CFE Levels Early and 1 (Ages 4-8)
Nick Sharratt
learning resource
Creative activities inspired
by Shark in the Park on a
Windy Day! and Vikings in
the Supermarket
Resources created by Scottish Book Trust
Contents
About this resource
About Nick Sharratt
Activities based on Vikings in the Supermarket
Activities based on Shark in the Park on a Windy Day!
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3
6
About this resource
This resource gives cross-curricular activity suggestions to help you find
out more about Nick Sharratt and explore his books Vikings in the
Supermarket and Shark in the Park on a Windy Day! with your class or
book group. Adapt and use these activities as you see fit! Whether you
own a class set or just one copy, we hope there’s something in here which
inspires you to set up some fun, creative learning around the books.
About Nick Sharratt
Nick Sharratt knew from a very early age that he wanted to be an artist.
He grew up in Suffolk and Manchester and was trained in graphic design
at St Martin’s School of Art in London. Sharratt has illustrated close to 250
books, ranging from board books for babies to novels for young
teenagers. He has worked with authors including Julia Donaldson, Jeremy
Strong, Michael Rosen, Giles Andreae, Kaye Umansky, Kes Gray and
most notably Dame Jacqueline Wilson. He has also written around 40 of
his own books.
Nick has won several awards including the Children’s Book Award for
Jeremy Strong’s The Hundred Mile-An-Hour Dog, The Sheffield Children’s
Book Award in 1996 for his own Cheese and Tomato Spider and again in
2001 for Kes Gray’s Eat Your Peas. He won the Red House Children’s
Book Award for Pants and was also shortlisted for the Kate Greenaway
Medal. Nick is currently providing illustrations for the second series of the
hugely successful BBC Children’s drama Tracy Beaker Returns. Most
recently, Shark in the Park on a Windy Day! was shortlisted for the
Bookbug Picture Book Prize 2017.
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Activities based on Vikings in the Supermarket
Exploring forces and buoyancy
Science>Year One>Working Scientifically, Everyday Materials, Art and
Design >Year One
Tidy Clyde the pirate sails the seas in his pirate ship. Can your learners
make their own pirate ships and make them go? There’s a great lesson
plan and presentation on the TES website here (you’ll need a free
login): http://bit.ly/2fdQgOv. Look for the KS1 PowerPoint and lesson
plan, where pupils can find out about buoyancy and construct their
own simple boat.
The design of the sail could present an opportunity for your pupils to
design a pattern, or even invent a pirate character. Ask them to come up
with a name for their pirate and think of some things their pirate likes
(perhaps they can think of what their pirate likes to eat for lunch, just like
Clyde). They can then design a flag to let others know who’s in charge of
the ship and what they like best!
Enjoyment and Choice: Hold a Class Vote
English>Year One>Reading – comprehension, English>Year Two>Spoken
Language, English>Year Two>Writing - vocabulary, grammar and
punctuation
With seven fantastic poems, the book gives you a great chance to get
pupils discussing and voting for their favourite! You could get pupils to
design a quick class survey, asking others for their favourites and
reasons for their choice. Pupils could interview each other and collect
results, then the winning poem can be announced!
As an extension, you could challenge some of your pupils to do a
presentation about their findings in assembly or to another class,
accompanied by performances of some of the poems.
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Create your own illustrated book of poems
English>Year Two>Writing – composition, Art and Design>Year Two
Writing for a genuine audience is a great motivator for pupils, so why
not try creating an illustrated book of poems or stories to distribute
around the school or community?
Here’s one suggested approach based on Vikings in the Supermarket:
You wouldn’t expect to find Vikings in a supermarket. But good
writing is all about the unexpected! Give pupils some examples of
places around the community, and ask them to think of things they
wouldn’t expect to find there. For instance, dragons in the dentist!
Pupils can compose poems made up of different ideas. For example:
There’s a dragon at the dentist,
There’s a wizard on the train!
There’s a dinosaur in the playground,
There’s a monster on the plane!
Of course, if you don’t want your pupils to try rhyming or scanning
then they can still create poems by listing their ideas in the above
style, just without rhymes or a set pattern of syllables. If you do want
to explore some activities to help with rhyming and scanning poetry,
try our Ross Collins resource: http://bit.ly/2fe4nDs.
After this, pupils can produce illustrations to accompany their poems.
These could be full page illustrations, series of images in panels like a
comic, or illustrations set near to the text of the poem.
After this, collate the pupils’ poems into a book and distribute it
around the school or community – perhaps at the dentist’s, doctor’s,
or wherever else your pupils have named in their poems!
Differentiation: for older pupils, story writing could be undertaken:
pupils can choose one of their ideas and come up with questions to
drive the story. How did the dinosaur get in the playground? What
does it want? What further surprising things might happen?
Also, younger pupils could create purely illustrated or oral texts. Oral
texts can be produced using a storybuilding approach – you can find
out more about storybuilding in our Catherine Rayner resource: http://
bit.ly/2fe2dnr.
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Build a castle with a moving drawbridge
Design and Technology>Year One>Technical knowledge, Art and
Design>Year One
'Posh paint’ features a royal family who are fed up with their boring
grey castle! Use the idea of a castle as a stimulus for a STEMactivity
– this blog post gives some useful ideas: http://bit.ly/2fLoUUp. You
can also find lots of good ideas on this Pinterest page: https://
uk.pinterest.com/sonjamohr/simple-machines-projects-for-kids/. Once
pupils have finished building their castle, get them to decorate it: this
could open up opportunities to create repeating patterns or introduce
colour mixing.
