How To Wash A Woolly Mammoth

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Does your woolly mammoth need a wash? It’s not a very easy thing to do… Find out exactly how to wash your mammoth in this hilarious instruction manual – just remember don’t get any soap in its eyes or it might escape up a tree!

Teaching Ideas and Resources:

English

• Write a set of instructions for how to wash another animal using imperative verbs and numbered steps.
• Make a list of synonyms for “big”.
• Make a story map of the book.
• Collect alliterative phrases like “terribly tickly”.
• Generate some other questions like the opening question “Does your (adjective, noun) need a (noun)?”
• Write some phrases with two adjectives using  “big, fat tummy” as a model.
• Write some other ideas for getting the mammoth into the bath.
• Record your own retelling of the story. Here is an example:

Maths

• Count the bubbles on the picture on Michelle Robinson’s website. How many are there?
• Play a game matching numbers to their words.

Science

• Investigate bubbles and soap in the water tray.
• How do you keep clean? Why is it important? Make a poster to teach others how to stay clean and healthy.
• Mammoths are extinct. What does extinct mean? Find out about other animals that have gone extinct.
• Which materials would make a good umbrella or coat for step six? Investigate some materials to find out if they are waterproof or not.

Computing

• Use graphics software to create your own illustrations of a woolly mammoth.
• Make an animated retelling of the story or an animated challenge based on the book. Here is an example:

Design Technology

• Design your own toiletry for a woolly mammoth.
• Make a cross-section drawing of a simple household object (like the bath in step one.)
• Design a machine to get your woolly mammoth into the bath.
• Bake a cake for your woolly mammoth
• Design your own rubber duck.

Art

• Make a mammoth collage using fabric and other materials.
• Explore Michelle Robinson’s website and colour in the pages available there.
• Make a gallery of pictures of mammoths with different hairstyles inspired by step seven.

History

• Research when and where woolly mammoths lived and make a fact file about them.

Physical education

• Warm up with the audio game on Michelle Robinson’s website, with actions for being a woolly mammoth.
• Explore jumping and bouncing. Perhaps you could use some mini trampolines?