Hippo and Friends

Starter Unit - Storage Box

Throughout the year, the children will be taking home a
series of books, masks, games...To help them value what
they have been doing in class, it is useful for the children
to have a place to store their work.
Before the class: (If there is a parents' meeting before
term starts, ask for the parents' collaboration. If not,
write a note.) Ask the children to bring in a box
(preferably a shoe box but, if not, a cereal or biscuit one,
for example). Make your own storage box. Paint the box
if you think the children will be able to do the same.
Photocopy the worksheet and colour it in. Stick it on the
box. Do one photocopy per child.
In class: Lay the photocopies out on the carpet in untidy
piles. Look perplexed. Scratch your head and then have a
good idea. Show the children your storage box and put all
the photocopies in it. Look happy to see everything tidy.
Hand out newspaper to cover the tables and finger paints
if you have chosen to use them. Encourage the children to
paint their boxes. If you do not want them to paint their
boxes, go straight to stage two. Give out the worksheets.
Show how it can be coloured in and then stuck onto the
box. When the boxes are ready. Hippo can inspect them all
and look very happy because of the way she has been
coloured in and used. The children can then take their
boxes home to store all the work they get over the year.
If you think there is insufficient time to prepare the
box, the picture can be photocopied onto half an A3
sheet and then the A3 sheet can be folded in half to
make a storage envelope.

Unit I - Action train

Before the class: Photocopy one engine and three wagons
onto A3 paper. If you think you will have time in class, ask
the children to paint the train. Otherwise, paint it yourself,
cut it out and stick it onto a larger roll of paper to make a
mural or copy the design directly onto coloured card.
In class: Take a photo of one third of the class jumping,
one third clapping and one third nodding. If you do not
think it feasible to use a camera, ask the children to draw
themselves doing one of the three actions. Put the
"jumpers" in the jumping wagon, etc. When you do the
Choo! Choo! chant, recommended in lesson four, you can
point to the clapping waggon or line up in front of it.
If you wish, you can reduce the train and wagons and
give each child a copy of the whole train to draw
themselves jumping, etc or even photocopy the photo
taken so that they can recount at home what they are
doing in each wagon.

Unit 2 - Birthday chart

Before the class: Photocopy the chart onto A3 paper or
card. Colour in the animals. Laminate it or cover it with
transparent adhesive paper. Get three times as many
stickers (gomets) as there are children in the class. If this is
not possible, find a whiteboard marker. Look up the date
of birth of the children to know how old each child is.
In class: Divide the class into four groups, the hippos,
the monkeys, the cats and the dogs. Ask each child How

old are you? If the child is two, give him/her two stickers,
if three, three. The hippos must put their stickers on the
part of the chart belonging to Hippo, the monkeys by
Monkey, etc. Add up the number of stickers by each
animal. Count up to five and circle five. Which group has
most groups of five? If you wish, put the date and month
of birth of each child on the sticker and leave the chart in
the classroom as a reminder of whose birthday it is on a
given day. When it is a child's birthday, give them a
sticker to add to the chart.

Unit 3 - Skittles
Before the class: Photocopy the skittle worksheet three
times. Colour each skittle red, blue or yellow. Cut them
out and stick them to kitchen roll tubes or plastic bottles.
Make sure there is a ball in the classroom. If you wish,
photocopy one worksheet per child.
In class: Show the children the skittles and revise the
colours. Count the skittles. You may want to use just five.
Line them up and wave your arm as though you were
bowling. Look upset that you have not managed to knock
any down, scratch your head and see if the children can
help you think what is wrong. If they do not provide you
with an answer, act as though you have just thought of
using a ball. Roll the ball towards the skittles and count
how many you manage to knock over. Let the children
have a turn and make a record of who manages to knock
most down. Celebrate that they are champions. This
activity allows you to practise numbers and colours as well
as showing how toys can be made out of objects otherwise
discarded. If you wish, let the children colour in their own
two skittles to take home and make into a toy.

