest that they form a panel of ‘experts’, listening to what
everybody says and then commenting on how accurate their observations are.
Reading aloud and book talk
Children listen to stories with increasing attention and recall;
Children can suggest how the story might end.
Read the story straight through to the point where the circus is underway and the ‘shadow’ arrives. Invite children to
predict what they think is going to happen next and to justify their predictions. Inevitably there will be debate about
whether Biscuit Bear will escape or not in which children will reveal their expectations about stories and some of
what they are based in.
Using shared writing, write the next page of the story together with you acting as scribe.
Debate and argument
Children can listen and respond to ideas expressed by others in conversation or discussion;
Children join in with repeated refrains and anticipate key events and phrases in rhymes and stories.
Continue reading aloud to discover what really happens in the story. How similar was their ‘next page’? Stop at
the point where Biscuit Bear realises he needs to find a place where ‘a biscuit can be safe’.
Discuss this idea with the children.
Can a biscuit ever be safe?
Where do the children think this might be?
Read aloud to the end of the book.
Now re-read the book, looking closely at particular pages, and talking together to leisurely explore the story, the
pictures and the typography of the print so that all the children know the story quite well by the end.
Read the book again, this time encouraging children to join in the words, so that they remember parts of the
language clearly.
Cooking: Making Biscuit Bears
Children use talk to connect ideas, explain what is happening and anticipate what might happen next, recall and
relive past experiences;
Children use talk to organise, sequence and clarify thinking, ideas, feelings and events.
Look again at the circus dance scene and talk with the children about which of the decorated bears they
particularly like. Tell the children they are going to bake their own biscuit friends and decorate them in the same
way.
What do they think they will need?
Using shared writing make a list of all the ingredients using the book as a memory prompt.
In groups children go on to bake and decorate their own biscuit bears.
Take photographs of each stage of the baking and finally take a photograph of each child holding their finished
decorated bear.
©The Centre for Literacy in Primary Education.
You may use this teaching sequence freely in your school but it cannot be commercially published or reproduced or used for anything other than educational purposes
without the express permission of CLPE.
Shared writing: writing instructions
Children use talk to organise, sequence and clarify thinking, ideas, feelings and events;
Children can link statements and stick to a main theme or intention.
As a class put the photographs of the baking in order so as to make a poster or a zigzag instructions book.
Using shared writing write captions under each photo.
Once the instructions are finished give them to another class for them to try out.
Responding to illustration
Children show interest in illustrations and print in books;
Children play cooperatively as part of a group to develop and act out a narrative.
Look again at the picture of Horace where he awakes in the morning to find Biscuit Bear gone, using either the
interactive whiteboard or laminated pictures.
Discuss with the children what they think the three characters might be saying or thinking.
Put children into groups of three to role –play the scene.
Ask some of the groups to share their role-play with the class.
Storytelling:
Children are able to follow a story without pictures or props.
Children play cooperatively as part of a group to develop and act out a narrative.
Draw a large circle and sit the children around the edge to form a circus ring. With you as narrator tell the story,
encouraging children to join in with the actions and the parts of the story that they remember and invite children
to come into the middle to act out selected parts.
When you get to the circus performance, suggest that all of the children move into the ring to take part in the
performance.
Children will enjoy making up their own musical score to go with the story using an instrument such as the chime
bars to mark the advent of midnight.
Shared writing
Children can describe main story settings, events and principal characters;
Children give meaning to marks they make as they draw, write and paint.
Make a wall story (storymap) or Big Book together, with you scribing the words composed by the class, to retell
the story. Use large paper and an easel.
As you scribe, talk with the children about the language and the patterns, and shape of the story. Write each
‘episode’ on a separate sheet for children to illustrate with large pictures or paintings.
Book-making
Children can describe main story settings, events and principal characters;
Children attempt to write short sentences in meaningful contexts.
Make individual homemade books for children to use to draw and write their own versions of Biscuit Bear.
Other ideas and Activities:
Phonological Awareness:
1) Alliteration:
Look at the alliterative title ‘Biscuit Bear’ explore alliteration using the children’s names. Remember to focus
children on the sounds their names start with, rather than the letters e.g. Shy Charlotte or Jumping Gemma.
2) Use and Application of Phonics at Phases 2-4:
Phase 2 words:
Mum, tin, fun, toss, pin, dog, bun, mess,
Phase 3 words: (Note: This book would be particularly good for referencing the Phase 3 /er/ sound)
Cutter, cook, cool, down, dinner, teeth, night, butter, mix, peel, card, short, summer.
Phase 4 words:
©The Centre for Literacy in Primary Education.
You may use this teaching sequence freely in your school but it cannot be commercially published or reproduced or used for anything other than educational purposes
without the express permission of CLPE.
Lump, stamp, spoil, milk, sweet, star, spring, winter.
3) Rhythm and Rhyme:
Sing and explore the actions for the rhymes involving baking; e.g.
Five currant buns
Pat-a-cake, Pat-a-cake
Hot Cross Buns
The Queen of Hearts
©The Centre for Literacy in Primary Education.
You may use this teaching sequence freely in your school but it cannot be commercially published or reproduced or used for anything other than educational purposes
without the express permission of CLPE.