David Melling Learning Resources

David Melling Learning Resources

CFE Early/First Levels (Ages 3-7)

Resources created by Linda Murray, classroom teacher at St. Peter’s Primary School in Galashiels

Contents of this resource

About David Melling / Page 2
Introducing Hugless Douglas / Page 3
Cross-Curricular Activities / Page 4
Transition Activities / Page 11
Opportunities for Vertical Learning / Page 12
Preparing for the Event / Page 13
During the Event / Page 13
Further Reading / Page 14

About this resource

You can use this resource at any point to engage pupils with David’s books. It was initially produced to help teachers and librarians get the most out of our pre-recorded online Authors Live event with David - the event is available to watch in our Watch on Demand section:

Whilst it is acknowledged that many of these activities could easily fit into both Early and First Level Outcomes and Experiences, most have been attributed to one or other level. They can be adapted for either, depending on the needs of your learners. Websites have been suggested in some of the activities as a starting point, but as we all know,the wealth of information available to us means this list is cannot cover everything; teachers will have their own trusted websites and resources. Please remember some sources are more reliable than others. Internet safety and source reliability should also be addressed during these activities. We are assuming too, that resource books are available to most classes but we have not made many specific recommendations as not everyone will have the same texts available to them.

About David Melling

David Melling lives near Oxford with his wife and two children. He has illustrated over 60 books and is the author of 15 of them. His first book Brilliant the Dinosaurwas shortlisted for the 1994 Smarties Book Award,and What's that Noise? was nominated for the KateGreenaway Award. More recently, The Kiss That Missedwas short-listedfor the Kate Greenaway Award. His recent picture book, The Tale of Jack Frostwas animated and shown on BBC1 on Christmas Daywith a voice over by Hugh Laurie.

David has always enjoyed drawing and in his website biography describes how his style has developed from his childhood frustration at any wobbly lines through learning animation techniques to make characters move. This is what he tries to achieve in his own work: ‘When I finally started drawing pictures for books I knew this was for me. To draw characters, to try and get them to move, and let them tell the story.’

His website has a number of videos including one of him drawing and talking in his studio and another of him showing how to create a picture book. His blog offers further insight into the life of the author-illustrator and he has included colouring sheetsof Douglas. If you wish to explore other books by David, he has provided an activity pack and a teachers’ resource, both of which are available to download.

• The official David Melling website:
• The official Hugless Douglas website:

Introducing Hugless Douglas

There are a number of books now in the toddler bear Hugless Douglas series including activity books. For the purposes of this resource, the following publications were used.

• Hugless Douglas
• Don’t worry, Hugless Douglas
• Hello, Hugless Douglas (world book day 2014 edition)
• Hugless Douglas and the BIG SLEEP
• We Love You Hugless Douglas

Activities

What is an author?

It’s never too early to use the correct terminology for books,eg contents page and index. Our options are fairly limited here but we can still offer children the opportunity to learn the more basic terms of author and illustrator and to discuss what they mean. There is lots of scope here to discuss how the pictures enhance the story and how David Melling uses shape within the text. Start your discussion off by holding up the book and including the author’s name when you introduce the book. From there you can ask the children who they think David Melling might be and why his name is on the front cover; leading on to discussion about books’ authors.

LIT 1-11a/LIT1-11a, EXA 0-07a/1-07a

Dedications

In each of his books, David Melling has written a dedication. What is a book dedication? Why would you use one and what do you think they mean? Have a hunt through your class library books for more dedications.

Find a partner, and speak to them about the things they like. They might have a favourite hobby, or a treasured possession. Draw a picture for them featuring the thing(s) they like, and write a dedication. You could also think of family or friends outside school whom you’d like to dedicate a drawing to.Watch Natalie Russell reading her book Lost for Words for an inspirational tale of making artistic gifts for your friends:

Imagine you were buying a book as a gift for a classmate or family member. What would your dedication be if you were to write one? Perhaps you could make a card and write the dedication out very carefully and display everyone’s ideas.

ENG 1-19a

Wordart

Throughout the books, David Melling uses text to enhance his stories visually as well as orally. He uses bold type, changes the shape of the words to suit the meaning,eg ‘tall’ is written in tall lettering; ‘bendy’ is curved over the top of the bending branch and uses a selection of font sizes for emphasis. Select adjectives which lend themselves to this type of treatment and explore the possibilities using Wordart, or other software of your choice. Think about how you might then display this. Think about grouping the words in ‘categories’ such as size, shape, feelings, etc and add to the display all year. Use the display to stimulate writing – this lends itself well to mnemonics or acrostic and shape poetry. Include other classes in the project and compare and share ideas and results.