Unit 4 - Toy game

Before the class: Photocopy the worksheet onto A3
paper or card. Colour in the toys and cut them in hal.f
along the dotted lines. Laminate the halves or cover
them with transparent adhesive paper. If you wish,
photocopy one worksheet per child.
In class: Put halves face down on the floor. Turn one
over and name it. Turn over the next and see if the cards
match. Express amusement if the halves don't match and
name the new toy, for example, a train-ball? Continue
until all the pairs have been formed. Take right halves,
shuffle them and lay them face down in a row. Do same
with left halves putting them in a row underneath. Invite
children to turn over one half from each row to form
complete pictures. If you wish, let the children take the
worksheet home to prepare their own game there.

Unit 5 - Bus crown

Before the class: Make three copies of the bus
worksheet. Paint one red, one yellow and one blue. Affix
strips of card to make crowns. Photocopy one worksheet
per child.
In class: Choose three children and put one of the
crowns on each. Illustrate what you want them to do in
the game in lesson one. Give another three children the
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crowns and repeat. Give out the worksheets and ask one
third of the class to paint or colour their buses red, one
third blue, etc. Cut out the buses or ask the children to do
this (using scissors or a punch), affix them to strips of card
and let the children wear them to play colour-based
games. It is much easier to check that they are moving
when asked to when you can see the colour they are
wearing!

Transport card game

Before the class: Make five copies of the worksheet.
Colour in the bus, train, etc. Cut out the four cards and
laminate them. Make a giant number dice (out of foam,
for example). You may wish to replace the six on the dice
with another 1.
In class: Lay out the four different cards and revise the
vocabulary. Divide the class into five. Give the first
member of the first team the dice to throw. Put the
twenty cards face down in a pile. If the child throws a five,
count out five cards, turning the fifth one face up. The
team gets to keep this card. Play proceeds around the
class. If you turn over a card a team already has, play
passes to the next team, i.e. each team must get four
different cards. The first team to collect all four forms of
transport wins. Once the children have mastered this
game, it can be left in the classroom for fast finishers.

Unit 6 - Hearing face

Before the class: Photocopy the worksheet. Colour in the
face and the animals. Cut out the three animals. Attach
some Blu-Tack to the back of one of the ears. Photocopy
one worksheet per child.
In class: Place the three animals on the floor and revise
the vocabulary. Ask the children to close their eyes. Hide
two of the animals and attach the third one to the back of
the ear. Ask the children to open their eyes and sing the
"What can you hear..?" song. They must guess the animal
and you should fold the ear forward when they guess
correctly to reveal the animal. Sing the part of the song
that mentions that animal. Ask the children to close their
eyes again and change the animal or ask a child to change
the animal for you. Give out the worksheets for the
children to play at home.

Animal dice game

Before the class: Make two identical dice: photocopy
the dice worksheet onto card. Colour it in, cut it out and
stick it together. Alternatively, affix the six sides to a dice
you already have. (Some chocolate boxes are a perfect
cube).
In class: Sit the children in a circle. Having revised the
vocabulary, give the two dice to two children sitting next
to each other and ask them to throw them. If they both
throw the same animal, they should stand up, join hands
and walk round the circle saying, for example, "cowmoo, cow-moo". If they are not the same, each must
name the animal and make the noise but remain seated.
You may need to help the children name their animals.
Play passes to the next pair.

Easter game
Before the class: Enlarge the egg to A3 size and do two
copies. Paint one of the eggs and cut along the lines to
separate the six pieces. Draw six pictures in the six spaces
on the complete egg. These pictures can reflect
vocabulary learnt to date e.g. the four characters,
colours... Laminate the six pieces and the complete egg.
Put the pieces on top of the egg so that the vocabulary
items are covered. Use Blu-Tack to affix them.
In class: Show the children the egg. Sit the children in a
circle and count to five pointing to the children. Ask the
fifth child to come up and remove one of the pieces. If they
can name the object, colour, etc., underneath, they can
keep the piece of "shell". If not, they should replace the
shell. Count out another five and repeat the operation
until all six pieces of shell have been removed.
Congratulate the winning children. If you do not wish to
count out five children, pass round a dice and let the child
who throws a five, say, come forward to remove a piece of
shell.

r t e r Unit

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Starter Unit

Unit I

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Unit 2

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Unit 5

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Unit 6

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Easter Unit

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