Touch and Feel Star Tree - Activity Instructions

Tune In

Present the children with the printed gnome cards. Depending on the group, this could be done either in

small groups: each group is given a different gnome, they discuss together to come up with a description of their gnome and then report back to the rest of the group.
whole group: where you show the group one gnome at a time, and children share their ideas.

This allows children to practice their speaking and listening skills and to extend their oral language as they listen to the descriptive language of their peers.

Descriptions may be based on the physical features of the gnome (e.g. height, hair colour, facial hair, clothes, accessories). However, this can be extended to the emotions or personalities that the children infer from the illustrations (e.g. happy, proud, worried, friendly). By encouraging the discussion to go beyond the physical characteristics, it is reinforcing the idea that “Our bodies all look different, however, are a vehicle to carry us through life and the way we feel and things we do that is more important than how we look”.

Find Out

Ask the children to each turn to a partner. Here, they are going to practice describing their peers: Can you think of one word to describe your partner?

Listen out for any descriptions that are based on character or personality, and ask those children to share their words with the group.

Next, explicitly ask all children to describe the same partner, but this time not based on how they look: This time, I’d like you to describe your partner based on what they do and how they make you feel.

Providing some examples here may be helpful for young children.

You are friendly
You are so funny and make me laugh
You are helpful
You make people feel happy and safe

Ask children to reflect on how they felt when they received the different descriptions of themselves: Think about how you felt when someone described what you looked like. Now, think about how you felt when someone described who you were on the inside. Which one made you feel prouder?

This helps children understand and recognise that we are all different, but it’s what is on the inside that is valued and truly makes us who we are.

Take Action

Provide the opportunity for children to continue this exploration of descriptive language and unique bodies as they investigate what’s inside the ‘Touch and Feel Star Tree Box’.

To set up:

Cut a round hole in the centre of one side of the box, about 15cm in diameter.
Staple a scrap of material to the top of the hole (to allow the children's hands through, but so they cannot see what’s in the box).
Place different character figurines into the box (examples could include trolls, barbies, Duplo people, small Disney characters, and small plush animals)

The printed Star Tree can be stuck on the front of the box, and a hole cut to match the hole in the box to increase the link between the children’s experience and ‘Charlie’s Tales: Sylvie and the Star Tree’.

For the children’s experience:

Encourage children to feel around for an object/character.
Before pulling the object out of the box, ask them to describe it based on its feel - long hair, short hair, smooth, rough, long, short, soft, hard. Some children may need some prompting. This can be done by giving two opposing adjectives or describing words, “Does it feel hard or soft?”
They may like to have a guess as to what character/animal it is before they pull it out.
Once they pull the object out of the box, ask the children to look closer at the detail of the facial expressions or use prior knowledge to infer some further information about the character - things it might do, how it might be feeling, how it might interact with others.

Touch and Feel Star Tree

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Summary

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Target Age

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