Cian’s starting school in September and his first topic in Reception will be: ‘All about me’. They had to prepare their own work over the summer holidays, so Cici was keen to use the story he helped write about himself on his fourth birthday. It was inspired by his love of the Gruffalo.
We revisited the Gruffalo Story Writing post and he watched the videos back, exclaiming, “I sound so little!”.
His eyes are grey
To start with, Cics helped me write some of the words he had changed. First up was ‘grey’. He started off with ‘g-r-a‘. Then found the digraphs ‘ai‘ and ‘ay‘. He enjoyed checking what the other digraphs would make when blended with ‘gr-‘.
NB. Digraphs are collections of two letters that make one sound, e.g. rain, lie and wheel. This is explained in more detail here.
Cian wasn’t sure which ending to put on to spell grey. Technically, none of them were the ‘correct’ answer, but as always I wanted him to just have a go.
Making the sentence.
His tongue is red
Cici knew how to spell ‘r-e-d‘, but was more reluctant to show me his tongue was red. He told me after, “It isn’t very nice to stick your tongue out at people and I didn’t want to make anyone sad.” We checked with his brothers and Pilli (our dog) that they wouldn’t be offended before we took the picture.
He has brown hair all over his head.
Cian found the letters for ‘b-r-ow-n‘.
Cici remembered to leave a finger space between ‘brown’ and ‘hair’. It was tricky finding an ‘r’ in amongst all the letters, but he got there in the end.
Editing the next verse
First, Cici wanted to swap, ‘He has knobbly knees,’ to ‘He has scratched up knees.’
Then he wanted to cut the word ‘real’ out, leaving, ‘And nail varnished toes.‘
He no longer wanted the line, ‘And sometimes his finger sneaks up his nose.’ Cics preferred, ‘He likes it when spiders tickle his nose.‘
He agreed with the verse in the video below and couldn’t find any changes to the following ones either, asking to keep them as they were.
Finny read the next section, with Cici joining in.
Ioan read next.
The final verse. I love the unprompted kisses that Cian gives his brothers at the end.
I was trying to take a picture of the three of them at the end and accidentally pressed ‘record’. I wish I’d left it recording longer as their giggles are my very favourite sound.
Making a poster
Cici then cut out the words and pictures.
He moved on to writing his name and sticking everything down.
His finished poster.
DfES Early Learning Goals (2017)
Communication and language
ELG 03 – Speaking:
Children express themselves effectively, showing awareness of listeners’ needs. They use past, present and future forms accurately when talking about events that have happened or are to happen in the future. They develop their own narratives and explanations by connecting ideas or events.
Literacy
ELG 10 – Writing:
Children use their phonic knowledge to write words in ways which match their spoken sounds. They also write some irregular common words. They write simple sentences which can be read by themselves and others. Some words are spelt correctly and others are phonetically plausible.
Expressive arts and design
ELG 17 – Being imaginative:
Children use what they have learnt about media and materials in original ways, thinking about uses and purposes. They represent their own ideas, thoughts and feelings through design and technology, art, music, dance, role-play and stories.
