Toys in Space

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If you have access to a safe, high location, drop the toys and time how long it takes for them to reach the ground. Collect data to analyse and display. Found posters, diary entries, speech bubbles, notes of advice, space logs, invitations, fantasy setting descriptions Main Outcome: water, great, everybody, wild, beautiful, path, kind, last, pass, eye, gold Spelling Rules and Patterns This is a three-session spelling seed for the book Toys in Space by Mini Grey. Below is the coverage from Appendix 1 of the National Curriculum 2014.

Toys in Space - Penguin Books UK Toys in Space - Penguin Books UK

From ever-inventive, award-winning author-illustrator Mini Grey comes a hilarious and heartfelt new adventure: a motley group of toys left outside in the garden become true friends and brave heroes - in space! Text Rationale:

Look at the illustrations showing the Hoctopize’s birthday, and share memories of your own celebrations. What does a good party need to be successful? When the toys are accidentally left outside overnight, some of them are concerned. The dinosaur doesn't like the dark, and the stuffed horse whinnies, "I may get damp!" In searching for his Cuddles, the Hoctopize kidnaps toys that don’t belong to him. What is right for the Hoctopize is wrong for everyone else, but – in common with many children – the Hoctopize finds it difficult to empathise with others and see the world from their perspective. If your parachutes don’t work, try using toys with less mass ( e.g. Playmobil or Lego…)or fitting something that will slow their descent. Make sure everyone understands the idea of a ‘story within a story’, and draw their attention to the way the toys help shape the tale as it happens. What do your class think about the ending? Was the Hoctopize real, after all? 1 | Writing opportunities My view, your view

Toys in Space - Penguin Books UK

The toys see a shadow when they first arrive on the spaceship. How are shadows formed? Investigate what happens to shadows as objects move closer to the light source. Before reading, collect some ‘lost toys’ and introduce them to your class. How might each toy have come to be lost? How could the toys be reunited with their owners? Invite children to talk about their own toys. Have any of them been lost? What happened, and how were things resolved? If you like, you can use role-play to extend the discussion. Make notes for your children as they reflect, then share what you’ve written and discuss. Use to create a wordbank that everyone can use, then ask children to write about waking from their dreams. Ask children to wake slowly, stretching and showing surprise at finding themselves in a strange place. How do they feel, so far from home? What do they want, and what is going to happen next?

The Greatest Show on Earth

Create your own audio recording of this story, including the narration, the speech, music and sound effects. Use junk materials to create models of aliens. Or you could create a family of Hoctopizes from gloves! An imaginative, beautifully illustrated story by talented picture book maker Mini Grey. It explores what might happen if toys are forgotten and left in the garden overnight. Through a story within a story the toys and the reader go on a journey into space. There are important themes to talk about such as being frightened and making good or bad choices. Mini Grey writes

Toys in Space - St Philip Westbrook C of E Primary School Toys in Space - St Philip Westbrook C of E Primary School

Look at the spread showing the ‘Room of a Thousand Lost Toys’. What do the words mean on the Sleep-o-meter? Can your class think of other words to describe the sleeping toys?

Traction Man meets TurboDog

Why is it difficult to understand another person’s point of view? Could we do better? How? Come up with ideas and test them in real life. In drawing on so many time-honoured themes and storytelling devices and illustrating them in such rich detail, Mini Grey has created a multi-layered and highly satisfying reading experience. Look at the spread showing the Hoctopize meeting the toys. What is the Hoctopize thinking and feeling? Write this inside your outline. What do toys get up to when their owners aren’t looking? Share other books such as One True Bear by Ted Dewan, the Teddy Robinson stories by Joan G Robinson (out of print but available second-hand) and Traction Man by Mini Grey, and ask your class to create their own stories and illustrate them. Telling stories to toys

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Provide a collection of toys and invite children to choose their own audience. If you like, you can record each child so that they can listen to themselves (and each other). Perhaps you could create a CD of stories to share with another class? Lost dreams Wonderdoll invents this story to help the toys overcome their fears. Invite your class to create all sorts of different stories and provide special storytelling areas where they can tell them to an audience of toys. These areas can be just big enough for one child plus a toy, or larger to accommodate a group. Think dens – sheets draped over washing lines, enormous cardboard boxes – and decorate them with paints, cushions and bunting. In a large, clear space, ask children to pretend they are a sleeping toy. Explore different positions, just like the ones in the book. Play some ‘sleepy music’ and ask the ‘best sleepers’ to tour the room in silence, two at a time, allowing them to observe everyone else while your class is still and quiet. Mini Grey was given her name after being born in a mini in a car park in South Wales. After taking a foundation Course in Fine Art, she studied for an English degree at UCL, afterwards working as a theatre designer, then a primary teacher, before studying for an MA in sequential design at Brighton University. My first impressions of the book, "Toys in space," by Mini Grey, include intensity of emotions of animals. Also, the story is relatable. It is a funny, light-hearted book and connects the readers to the characters. I enjoyed reading this story as it was adventurous and did a good job in engaging the reader. Literary elements include easy words and humor. Design elements include, characters only in the picture and very colorful images.Spelling Seeds have been designed to complement Writing Roots by providing weekly, contextualised sequences of sessions for the teaching of spelling that include open-ended investigations and opportunities to practise and apply within meaningful and purposeful contexts, linked (where relevant) to other areas of the curriculum and a suggestion of how to extend the investigation into home learning. Invite your class to create all sorts of different stories and provide special storytelling areas where they can tell or read them to an audience. Dog, Cat and Mouse are perfectly happy until a stranger arrives and begins to suggest to each that the others are boring and lazy, resulting in a dreadful row between the friends.