Henry's activities support practice with counting, language, turn-taking, movement and imagination. They are play, not assessment. Nothing here diagnoses, ranks or promises an outcome.
How the modes work
Ages are a rough guide, not a test. Difficulty changes the number of choices, steps and scaffolding, never speed, pressure or punishment. Every activity stays replayable at any level, and the session hints are design targets to test with real families, not developmental norms.
| Mode | Roughly for | What changes | Typical moment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Together | Around 18 months to 2, or whenever a grown-up wants to lead | One giant action, a spoken prompt and an immediate reaction. A grown-up advances the activity. | 30 to 90 second moments |
| Gentle | Around 2 to 3 | Huge tap targets, two choices, cause and effect and familiar words repeated. No precision dragging. | 1 to 3 minute micro-adventures |
| Growing | Around 3 to 4 | Simple two-step sequences, three choices, colour sorting, story prediction and broad tracing. | 2 to 4 minute activities |
| Explorer | Around 4 to 5 | Three-step sequences, four choices, counting to ten, rhyme play and optional challenge variants. | 3 to 6 minute activities |
| Adventurer | Around 6 to 7 | Five choices in a mixed-up order, questions drawn from the books' facts, bigger sorts and longer tunes to copy, and an optional mystery shadows challenge. | 5 to 10 minute activities |
| Captain | 8 and up | Six choices, the trickiest fact questions, the longest sorts and tunes, and the mystery shadows challenge for anyone who wants it. | 10 to 15 minute activities |
A child who finishes something gets a new variation, voice line or arrangement first, not harder maths. Choose a harder mode only when the child is asking for more. Every activity stays available at every level.
Steering games without pressure
The arcade games borrow shapes from arcade classics and rebuild them for this age: gentle takes on Space Invaders, Flappy Bird, Breakout and friends. A missed rock bounces off; a jellyfish only wobbles the submarine; and every falling rock or passing fish is also a button, so a child who cannot steer yet can simply tap what they want. Up to age 7 no game has lives, a timer or an ending the child did not choose, and Done is always on screen. At 8 and up a game may offer three lives, shown in words as well as hearts; when they run out, the game pauses on "Out of lives. Have another go?" with points kept and every stamp safe.
Henry and the Crayon Spaceship
What each game practises
| Game | Story link | Practises | EYFS areas | Away from the screen |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Buckle, Beep, Blast! | Cockpit sequence and WHOOSH/BEEP, page 6 | Sequencing, Listening, Numbers three to one, Cause and effect | Communication and language; Mathematics; Physical development | Build a cockpit from a cardboard box or cushions. Which button makes the WHOOSH? |
| Crayon Rocket Workshop | Henry draws the red, silver and blue spaceship; it grows magically, pages 3 to 5 | Fine-motor and pre-writing movement, Colour, Creativity, Cause and effect | Physical development; Expressive arts and design | Draw a vehicle that could take Cecil somewhere new. |
| Henry's Magic Crayon | Henry draws a spaceship and it comes alive, pages 1 to 3 | Mark making, Shape, Imagination, Cause and effect | Expressive arts and design; Physical development | Get real crayons and paper. Draw a rocket, then fly it round the room with a big WHOOSH. |
| Guess the World | The repeating prediction pages throughout the journey | Vocabulary, Memory, Observation, Story prediction | Communication and language; Literacy; Understanding the world | Stop the device and predict the next page in the real book. |
| Jupiter Moon Count | Jupiter's many moons, page 17 | One-to-one correspondence, Counting one to ten, Comparing more and fewer | Mathematics | Count five round things nearby. |
| Save the Planets | The planets Henry visits, pages 7 to 25 | Left and right, Anticipation, Planet names, Hand-eye coordination | Physical development; Understanding the world | Roll a soft ball gently towards a grown-up and catch it when it comes back. |
| Quiet Milky Way | Silent wonder beyond the planets, page 26 | Attention, Listening, Awe, Calming | Personal, social and emotional development | Turn the screen off and look for stars from a window or outside with a grown-up. |
| Too Hot for Cecil! | Sun and Mercury caution, pages 7 to 9 | Opposites, Classification, Safety vocabulary | Personal, social and emotional development; Understanding the world | With a grown-up, find something warm and something cool in your home. |
| Earth from Space | Blue, green and white Earth, page 13 | Colour, Nature vocabulary, Belonging | Communication and language; Understanding the world | Find something blue, something green and something white. |
