Moon Man: The Crescent-moon-shaped character who was always the narrator in each episode. Unlike other characters, he was also not a skeleton. Bumps in the Night is one of the titles in Allan Ahlberg's iconic children's picture book series about skeletons, Funnybones. Despite being set in a dark dark house, this brightly coloured book is perfect for early readers! This is a great book to be read with young children at story time. Children can join in whilst the teacher is reading the book out loud of them. Through ourTime to Read programme, we give every Reception pupil in England their own book to treasure and share at home.Here's a look at some of the fantastic picture books that we've handed out around the country, for free, over previous years.

They then visit the skeleton zoo and meet many skeleton animals. And at last they decide to frighten one another before returning home. But everyone in the town is in bed, and in the end, they still haven’t frightened anybody. So the little skeleton suggests that they frighten each other instead.What do you think? They had a lot of fun, but one picture shows the three skeletons running away from a skeleton of a crocodile ... There are lots of examples of onomatopoeia in the story (e.g. woof, miaow, boo). Can you think of any more? This section contains collection of resources to support the teaching of the wonderful ‘Funny Bones’ children’s stories. Funnybones" by Janet and Allen Ahlberg follows a day in the life of a skeleton family! This is entertaining for children to read as it shows a contrasting way of life to which they know. The skeletons wake up when everybody else goes to sleep and the nighttime is their daytime. Of course the town is deserted when they are awake as everybody else is asleep. They have to find imaginative ways to entertain themselves. When using this book in placement in Year 2, all children joined in and sang along. They all enjoyed singing as there were a lot of rhyming and repetition words.

Draw around somebody you know on a large piece of paper and label the different bones inside their body on it. A BBC video, entitled, Funnybones – Bumps in the Night (Cat. No. BBCV 4871), which contained all twelve episodes, was released soon after the series ended, but this is now out of print. The VHS tape was also released in Bulgaria and Australia, respectively by the companies Proxima Entertainment and ABC Video (but in the former case, it was dubbed into Bulgarian). Funnybones, is a fantastic children’s story book which is still used in literacy sessions in the classroom. It’s a perfect book for the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) and into the earlier years of Key Stage One. During placement within the EYFS the children have a literacy carpet session every day which consists of one core book a week. Currently, the nursery class I’m working with have been reading the Funnybones book. The class teacher reads the story aloud to the children and then uses a range of techniques to assess their learning. The vast majority of the children are able to join in with the repetitive refrains which are used throughout the book, for example, ‘on a dark, dark hill, there was a dark, dark town. In the dark, dark town, there was a dark, dark street’ etc. Both the teacher and the children additionally use actions in particular sections of the story. These are used for the characters, big skeleton, little skeleton, dog skeleton, and objects such as the swings etc. It’s a technique which includes the children in the story telling process and further encourages them to remain engaged throughout the carpet session.One night the skeletons decide to take their dog for a walk and frighten somebody. That's what skeletons are supposed to do, right? So off they go. The story begins with lines that we are all familiar with. ‘On a dark dark hill there was a dark dark town. In the dark dark town there was a dark dark street…’ The story includes lots of speech. Can you use this to create a play script and perform it for others?

Dr. Bones: The skeleton doctor (who wore a doctor's coat and glasses with a first aid kit, a stethoscope and a leg tapping hammer) who helped Big and Little to stop them from bumping in the night and everything else etc. in the episode "Bumps in the Night" and everything else in other episodes.

It is a particularly dark, dark night tonight, and Big and Little keep bumping into each other, making them fall to pieces, and there is only one thing to do: send in Dr. Bones, who does a great job of patching them up to stop them from bumping in the night.

Dog: The pet dog of the skeleton brothers who loved bones, digging holes, and found everything that the skeleton brothers need. They live in a dark, dark cellar of a dark, dark house on a dark, dark hill and so the word repetition continues through this lighthearted story for early readers. The skeletons venture out of their cellar one night to find someone to scare, but everyone is in bed, so they amuse themselves by scaring each other and playing with the skeleton animals that live in the zoo. Teaching Ideas and Resources: English Janet Ahlberg (1944-1994) was a British children's book illustrator, and the co-creator, together with her husband Allan Ahlberg, of the best-selling Jolly Postman series. Born as Janet Hall in Yorkshire in 1944, she studied at Sunderland Technical College, where she met Ahlberg. The two married in 1969, and began to work together, publishing their first co-venture - The Old Joke Book - in 1976. She won the 1978 Kate Greenaway Medal from the British Library Association - an award recognizing the year's best children's book illustration by a British subject - for Each Peach Pear Plum. Funny Bones" we are taught to call our elbows if they're bumped. I did it this morning. I called out "Funny Bone" and the pain soon fox trotted off. Some rituals are worth not forgetting. They're the spells, like kisses, which work.Dog gets left behind when Big and Little decide to visit the dark, dark dinosaur museum. When Dog follows Big and Little to the dinosaur museum, he thinks a huge, huge dinosaur wanted to hurt them. This iconic children's picture book series about skeletons includes a trip to the pet shop, dinosaur dreams and many more. A wonderful collection, perfect for early readers! Watch the animated series and explain which you prefer. There are lots of episodes available online. Here is one of them: