Magical Rainbow Bus Day
Ross Baker is a children’s author and would like to welcome you to his Author Take Over Day. Today, Ross will be reading his book to you and sharing some exciting activities with us.
My name is Ross and I am the author of the children’s picture book, ‘The Magical Rainbow Bus of Fun’. The book features a magical bus with lots of different floors to explore. I’ll be reading the book to you and then setting you some exciting activities to do based around the book.
9.30am Activity:
The Magical Rainbow Bus of Fun
The story is about a magical bus with ten exciting floors to explore. You can join in with the rhyme ‘onwards and upwards to the next floor, to see what surprises lie in store,’ each time we turn the page and go up to the next floor. You can talk to your grown-ups about what you can see on each floor and which floor is your favourite.
Grown Ups:
Encourage your children to listen to the story. Talk about things that they like, or maybe things that they like to do such as visiting the zoo / farms, playing on a beach, swimming and playing at the playground. Ask them to identify what their favourite floor was and why.
Develops – Communication and Language and Understanding the World skills.
10.30am Activity:
Create Your Own Floor of the Bus
It’s your turn to be creative! Imagine that you have your own Magical Rainbow Bus of Fun and think about what you would find on it. Use your imagination to design and create your own floor. You can print off the sheet provided, or just use a sheet of paper to draw it. If you’re feeling super creative, you could even use card and craft materials to make a floor.
Grown Ups:
Talk to your child about things that they like and what they find fun and exciting. For example, do they go to any educational groups or play sports? Do they like animals? Do they like playing certain games or going to certain places? Do they have any particular hobbies? Once they’ve decided on an idea, get them to create their floor for the bus.
Develops – Communication and Language, Expressive Arts and Design skills
1:30pm Activity:
Rainbow Hunt
The Magical Rainbow Bus of Fun is very colourful. It is made of the 7 colours of the rainbow, can you name all 7? They are Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo and Violet. Can you hunt around your home and find items of any or all of those colours? How many things can you find? If you’re feeling up to an additional challenge, you could create your own rainbow display using some of the items you’ve found.
Grown Ups:
Talk about the colours of the rainbow and see if your child can remember some or all of them. Ask them if they can think of different coloured objects in your home, then encourage them to look around and see what they can find.
Develops – Communication and Language and Understanding the World skills
2:30pm Activity:
What Animal Am I?
On floor two of the Magical Rainbow Bus of Fun, there is a floor full of animals. I’m going to think of three different animals and I want you to try and guess each of the animals based on the three clues I give.
Grown Ups:
Talk with your child about the rules of the game and encourage them to listen to Ross and the clues he gives. Encourage your child to guess the animals that Ross is thinking of. Are they able to have a guess at the animal before all 3 clues are given? After the video, encourage your child to have a go at thinking of an animal and then giving you some clues so that you can try to guess what it is. Perhaps you could then think of some more animals for them to guess. You could even change the game to guess the animal by making the noises of different animals or acting like them.
Develops – Communication and Language and Understanding the World skills
If you've finished these and still have time for fun...
Visit Ross’s website - https://rossbakerauthoruk.wixsite.com/information
and click on the More tab where you’ll find activities and resources. There are colouring pictures that can be printed off.
Story time:
The Octopus in the Bath
Snuggle up and listen to one of Ross’s other stories. The Octopus in the Bath.
