Story-telling
Create wooden spoon puppets to retell the story and try making an alternative ending. Make stick and paper bag puppets to use in role-play. Re-enact the story, taking on a variety of characters.
making tracks
Make animal footprints from a variety of materials such as play dough, gloop. Add in some additional animal footprints such as horse, sheep and cow. Create animal potato footprints and trails for children to follow. Make muddy welly boot footprints outdoors.
glorious mud
Make some glorious mud pies. Create mud pie recipe cards and share these with friends. Use numbers to represent quantities required eg. one cup of mud, three sticks. Puddle jumping. Perform a ‘sun dance’ to dry up the puddle.
Music & More
Provide a range of instruments and noisemakers for children to add sound effects to the story. Learn the 'Stuck in the Mud' songs and add in sounds and actions. Play the game 'Stuck in the Mud' -see the songs and rhymes section. Encourage children to make up their own song or jingle and record it.
FARMYARD FUN
Create a small-world farm. Draw a map of the farm and add in other features such as pond, road, pig sty etc. Use junk material to make farm buildings, fences, rivers etc. Challenge the children to clean small-world farm animals. Provide them with a range of cleaning equipment such as a paintbrush, toothbrush, shower puff and cloth. Make play-dough animals.
Science scholar
Explore the qualities of waterproof clothing. Set up a fabric testing area in the water tray. Plant and grow seeds. What do they need to grow? Digitally record their growth and create a booklet to show progress. Set the children the challenge of working together to build a bridge or path for Eleanor to get over the puddle. Timelines during the day, morning, afternoon, evening.
two of a kind
Pair of wellies, pair of gloves. What else comes in pairs? Make a display of items that come in pairs. Discuss the anomalies, pair of trousers, pair of spectacles etc. Why not try pairing up matching wellies, socks and gloves and clip them with a clothes pegs? Counting in 2's.
first & last
Children could order themselves as the character in the story, changing positions. Introduce ordinal numbers such as 1st, 5th, last, second last etc. Using arbitrary standards, the children can measure the length of their bodies in socks, gloves or welly boots. Make a chart of the results or create a vertical 3D model using Duplo/ bricks. Create repeating pattern scarves just like the one Eleanor wore.
rain go away
Discuss different weather types and create symbols for each type of weather. Describe which weather is related to which season. Record the weather for three days in picture form. Talk about how different types of weather make you feel. Discuss how the weather affects activities undertaken. Create a weather forecast and provide performances to an audience. Use technology to video and record weather forecasts.
LETS TALK ABOUT IT
Consider Eleanor’s feelings and invite the children to discuss how she might have felt. Have they felt like this before? What did they do? Discuss strategies and language they can use to ask for help. Who are the ‘safe people’ they can trust? Hide story sequencing cards around the outside area. Invite children to find them, put them on a washing line and retell the story. Play ‘Kim’s Game’ with animal figures. Taking it in turns, each child removes an animal from the group of animals and the rest of the children have to identify which one is missing.