| Mars Mountain Mission | Red Mars and the enormous volcano, page 15 | Spatial language, Problem solving | Mathematics; Physical development | Henry has landed on Mars. Now put the screen down and find three red things in your room. |
| Saturn Ring Builder | Glittering rings of ice and stone, page 19 | Sorting, Pattern, Size and position words | Mathematics | Make circles with string, crayons or a hoop. |
| Sideways Like Uranus | Uranus spins on its side; Cecil copies it, page 21 | Spatial concepts, Body awareness, Imitation | Physical development; Understanding the world | With a grown-up and a clear space, show 'upright', 'sideways', 'above' and 'below'. |
| Neptune Wind Ride | Storms make the spaceship wobble; Henry reassures Cecil, page 23 | Left and right, Self-regulation, Persistence | Personal, social and emotional development; Physical development | Blow like the wind on a feather or a tissue. Then breathe slowly to make it still. |
| Home Before Bed | The ship shrinks back into the drawing and Henry sleeps, pages 27 to 28 | Story sequencing, Recall, Bedtime transition | Literacy; Communication and language | Tell the story back in three parts: we went, we saw, we came home. |
| Crayon Invaders | Henry's crayon drawings come to life, pages 1 to 5 | Number recognition, Number bonds and sums, Times tables, Facts about the planets, Hand-eye coordination | Mathematics; Understanding the world; Physical development | Draw three funny scribble monsters, then count their legs together. |
| Space Rocks | The journey between the planets, pages 7 to 25 | Spelling planet names, Number and letter recognition, Turning and direction, Hand-eye coordination | Literacy; Mathematics; Physical development | Write a planet's name in big letters, then decorate each letter like a space rock. |
| Comet Catcher | Shooting stars over the Milky Way, page 26 | Number bonds and sums, Times tables, Number and letter recognition, Hand-eye coordination | Mathematics; Physical development | Throw a soft ball up and catch it, counting in twos each time it lands safely in your hands. |
| Cecil Snake | Bedtime in Henry's room, before the crayon magic, pages 1 to 3 | Number and letter recognition, Number bonds and sums, Times tables, Direction and planning | Mathematics; Physical development | Hide three biscuit-shaped paper cut-outs round a room and send a grown-up to find them, giving directions: left, right, forwards. |
| Moon Lander | Flying the crayon spaceship between the planets | Planet facts, Number and letter recognition, Times tables, Gentle control | Understanding the world; Mathematics; Physical development | Float a feather down onto a plate from up high: how gently can it land? |
| Hello, Arcade! | Pipeline stub; no story moment. | Cause and effect | Physical development | Find three things at home that change colour when you do something to them. |
| Memory Cards | Henry's room and the friends from his adventures, as cards to match. | Memory, Matching, Turn-taking | Personal, social and emotional development; Physical development | Play pairs with real cards: six pairs face down on the table, take turns with a grown-up. |
| Planet Merge | Henry and Cecil fly the crayon rocket over a jar of worlds; two the same join into a bigger one, all the way up to Jupiter. | Sorting by size, The planets in size order, Cause and effect | Understanding the world; Physical development | Line up round things from smallest to biggest: a pea, a grape, an orange, a ball. Which planet is each one? |
| Crayon Ricochet | Henry's crayon worlds have tumbled into his bedroom at night. Henry bounces his crayon ball off the walls to send each one floating back to the sky, while Cecil watches from his corner. | Angles and bounces, Planning a path ahead, Cause and effect | Mathematics; Physical development | Roll a soft ball at a wall and watch where it comes back. Can you bounce it to reach a teddy? |
| Planet Hop | Henry hops from world to world on a trip out from Earth to Pluto, with space rocks for stepping stones, while Cecil cheers him on. | Estimating distance: short or far, The worlds in order out from Earth, Cause and effect | Physical development; Mathematics; Understanding the world | Lay cushions on the floor as planets and hop from one to the next. Which one needs a big hop and which a small one? |
| Crayon Boomerang | Henry's room at night, full of the things his magic crayon drew: party ribbons, sleepy clouds, surprise presents and his paintings hanging on strings. Henry points, and his crayon boomerang flies there while Cecil cheers him on. | Aiming and judging distance, Cause and effect: arcs, bounces and chain reactions, Planning a route in more than one step | Physical development; Understanding the world | Make a paper plane with a grown-up and fly it at a cushion fort. Does it go further if you throw it higher? |
