In the Summer of 2025, EYFS pupils from primary schools across the XP Trust studied a cross-curricular expedition ‘Once Upon a Time’, looking to answer the guiding question ‘Who is hiding in the pages of this book?’.
Our Learning
The children hooked into their Summer Term learning by reading ‘The Great Nursery Rhyme Disaster’ (F1) and ‘The Great Fairytale Disaster’ (F2). This allowed the children to explore different types of traditional tales and nursery rhymes to begin to understand the focus of our Summer Term expedition. The children then also made their own sock puppets who would act as narrators throughout the expedition to enhance storytelling abilities. To hook them into Case Study 1, the children had to work out why a tray of ingredients to make porridge had been left in their classroom and who they thought might have left it. To answer the question ‘How could Goldilocks show that she is sorry?’ the children explored the text ‘Goldilocks and the Three Bears’ and were able to use the text to sequence the story, retell and act out the story using role play, as well as share their ideas on how Goldilocks could show the bears that she is sorry.
In Case Study 2, the children answered the question, ‘How can we help the Gingerbread Man to cross the river?’. They hooked into Case Study 2 by following a set of footprints, complete with crumbs, that took them to a copy of ‘The Gingerbread Man’ and the children had to work out which character they thought had left the book in the classroom. During this Case Study, the children had to consider ways in which the Gingerbread Man could have safely crossed the river to save him from getting eaten by the fox. The children explored different materials and how well they were able to float/sink in water and whether or not they would be suitable for the Gingerbread Man to have used. The children created drawings of their suggestions.
In Case Study 3, they answered the guiding question ‘How can the goats and the troll be friends?’. To hook into Case Study 3, the children found a map in the classroom. The map directed the children to their outdoor area where they were given instructions to go over the bridge. As they crossed the bridge, they could hear a voice saying ‘Who is that trip trapping over my bridge?!’. The children had to guess who they thought the voice belonged to. The children then made their own troll puppet as well as bridges for the goats to use to cross. The children were then introduced to ‘The Three Billy Goats Fluff’ as an alternative version of the story and this gave the children a suggestion for how the goats and the troll could be friends. They also considered the feelings of different characters in the story and how their feelings changed as the story progressed.
Final Product and Celebration of Learning
The final product saw the children create illustrations of their favourite traditional tale characters. These illustrations were then collated as a crew and included on a double sided bookmark for the children to keep for years to come. The bookmark included a QR code that could be scanned to showcase their learning journey through photographs and short explanations. The bookmarks were also sold in local libraries with the money raised being used to buy new books for the classrooms and to supplement further expeditions.
The celebration of learning involved the children attending ‘The Carcroft Ball’ where they dressed up and took part in lots of lovely activities with their grown ups. They presented their final product to their grown ups and were able to take their own bookmark home.