KS1 Book topic: Wonder Bear

Tao Nyeu’s illustrations start with what she calls an “inner chuckle”, and the playful humour of Wonder Bear is certain to draw out pupils’ creativity, says Carey Fluker Hunt...

1 Sharing the book with your class

Prepare your children for the experience to come by exploring the idea of a magic hat. Take a single image from the book – the close-up of the bear with his paw in the hat – and invite children to comment. What kind of creature could this be? What might he be doing? Is he friendly, or not (look at those claws!)? Does this picture give us any clues about the story it belongs to? What could we ask this creature to help us find out more?

Magicians are known for pulling surprising things from hats – rabbits, doves, and endless strings of scarves. What is the creature in this picture about to pull out of his hat? Encourage children to generate ideas while you keep a record.

Play the ‘top hat game’. You’ll need an old-fashioned hat – anything imposing will do. What might come out of this hat? Invite each child to mime the emergence of something strange and wonderful. Can anybody guess what has been revealed?

Once you’re ready to share the book, consider projecting the pages onto a big screen so that everyone can see clearly. Or sit children in small groups, each with a copy of the book, and take your time to explore the spreads.

2 Encouraging discussion

Talk about each image, asking plenty of open-ended questions. One of the advantages of a simple storyline is that children are able to play with it and use it as a springboard for their own invention.

Who could these story-children be, and where might they have come from? Experiment with retellings to find different perspectives on the action. What’s the story from the monkey’s point of view, or the dolphin’s? Will the characters in this book ever see the bear again?

Invent a sequel to this story, or imagine what happened before the story began.

What do your class make of the lack of written text? What kind of text would they add to this book, if they could? Invite them to create dialogue for these characters, perhaps by acting out the relevant scenes to generate ideas. Annotate each image by sticking ‘post-its’ to the relevant pages, and use them later as the basis for a written retelling or script.

3 Developing visual literacy

Wonder Bear supports the development of visual literacy, as children have to rely on their ability to interpret images to engage with the story. Try asking your class to think more deeply about the pictures from a critical point of view. It’s a great way to help them form and express opinions, as well as encouraging close observation.

What do they think about the colours chosen by Tao Nyeu? She uses a bold, black graphic line to bring each image to life. What kind of a ‘feel’ do these black lines give this book?

Experiment with brushes and water-based ink, drawing animals with simple outlines on white paper. Tao creates her illustrations using screen printing, which means each colour is laid down separately, with the black outline going on last of all. She believes that ‘less is more’ in her artwork. Take a look at Dick Bruna’s illustrations for the Miffy books to see another approach to conveying information and emotions with the simplest of graphic lines.

Some of the backgrounds have patterns on them. How many different types of pattern can your children find? Some, particularly the endpapers, recall traditional Japanese origami paper. Draw a black outline on white paper and fill with a simple repetitive pattern using one colour only. Use traditional Japanese patterns for inspiration.

Some images are framed, while others are not. What is happening in the framed images? What about the unframed ones? What difference does a black frame make to the ‘feel’ of a picture? There’s humour to be found in these illustrations. The animals are lively, cheeky and fun. As Tao says, “I set out drawing an image that is funny and then I build a story around it. I can’t create a story if there is no inner chuckle.” Tao’s favourite childhood book was Richard Scarry’s Funniest Storybook Ever. Ask children to see whether they think this book influenced her illustrations for Wonder Bear in any way.

4 Creating soundscapes

Choose a picture with lots going on – try the spread where the bear is blowing the sea creatures from his mouth. Ask children to imagine they have stepped into this picture. What can they see? Hear? Smell? If they touch something, what does it feel like? What are the characters saying? What’s happening beyond the edges of this picture, out of view of the reader, but visible once they’ve stepped inside the book?

Invite children to make sounds with their voices to match the picture. How would Bear sound? What about the wind? The trees? The flying creatures? Taking the role of conductor, lead your class in a performance, asking each child to make their favourite sound while you indicate how loudly or softly they should respond. Invite feedback. Did the soundscape work? Does it need changing in any way to make it better?

Extend this activity by using percussion instruments or other noise makers to create more complex or diverse soundscapes. Record your soundscapes and use them as a starting point for descriptive or poetic writing.

5 Building a model landscape

Make a model of the magic island. Create a vine out of wire and fabric, complete with fantastical flowers, and make trees using ‘retro-patterned’ wallpaper. View the model from different angles. What does the landscape look like from above? How does it differ when viewed from the side, instead?

Look at the perspectives and viewpoints in the book. If each illustration had been a photograph, where would it have been taken from? High up above the action? Or lower down and closer in?

Use plasticine to make characters and recreate scenes from the book. Taking into account what’s been learned about perspective and viewpoint, use a camera to take still images of each scene. There will be lots of different possibilities, and children will have to work out which angle gives the best result.

Ask children to imagine they have become tiny and are walking across the landscape. How does it feel? What can they see? Using the model, draw a map of the island from above, marking key points where the action in the story takes place.

Invite children to create maps of their own imaginary islands, annotated with landmarks or information. These could be the starting points for stories or picture books of their own.

6 Magic jungle vines

Taking the second double spread as a starting point – where the children wake to find the top hat seed has grown – explore growth and change by using body movements in PE. Ask children to ‘grow’ from a crouched position into strange and fantastic plants. Repeat, experimenting to find the best shapes and movements. Put children into groups and ask them to join their growing movements together to form more complex plants. Invite each group to show their work.

‘Grow’ the plants again, this time to music. Join plants to form a magic jungle and ask which magical creature emerges from your plant and what happens next? This could be developed using drama, art or creative writing. Try painting largescale versions of the magic vines, to create a jungle in your classroom.

7 Balloons, seeds and acrobatic monkeys

Wonder Bear makes a good starting point for science, too. Talk about what grows and what doesn’t. If you bury something that won’t grow, what happens to it? Try growing cress seeds under a variety of conditions, or monitor the growth of a runner bean, measuring its height and creating charts and graphs.

Investigate bubbles, using different shapes and sizes of blower to see what effect these variables have on the bubble blown. Is it possible to blow coloured bubbles? Square bubbles? Enormous bubbles?

Explore things that balance. Use toy bricks or other (safe) objects to see what kind of towering structures can be built. If you like, you can extend this to PE, exploring balancing.

8 Whose hat?

Make a collection of hats, enough for one per child. Working in a large, open space, place each hat on a sheet of paper. Ask children to move around the room, looking at the hats and writing down words on the paper to describe the imaginary owners of these hats.

Give each child a hat, along with its accompanying sheet of paper. Ask children to invent a character that might have owned this hat. The words generated by other children will stimulate this process, but each child is free to make up anything they wish. Ask children to decide how their character might stand, move and walk. Working in pairs, can children develop short monologues or mimes?

Take it further…

Why not invite a children’s entertainer to perform some magic tricks? Your class might like to practise their own tricks and put on a show. You could create a role-play area, with theatre curtains, hats, suits, sparkly dresses, toy rabbits, silk scarves and other magical paraphernalia.

If you’ve enjoyed Wonder Bear, take a look at Tao Nyeu’s other book, Bunny Days. More information about Tao Nyeu can be found at taonyeu.com