Dear Zoo...

Our first Rainbow Cafe of the year yesterday.  A big thanks to all those who attended.  We read "Dear Zoo" by Rod Campbell and made a bag of story props to take home to re-tell the story with family.  Children and adults played with "Dear Zoo" themed resources set up in a Communication Friendly Space (see http://www.elizabethjarmantraining.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2&Itemid=6 for more on the CFS approach which staff use in our preschool).



We all enjoyed a snack and a drink.  At the end we all looked at the book together, re-telling the story using the puppets we had made, and learnt some signs (British Sign Language) for the animals in the book.  Animal puppets were made using an animal picture and a lolly stick - children and adults chose from open-ended resources to make their story props using their own ideas.  One Mum and her daughter made a very spectacular lion cage to put their puppets in!  We put all our story props in a little bag to take home.

Children took home a certificate to say they had been to our Rainbow Cafe and families took home a Family Challenge to get them talking about the story.

For more information about animal signs find "My First Animal Signs" by Anthony Lewis ( http://www.bookstart.org.uk/books/booklists/29/30614/).  The local library has a selection of these lovely board books!