Alternatively, make this an art project. Have the children think, pair, share ideas and note each one. Type their words up in appropriate fonts or provide letter templates which the children could draw around to make their letters for their words. Once they have cut out their words, provide large sheets of paper for them to move their letters around until they achieve their ideal position or shape, before gluing into place.

TCH 1-04a/b

New words for ‘said’

We are constantly seeking ways to help children extend their vocabulary, eg to find alternatives to the word ‘said’. In these books David Melling offers many alternatives. If you have the book or App you will be able to use these to identify all the examples, or you could use one several videos of people reading the story. The link below is to one of these, but do have a search and find the one you prefer.

After this, you could consolidate the learning by asking pupils to create Word Wheels – go to 1:04 in the following video to see Word Wheels in action:

LIT 0-10a, LIT 1-20a

Morning instructions

Discuss with your class what their morning routine is before they come to school or nursery. Make a wall display of a morning routine agreed as a group. Older children could make a leaflet or poster or write this out as a set of instructions. This is an opportunity to help those who don’t follow a routine to see how this might be managed. As an extra activity, the finished work could be photographed or photocopied and sent home or added to the school/nursery website to encourage families to discuss them.

Why not try one for night time routines too?

LIT 0-26a/1-26a

Pack for a sleepover

If you were going on a sleepover, what would you pack, would it be the same as Douglas? Introduce the idea by producing items from an overnight bag/rucksack and verifying if these items would go with you on the sleepover. Add in some daft items to mix things up a little. Draw a rucksack outline for everyone and have your learners draw in their choices. You could have some pictures to cut out to be stuck onto the rucksack if drawing would be too challenging. Those who can could label their items and add in the reasons for taking them. An extra activity could be their bag design.

LIT 0-04a

Plan a sleepover

Imagine if you could have a sleepover at nursery or school! What would you do? Where would you sleep and what would you eat? Would you have a theme? Do you think all the toys come out to play? What do you think happens at night in your nursery/classroom? Write stories about the night the classroom came alive.

There are loads of possibilities here for listening and talking and for writing and problem solving.

• The nursery or classroom could be ‘messed up’ in one section when the children come in first thing in the morning or after break. What has happened?
• One of the toys might leave a note for the children telling them it’s lonely at night and needs a few friends. What help can we give?
• One of the toys has managed to climb up onto a high shelf and can’t get back down – what are we going to do about it?
• Take photos of the toys in odd places in the nursery, or having a party and leave them on the camera for the children to find. Who took the photos? What were the toys up to?

LIT 1-02a, LIT 0-09A/1-09A

Drawing book

David Melling describes how he draws every day and suggests that this is a very easy way to develop your drawing skills. Cut a set of blank paged jotters in half in the guillotine to make mini jotters and have a ‘Quick Draw McGraw’ 5 minute drawing session every day. Offer a suggestion to your learners to help them if they find it tricky to get started, perhaps an object, photo or word which they may use as a focus. Agree that this time is ‘silent’ time and set the timer. Decide as a class if you should be able to return to a drawing the next day or should start a new one each time. Make it special.

EXA 0-02a/1-02a

Retell Hugless Douglas

Watch, listen or read the story and then ask your class to retell the tale through a variety of activities

• Make character headbands and retell through role play
• Draw pictures of the main aspects of the story and use a story stick[1] to explain the story again
• Cover up the text on the book or interactive whiteboard and have the whole class/group explain each picture
• Make finger or shadow puppets and put on a play
• Record the children, or have them record each other in whatever activity you have chosen

LIT 1-19a, ENG 1-19a, LIT 0-07a/1-07a

Make use of the Publisher’s Resources

Look up the Hugless Douglas publisher’s website to find a selection of activity pages to print off. These include a helpful sheet on how to draw Douglas, colouring sheets and a mobile to make. The website is full of other ideas and activities for a wide range of authors – it’s a very tempting site with lots of resources for many authors to use later.

