This week I have something a bit different to share with you, it’s a review of a children’s book which was originally designed for people who are working with children and families. The book is called Tales of Bushy Lane and it comes with it’s own activity packs.
Tales of Bushy Lane and it’s activity packs were created by Mark Hatter Associates, in order to act as a way to communicate effectively with younger children, mainly aged 3 – 8 years. The Tales of Bushy Lane book and activity pack are a great way to start conversations about what life is like for children.
It also meets the EYFS learning goal; People and communities: ‘children talk about past and present events in their own lives and in the lives of family members. They know that other children don’t always enjoy the same things, and are sensitive to this. They know about similarities and differences between themselves and others, and among families, communities and traditions’.
Although the Tales of Bushy Lane was not designed to be used in a home/family setting like ours, it is a really wonderful way to gain an insight in to the way that your child sees the world. And my daughter and I have had a wonderful time reading the book and doing the activity packs together.
I love the style of the book, the illustrations are wonderful, bright and friendly. My daughter loves looking at the pictures and the cards that came with some of the activity packs. The repetition on the double pages really helps to keep the focus on what is happening in the story.
The Tales of Bushy Lane follows the Willow the owl on her adventures through daily life. I love that Tale of Bushy Lane gave us a chance to talk about my daughter’s day. I have to say, that when I pick her up from nursery most days she tells me that she has done nothing or that she can’t remember! And as my daughter is going to be starting school later this year, and that means some big changes and also a lot more time away from me so I think that Tales of Bushy Lane is going to be a great help over the coming months.
My daughter is 4 years old and she had a great time engaging with both the book and the activities. The age range for the book and activity packs is 3 to 8 years. Each of the activity packs comes with stickers, there were a big hit and we used them on the large, activity sheets. I think my favourite activity was the ‘me tree’ and my daughter loved the activities on the routine activity sheet.
I love that both the book and the activity packs encourage such wonderful conversations. My daughter and I had a lovely morning chatting about our daily routine, and the things she loves to do. I love that we got to give scores to different activities. One to three smiley faces, I was surprised about some of the scores. But I have to add that reading books got 10 smiley faces and ice skating with her daddy got 20 smiley faces and these scores didn’t surprise me at all.
I think that Tale of Bushy Lane is a wonderful book for children and can give the adults in their lives a wonderful insight in to how they are feeling and what the like to do. Although it is was designed for adults who are working with children and to be used to interview the birth children of prospective foster carers, I think that Tales of Bushy Lane works incredible well in the family/home setting too.