Some songs and rhymes
Music>Year One
Here are some songs and rhymes based on themes in the book for
your pupils to sing:
Busy Farmer Ben: http://bbc.in/2atQ4xb
Big ship sails on the ally ally oh: http://bbc.in/2fLlktB
If you enjoyed 'A Tartan Tale’ you’ll find some Scots songs from
Scottish Book Trust here: http://bit.ly/2fLqu8D
There are also lots of sailing songs available on the Scottish Book
Trust website: http://bit.ly/2fLpj9y
If you and your class loved Vikings in the Supermarket
English>Year One>Reading - comprehension
Check out some of the books on our list of poetry collections:
http://www.scottishbooktrust.com/reading/book-lists/16-lovelypoetry-books-3-7
Alternatively, have a look at our list of books about royalty: http://
www.scottishbooktrust.com/reading/book-lists/royal-reads-3-7
Or you could pick from our list of funny books: http://
www.scottishbooktrust.com/reading/book-lists/12-funny-books-toenjoy-during-scotlands-big-laugh-3-7
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Activities based on Shark in the Park on a Windy Day
Design your own park
English>Year One>Spoken Language, English>Year Two>Writing composition, Mathematics>Year One>Number – addition and subtraction,
Art and Design >Year One
This activity idea can be a springboard for lots of cross-curricular learning!
Ask your pupils about their local park. Do they go to the park? What have
they enjoyed doing there? What do they see adults enjoying at the park?
What other things might they like to see at the park? You could use the
quick activity sheet for the book to get pupils to draw what they might
find at the park – the sheet can be found here:
scottishbooktrust.com/learning/learning-resources/resource/bookbugpicture-book-prize-2017-learning-resources
Tell your pupils that they have been asked to design a new park for the
community. Get them to mind map different things that should be in the
park. They need to think about all the different people who visit the park
and the things they might need and want!
After this, get them to plan the park. They could do this in groups, deciding
where the best place for certain attractions and facilities could be. Get
them to draw a map of their park and label all of its features.
After this, ask them to design tickets for attractions in the park, and work
out how much money someone would need to bring to go to every
attraction. You could also get them to design Danger signs giving
instructions on what to do if you see a shark!
If you want to incorporate some extended writing, older pupils can write
letters to persuade the local council that a new park is needed, or write a
speech for a local dignitary to read out on park opening day.
Discussion
English>Year One>Spoken Language
Here are some questions to help you discuss the themes of the book:
l
l
l
Tim and his dad help out someone in need. Why do you think people
help others? Can you think of a time someone helped you?
Tim and his dad go to the park together. Do you enjoy doing things
together with other people? Is it sometimes enjoyable to do some
things on your own too?
Most towns have some kind of park in them. Obviously people think
it’s important to have a park! Do you think it’s important to have a
local park?
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Write or build a story about the park
English>Year One>Spoken Language
Encourage pupils to write a story set in a park. You can do story building
with Early Level pupils, where you gather them in groups, give them the
setting and perhaps a character to start off with and ask them prompt
questions to build a story. For instance, what is their character doing in the
park; who do they meet; do they run into a problem, and how do they get
around it?
First Level pupils can try writing stories or comic strips. One good story
idea might be to ask them to imagine that there is a town without a park,
or where a park has been taken away from the community. How do the
characters overcome this problem?
Numeracy activities Mathematics>Year One>Number – addition and
subtraction
For Early Level counting activities, you can count the number of animals
and people in the park or the number of leaves on a page.
Make a kite
Design and Technology>Year One>Technical knowledge, Make
Making a kite is a great activity to talk about strengthening materials. You
can ask pupils for their suggestions as to how it could be done: they can
revise and improve their designs along the way. This set of instructions is a
great place to start: www.instructables.com/id/Easy-Paper-Kite-forKids/?ALLSTEPS
Learning about the seasons
Science>Year One>Seasonal Changes
Ask your pupils to investigate how the park would look in different
seasons. What colour would the trees be, and why? Why might the pond
turn to ice, and why would it turn back to water in spring? Why wouldn’t
you see as many birds in the park in winter? Ask your pupils to produce a
summer and winter guidebook for the park, telling visitors about the facts
they have learned.
If you want to investigate ice further, try the activity on page 6 of our Ross
Collins resource: http://bit.ly/2atQiV3
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Take part in the John Muir Award
Science>Year One>Plants
The John Muir Award challenges participants to discover a wild place, find
out about it, conserve it in some way and share the experience with other
people. A local park can be the wild place your pupils discover, and
there’s lots for them to find out about: what kind of trees and plants grow
there, what kind of animals you can find, what the park’s history is, how
you can get around in the park, and so on.
Conserving your wild place can take many forms! Find out more on the
John Muir Trust website: www.johnmuirtrust.org/four-challenges
Some songs and rhymes
Music>Year One
Here are some songs and rhymes related to the book for your pupils to sing:
l
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The North Wind Doth Blow: http://bbc.in/2atPkIn
The Leaves on the Tree: https://learnenglishkids.
britishcouncil.org/en/songs/the-leaves-the-tree
Come Little Leaves: www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-T0eocxFos
Five Little Ducks Went Swimming One Day:
www.bbc.co.uk/learning/schoolradio/subjects/earlylearning/nurseryso
ngs/F-J/five_little_ducks
If you and your class loved Shark in the Park on a Windy Day
English>Year One>Reading – comprehension
Check out our list of books that use pages creatively:
scottishbooktrust.com/reading/book-lists/13-books-that-use-pagescreatively-3-7
This list gives you 8 books celebrating the great outdoors:
scottishbooktrust.com/reading/book-lists/walk-on-the-wild-side-3-7
And here are 10 books about dads: scottishbooktrust.com/reading/booklists/10-books-about-dads-3-7
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