LIT 0-01c, LIT 1-16a

Hugless Douglas app

There is a lovely Hugless Douglas App available. You can choose to read the book on your own or have it read for you by Alan Davis. The words change colour as Alan reads them to help you follow along with the words. If you select the interactive ‘read myself’ the pace is set by the readers and when you click on certain parts of the illustration, the relevant nouns are read out, or sound effects offered. There is a section to play noughts and crosses, send a hug or ‘More’ gives you access to David Melling’s website. Find out more about the app here:

LIT 0-13a/1-13a

Create a new friend

Can your class come up with a new character to join Douglas and his friends? What would he or she look like? Perhaps they could think about a little sisteror brother for him? Send your ideas to David Melling including drawings and a possible storyline suggestion.

ENG 1-31a

The missing pages

Tell the class the wind whipped away a couple of pages in the middle of the book – what might have been on them? Try to make up the missing pages: they could be more attempts at different types of hug, perhaps. Depending on your age and stage, record the responses, type the pages up as a collaborative effort, or encourage children to write these two pages using the picture book methods explained by David Melling on his website.

LIT 0-31a, ENG 1-31a

Friendship activities

Friendship is a big theme in the Hugless Douglas series. Circle Time is an excellent time to reinforce this teaching. Friendship bracelets using threads orloom bands, cards, beaded bookmarks and friendship sticks all work for this – they can share them with each other. These can be simplified for younger children.

You may wish to refer to the Commonwealth games: The Friendly Gamesand hold a mini games event.

Friendship sticks

HWB 0-05a/1-05a, HWB 0-14a/1-14a, HWB 0-44a/1-44a

Design challenges

Douglas wears some fabulous pyjamas decorated with honey bees. Set up a design company and have the children create new pyjamas. Take it one step further and use printing methods to repeat the pattern. Printing could be achieved through potato prints (or other fruit/vegetable); pasta or string glued to card to make a stamp; flat shapes from the 2D shapes box or just hands, feet or fingers. The bunnies wear wonderful crash helmets decorated with carrots and other designs. These could be used instead of the pyjamas. You could make papier mache helmets and turn the pattern into a 3D activity.

EXA 1-03a

Make pompoms

In Don’t Worry Hugless Douglas, Douglas has a new hat with pompoms. Why not have a go at making some pompoms in class? They could then be used to make some of the other characters in the book: the sheep and the owl lend themselves really well to this craft. If you don’t want to use yards of wool, ribbon pompoms are very effective and less time consuming. Of course, the least labour intensive would be commercially produced pompoms, available from most major crafting outlets and school requisition orders.

TCH 1-11a

Knitting

Douglas has a knitted hat. You could demonstrate knittingor arrange for someone to come in to your class and possibly even let your learners have a go? This would be a great way to involve members of the community, possibly the SWRI (Scottish Women’s Rural Institute), or other organisation, depending on your location and situation.

Alternatively, try some French Knitting: it’s a less complicated process for younger children! They could help make the knitting bee or dolly. There are lots of websites and videos offering help with this. Finger knitting is another option.

French Knitting How to make a simple spool using lollypop sticks: great recycling activity!

TCH 1-11a

Wool Collage

For younger learners, using wool to create a collage may be a more accessible way to use this medium. Children could create sheep or owls, or Douglas himself. They could try simply scrunching the wool into their chosen shape, or they could be directed more and shown how to coil the wool around into whorls.

TCH 0-11a

Cave models

Make models of Douglas’ cave using shoe boxes and a range of recycled materials. Study the cave pages in the book to decide what you will need. Expect to fashion a bed, dresser and shelf at the very least. You could suggest they make their ideal cave if this was more appealing to them. This would make a lovely home learning activity.

TCH 1-12a, TCH 0-14a/1-14a

Douglas mazes and board games

Design little board games similar to snakes and ladders or ludo but themed for Douglas. Make your own or try printed copies of Douglas mazes. Using Bee-Bots, try to work out a path between Douglas and his cave; make squares to go on the board or Bee-Bot mat. Have the children make up their own paths and record them as instructions for others.

You can find out more about Bee-Bots and see them in action here:

EXA0-06a/1-06a

Outdoor Learning

If you have a Forest School Leader in your school or local area, arrange a block of sessions and liaise over the planning. The Storyline planning format works extremely well in this setting for both Early and First Levels. Use Hugless Douglas to create your storyline ‘thread’ and allow the learning to be pupil-led as is the Forest School ethos. This is a great way to encourage your class to enjoy the outdoors away from the school grounds: children can behave very differently when away from the confines of four classroom walls. If you do not have a Forest School Leader available, contact your local authority and find out what is possible in terms of outdoor activities. Don’t forget to prepare fully detailed risk assessments. Write a Forest School class diary if you are able to have a few weeks out there in Forest School.