Building understanding

Text sharing rhyming books: 'Up, Down, Around'

Primary

Communication and language

﻿Hello, my name is Kat, and I'm very happy to be your teacher today. We're going to read a story called Up, Down and Around, by Katherine Ayres. On the first section of the story, there's a sensory activity to complete with your learner and for the rest of the story, we'll be focusing on comprehension questions around the pictures and what's happening in the story, and also the rhyming and repetition of the text. So I'll go through first of all, with some little hints and tips throughout about what you could try with your learner. And then after that, I will read through the whole thing with minimal adult language for you to enjoy. For this lesson, you will need a tray, some corn flour, some water, some brown paint, and some lentils. Press pause whilst you get things ready. Let's get ready. It's time to look, listen, and learn. Find a quiet, comfortable space, away from distractions. Gather your resources and have them nearby. Make sure you and your learner comfortable. Press pause whilst you get everything ready. Today, we're going to read Up, Down, and Around by Katherine Ayres, illustrated by Nadine Bernard Wescott and published in 2007 by Candlewick Press. In the dirt we'll dig a row, drop some seeds, and watch them grow. Dirt piles up, seeds go down. Water splashes around and around. So it's really nice to start the story off with a sensory experience to get your learners engagement straight off the beginning of the session. So what I've done is I've just filled a try and I've got corn flour, some brown paint, and some water in to simulate sort of soil or compost. You could also just use soil and compost, whichever you feel more comfortable with. Allow the learner to have a bit of time exploring this, playing with this. Perhaps you could put aprons on and make it messy play because it's quite a nice texture. Or you might want to just use spades, spoons, things like that. Then you want to get some lentils to represent the seeds. And all I'm going to do is just sprinkle the lentils into the mixture like your planting seeds to go along with the story. You might want to create some little rows, or you might want to dig into the mixture and put the seeds in and cover them up, as you would do if you're gardening. So there's lots of different ways to explore this activity, just to get your learner really interested and engaged right at the beginning of the story. Corn grows up. Carrots grow down. So this can be a great way to start to share some actions that you could do with your learner during the story. And you've got some symbols on the PowerPoint to help you, which you could print off to use as visuals throughout, or you could refer to them on the PowerPoint. So when you read, corn grows up, I would suggest you try mimicking the corn growing up with some physical actions with your learner. So, corn grows up, you could stretch up. And corn goes down, pop down to the floor. And you could allow your learner to interpret this however they want. And depending on their physical abilities, they might be stretching up completely. Or you might be helping to gently lift up the hands or stretch their legs, depending on what they're comfortable with and what they enjoy. There's also lots of great comprehension questions you can do here. So you could be saying, how many carrots are there? Or, where is the dog? Where is the cat? Where is the little girl? Cucumbers climb around and around. Again, this is a great opportunity to introduce the repetitive action throughout the story, of around. So you could spin around with your learner. Perhaps if they're in a wheelchair, you could spin for them, and they could interpret that however they want. So they could spin lots. They could spin once. But it's really good to build a physical activity to go with the word around because it's repeated through the story. Again, there's also lots of comprehension questions. You could be asking, how many toes can you see? And you could be finding how many toes the learner has as well, and introduce some early counting. You could also be saying, where is the cat? Where is the little bird? What colour are the trousers? Are they yellow? Or are they green? And questions like this to explore the lovely illustrations with your learner. Peppers grow up. Potatoes grow down. Again here, I would use the physical activities to accompany the story. So I would be stretching up like a pepper, and then squeezing down as small as I can like a potato. You could also ask comprehension questions such as, where are the yellow flowers? And how many potatoes can you see? Pumpkins vine around and around. So this is a nice opportunity to model again, the key action, around, and also the key sign, around. Other questions you could ask at this point are, how many black birds can you see? And, where is the cat hiding? Where is the dog? Broccoli grows up. Beets grow down. Again here, use the key actions of up and down and see if by this stage in the story, maybe your learner can anticipate them and do them as you say the words, without any physical prompts. Also remind them of the key signs, up and down. You could also ask, where is the rabbit? And where is the dog? Green beans wind around and around. So in this slide, as well as repeating the key rhyming words and actions of around and the sign around, you could also introduce talking about colours. So you could say, are beans green or red? You could also open up a discussion about feelings. So how do they feel? Are they happy or are they sad? Use lots of emotion here to help the learner grasp that understanding of what the feeling is and what the emotion is. We can then correlate it to the emotions the children are feeling on the picture. Okra grows up. Onions grow down. Tomatoes twine around and around. Fresh and tasty, get a bunch. Pick some, pull some, let's have lunch. So this last page is a lovely opportunity for some final comprehension questions. For example, where are the tomatoes? Where is the pie? Do they feel happy, or do they feel sad? Where is the dog hiding? What does the rabbit have in its mouth? So it's a lovely final illustration to just explore lots of comprehension questions, key words, and signs with your learner at the end of the story. To make this easier, spend longer exploring each of the pages with your learner. Minimise adult language and use keywords and signs instead. To make it harder, once you've read through the story, see if the learner can sequence it themselves using symbols and pictures. Add in more complex language or see if the learner can use two key words together to describe elements of the story, e.g. the tomatoes are red. Try sequencing the story together using symbols and pictures. Explore and taste some vegetables in the kitchen. Try planting some seeds and growing your own veg. If you'd like to, please ask your parent or carer to share your work on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter, tagging @OakNational and #LearnwithOak.

Text sharing rhyming books: 'Up, Down, Around'

Text sharing rhyming books: 'Up, Down, Around'

These resources will be removed by the end of the Spring Term 2026.

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