| Star Climb | Henry's crayon rocket comes to life on the launch pad and climbs, with Henry and Cecil aboard, up through the sleepy clouds into space and all the way to the stars. | Timing and anticipation, Up, down, higher and lower, What is in the sky: birds, aeroplanes, clouds, space | Physical development; Understanding the world | Crouch down low like a rocket on the launch pad, then jump up as high as you can. What would you see on the way up to the stars? |
| Sky Path | Henry draws a cloud path across the night sky, and he and Cecil ride the crayon rocket along it to the Moon and the planets, with two friendly birds flying alongside. | Steering and timing, Left and right, Counting stars, Names of the worlds on Henry's journey | Physical development; Mathematics; Understanding the world | Draw a path of clouds on a long strip of paper, put stars along it and walk a toy rocket along the path, counting the stars to the Moon. |
| Crayon Blocks | Henry's crayon blocks fill his squared paper at bedtime; every full row or column becomes a world from his journey, and his rocket tidies the paper when it gets full. | Fitting shapes into spaces, Rows and columns, Planning ahead | Mathematics; Physical development | Draw a grid of squares on paper and colour in shapes made of squares: can you fill a whole row? |
| Henry's Bedtime Hop | It is bedtime in Henry's room. Henry hops along the books, pillows and toys to bed without touching the rug, and Cecil is waiting for him on the bed. | Planning a route, Cause and effect, Coordination: walking and jumping together | Physical development; Personal, social and emotional development | Play the bedtime hop for real: lay cushions on the floor and hop from one to the next all the way to bed. Who is waiting for you there? |
| Cecil's Balloons | At his bedroom window Henry draws balloons with his magic crayon and floats them up into the night sky to untie the treasure boxes, while Cecil watches and cheers. | Matching a number of puffs to a number of bows, Bigger and smaller, Cause and effect | Mathematics; Physical development | Blow up a real balloon with a grown-up: is a big one harder to hold down than a little one? Draw a balloon for every star you can see tonight. |
| Crayon Line | Henry and Cecil fly the crayon rocket through the Milky Way, drawing a crayon line from star to star; the stars they reach join up into a constellation, and the first one brings the sketched rocket to life. | Up, down, left and right, Planning a route, Numbers in order (older bands), Constellations are star patterns people imagine as pictures | Mathematics; Physical development; Understanding the world | On a clear night, look for a few bright stars with a grown-up and join them with your finger. What picture do they make? Draw it with a crayon. |
| Paint Pots | At bedtime Henry's crayons are in a tangle on the paper and the planets outside the window are fast asleep. Each crayon Henry frees rolls into its paint pot, and the paint wakes a planet or a star; a finished page brings his crayon rocket to life. | Spatial reasoning: which way is clear?, Planning an order of moves, Matching by colour, shape and picture | Mathematics; Physical development | Lay some real crayons in a tangle on the table. Take turns sliding one out without touching the others, and say its colour as it goes. |
| Paint Pop | Henry's crayon sketches come to life: pop matching pictures from the book and his rocket, his submarine and his jeep fill with colour, while Cecil cheers from the Show me button. | Matching and grouping the same, Counting down to zero, Planning which group to tap | Mathematics; Physical development | Tip a box of toys on the floor and sort them into groups that match. Which group is the biggest? |
| Tidy-Up Time | Henry's magic crayon draws a toy box on the bedroom floor. It tidies away the toys from all his adventures and grows as it goes, and a tidy room brings his crayon rocket, submarine or jeep to life. | Comparing sizes: smaller and bigger, Planning an order: small things first, Steering and direction words: up, down, left, right | Physical development; Mathematics | Tidy your own toys with a grown-up: small ones into a little box first, then the big ones. Which toy is the biggest? |
Transfer: from the screen to the room
| On screen | Straight afterwards |
|---|---|
| Draw a rocket | Draw a vehicle that could take Cecil somewhere new. |
| Count Jupiter's moons | Count five round things nearby. |
| Earth's colours | Find something blue, green and white. |
| Saturn's rings | Make circles with string or crayons. |
| Uranus sideways | With a grown-up, show 'upright', 'sideways', 'above' and 'below'. |
| Read a prediction page | Stop the device and predict the next page in the physical book. |
| Milky Way calm | Turn the screen off and look for stars from a window or outside with a grown-up. |
A note on the science
Facts follow NASA's current descriptions: eight planets, with Pluto classed as a dwarf planet. This section is kept separate from the story copy so science can be updated without touching the games.
