Reception > English > Expressive_Arts > Music > Story telling – ‘There’s a hole in the bottom of the sea’ by The Barefoot Books Singalong

Lesson by Jo Hinds

Learning Intentions:
  • To retell a familiar story in the right order
  • To use my imagination to create my own story

Step 1: Activity overview for parent, carers and pupils

Lot’s to do related to this story. Promotes discussions and game playing and lots of creativity whilst singing and dancing along.

There is a short video to watch with your child. Approximately four minutes long. You might want to watch this more than once.

The main activities can be completed offline.

Step 2: Introduction to the activity and additional information

This engaging story has a selection of sea creatures which allows discussion around food chains and interdependency at a very simple level. It also lends itself to creative under the sea artwork, memory games and research skills on sharks. A very varied story.

Join in with the rhythm and song of this story as you see what’s in the hole in the bottom of the sea.

Step 3: Tasks to carry out for this activity

Activity 1 – Memory game

Play a memory game of the order the sea creatures appeared in the story?

  • Use the sentence starter “There’s a ________ in the bottom of the sea”
  • the next person says “There’s a _ and a ____in the bottom of the sea”
  • How many can you remember?

You might want to play the video again to help you remember all the animals.

You could also use your imagination and include some more animals. How many animals can you remember?

Activity 2 Sharks

Draw a picture of a shark. Can you write some facts about your shark.

  • How big do sharks grow?
  • What so sharks like to eat?
  • How many teeth do they have?

You might need to ask an adult to help you find out some facts about sharks.

Activity 3 – Under the sea creative activity

For this activity you will need

  • a shoe box or small box
  • Some materials such as paper, scraps of fabric, wool, foil, small stones etc (these will be used to create a model of under the sea.
  • Pencils, crayons, felt pens, paint etc.

You are going to create the bottom of the sea inside your box.

  • You could add small pebbles/stones for rocks.
  • Make some seaweed out of material or colour some paper and cut it out
  • You could draw and cut out the characters from the story or use any sea creatures you have from your toy box.
  • Don’t forget to make a shark.

Once you have made your under the sea model.

  • Retell the story using the characters you have made?
  • Can you make up some more stories about what happens under the sea?

Once you have completed the task you can email anything you create (photos, documents, screenshots etc.) directly to your teacher or directly upload it to any of the available places in Step 5.

Step 4: Look over the success criteria for this activity: 

Success criteria #1: I can remember the sequence of events.

Success criteria #2:  I can use my research skills

Success criteria #3:  I can be creative.

Look at the learning intentions ‘how well do you think you have done?’

Step 5: Upload your work

Click on the relevant link below if you have any work to upload to your online areas J2e   Google Drive   OneDrive   Seesaw