The Best Cow in Show

Hi everyone,

'The Best Cow in Show' by Andy Cutbill and Russell Ayto is the sequel to 'The Cow That Laid an Egg.' We follow Marjorie's story of her little Calf (Chick) and she finds out that it doesn't matter whether her child is a cow or not, the fact that she loves him regardless means that she is a good mother. This is a nice book about love, family relationships, the farm and surprises.

Learning Ideas

Communication and Language

Re-tell the story from the beginning using just the pictures.

Do you remember what happened in the first book? Can you remember how chick hatch from eggs?

Research one of the animals on the farm, why they are in interesting and give a 1-minute presentation.

What noises do animals make on the farm? Can you listen carefully and guess what animal is making a sound in the following video?

Physical Development

Gross Motor - Dip your hands in paint and make handprints on a large piece of paper (old wallpaper will do the trick) they can see the prints made from their hands and fingers.

Fine Motor - Print pictures and punch holes so that they can practice threading farm animals.

Practising using an effective pencil grip while writing and drawing.

Explore the craft ideas later on using tools.

Personal Social Emotional Development

How do you think Marjorie felt being woken up so early? When the other animals laughed at her baby? In the end when Derick gave her a rosette?

Build word power by encouraging children to use words other than happy/sad. e.g worried, upset, downhearted, miserable, dejected, cross, ecstatic, cheerful, merry, jolly, delighted, etc.

Play a board game together and practise taking turns. Pop-up-pirate, Crocodile Dentist and Monkeying Around (Monkey Business) are some of my classes favourites.

Reading

Retell the story from the beginning.

What is your favourite part of the story? Why?

How is this story similar to other ones that you have read before?

Writing

Draw a picture of your favourite animal and write its name using phonetic knowledge. Remember in Nursery we aren't looking for spelling to be correct, mark-making is fine. If we are working with a Reception child then we would be hoping for a phonically plausible attempt to name the bear e.g. "b-air".

Numbers

Links to numbers are a bit scarce for this story, so focus on embedding counting into all the activities you do while learning about this book.

Shape Space and Measures

When do you know it is time to get up in the morning? Is there someone you use to help you know when to wake up?

Place a group of 5-10 toy animals on a tray and cover it with a cloth. Secretly take one away and uncover the tray. Can the children say which animal is missing? Try with more animals or taking away two animals at a time.

Understanding of the World

Go on a trip to a farm in your mind, what animals will you see?

If the farm is a viable option why not go on a trip to visit the animals. Encourage the children to think of questions to ask the farmer about the animals.

If you have a farmyard or farm animals, why not build a place for all the animals to live?

Expressive Arts and Design

Pinterest has lots of ideas for crafty things to do with farm animals. Click here to see them.

If you have some small world animals maybe you could make your own habitat for them thinking carefully about what they might need.

Have a lovely week,

Big Fox

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