Have a day when the children choose everything that goes out - or just in one area of the setting. This will require some negotiation and turn taking - all important skills!

Frank Cottrell Boyce on why reading for pleasure is the most important thing you can pass on to a child

Shark in the Park!

Children like to discuss it in a group, and it is an extremely useful tool in the classroom, particularly to promote involvement, imagination and communication skills. If you were hungry, which of the delicious-looking foods would you eat? Which of the jazzy clothing options will you choose? Where will you choose to live - a fairy castle, a windmill, the Taj Mahal? Odd one out - Invite the children to make an interactive 'odd one out' display, using all sorts of groups of animals, with an odd one out. Use hoops, boxes and baskets to display the groups in. The children could have fun mixing up the groups and changing the odd one out. Why not try Dorothee de Monfriend's A Day With Dogs, Natasha Durley's Creature Features, Susan Steggall's The Life of a Caror Katie Abey's We Wear Pants? Follow the children's interests - there may be a part of the book the children show a particular interest in, such as animals or hats. The children could make some animal tails (fluffy bunny/stripy zebra/swishy horse/curly pig etc) for a 'guess whose tail this is?' display. Or they could decorate hats for a hanging display.

Sorting - use a doll's house and furniture as an opportunity to talk about sorting into rooms, counting and organising.Now accompanied by You Choose Your Dreams and You Choose in Space, there are even more amazing choices for preschool children. But if you feel like moving on, here are some suggestions - and we'd love to hear yours! If you feel like moving on to picture books... Where has this book been all of everyone's lives??? This is what kids are constantly doing with catalogs and magazines and books anyways, so why not make it a book? For me it’s a rollercoaster of emotions that I’m trying to manipulate the reader into’ - Alex Wheatle on fictional world building, creating new language and seeing yourself in a book To begin to punctuate sentences using a capital letter and a full stop, question mark or exclamation mark To understand what an adjective is

Speak to a GP if you want to be seen at a hospital or clinic. They'll help you decide what care is best for you and make any necessary referrals. Rhyming words and alliteration - have fun thinking of words that rhyme with choose (lose, snooze - include nonsense words). Try and think of words that begin with the same sound as something in the book - e.g. 'bed' - bus, banana, bear, bangle- are any of these things in the pictures in the book? Pippa Goodhart is the author of over a hundred children’s books, including the prize-winning picture book You Choose, and the Winnie the Witch series which she writes under the pen name of Laura Owen. She trained as a teacher and worked for many years in bookselling before becoming a mother and a writer.Dressing Up - have a selection of all sorts of outfits, including hats and shoes, to dress up in. Give the children things to dress up for - a fancy dress party, a ball, going to work etc. In most cases, you have the legal right to choose the hospital or service you'd like to go to. This includes private hospitals, as long as they provide NHS services. Counting - make sets of things from the book (vehicles/clothes/animals) and play some counting games. In their different ways, all four books enable the reader to learn and spot a variety of types of thing, from daily activities to types of clothes and different kinds of vehicles. For older primary children...

Have a look at Nikki Dyson's Flip Flap Dogs or Axel Scheffler's Flip Flap Ocean, - both published by Nosy Crow - which allow you to choose and create new and silly combinations of dog or ocean animal. If you're looking for another brilliant vocabulary-building book... Which outfit? - there are lots of games available that involve putting together a head, body and legs in different ways to make up different outfits. Make a book - You Choose begins with 'Imagine you could have anything you wanted!' Collect the children's ideas about what they would choose if they could have anything they wanted and put their ideas in a book with photos and pictures.You may have more than one hospital or clinic to choose from. But the options will be the same if you book online or over the phone. Choosing a book - let the children experience choosing by giving them a choice of books at story time. Can they say why they want that book? Take photos of the children and make frames for them together, just like the pictures in the book. Display them with some of the children's ideas about friends.