| World | What it is | Child-sized fact | Grown-up fact |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Sun | star | The Sun is a star. It is very, very hot. Far too hot for Cecil! | The Sun is the star at the centre of our solar system. Its surface is about 5,500 degrees Celsius. Never look directly at the Sun. |
| Mercury | planet | Mercury is the smallest planet, and the closest one to the Sun. | Mercury is the smallest planet in the solar system and the closest to the Sun. A year on Mercury lasts just 88 Earth days. |
| Venus | planet | Venus is covered in thick clouds. It is the hottest planet of all. | Venus is the hottest planet, hotter even than Mercury, because its thick clouds trap heat. It also spins in the opposite direction to most planets. |
| Earth | planet | Earth is our home. It has blue seas, green land and white clouds. | Earth is the only place we know of with life. About seventy per cent of its surface is covered by water. |
| Mars | planet | Mars is red and dusty. It has the biggest volcano of all. | Mars looks red because of iron-rich dust. Olympus Mons is the tallest volcano in the solar system, about two and a half times the height of Mount Everest. |
| Jupiter | planet | Jupiter is the biggest planet. It has lots and lots of moons. | Jupiter is the largest planet. More than a thousand Earths could fit inside it. It has more than ninety known moons, and its Great Red Spot is a storm bigger than Earth. |
| Saturn | planet | Saturn has beautiful rings made of ice and rock. | Saturn's rings are made mostly of ice, with some rock and dust. They stretch out a very long way but are mostly less than a kilometre thick. |
| Uranus | planet | Uranus spins on its side, like it is lying down! | Uranus is the seventh planet from the Sun. It rotates on its side, tilted by about ninety-eight degrees, so each of its seasons lasts around twenty-one Earth years. |
| Neptune | planet | Neptune is very windy and very, very blue. | Neptune is the eighth and most distant planet. Its winds are the fastest in the solar system, reaching around two thousand kilometres an hour. |
| Pluto | dwarf planet | Pluto is a small, icy dwarf planet. It has a big heart shape on it! | Pluto is a dwarf planet, not one of the eight planets. NASA's New Horizons spacecraft flew past it in 2015 and photographed a huge heart-shaped region. |
| The Milky Way | galaxy | The Milky Way is our galaxy, a giant swirl of stars. We live inside it! | The Milky Way is our home galaxy, with hundreds of billions of stars. From a dark place you can see it as a soft band of light across the night sky. |
Henry and the Magic Crayon: Under the Sea
What each game practises
| Game | Story link | Practises | EYFS areas | Away from the screen |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Glug, Ping, Dive! | Sponge seats, GLUG and PING, page 6 | Sequencing, Listening, Numbers three to one, Cause and effect | Communication and language; Mathematics; Physical development | Build a submarine from a cardboard box or a laundry basket. Which button makes the GLUG? |
| Crayon Submarine Workshop | Henry draws a fine submarine with a periscope too, pages 3 to 5 | Fine-motor and pre-writing movement, Colour, Creativity, Cause and effect | Physical development; Expressive arts and design | Draw a vehicle that could take Cecil under the water. |
| Guess Who's Swimming Past | The repeating guessing pages before each creature | Vocabulary, Memory, Observation, Story prediction | Communication and language; Literacy; Understanding the world | Stop the device and guess who comes next in the real book. |
| Count the Fish | The coral reef and the shoal of fish, pages 7 and 9 | One-to-one correspondence, Counting one to ten, Comparing more and fewer | Mathematics | Count five things that are blue. |
| Fish Finder | The shimmering shoal that turns all together, page 9 | Up and down, Anticipation, Counting, Persistence | Physical development; Mathematics | Be a fish: swim around the room and 'find' five things that are round. |
| Quiet Moonbeams | Moonbeams and a million small bubbles, page 26 | Attention, Listening, Awe, Calming | Personal, social and emotional development | Turn the screen off. Watch bubbles in a bath or a glass of fizzy water rise to the top. |
| Octopus Colours | The octopus turns pink, then purple, then blue, page 15 | Colour names, Matching, Turn-taking | Understanding the world; Expressive arts and design | Find something pink, something purple and something blue. |
| Treasure Sort | The chest with one shiny gold bone, page 21 | Sorting, Shape, Size | Mathematics | Hide a 'treasure' in a box and give a grown-up three clues to find it. |
| Whale Song | The whale sings a lullaby made for the seas long ago, page 25 | Listening, High and low, Long and short | Communication and language; Expressive arts and design | Hum the lowest note you can, then the highest. Which one is the whale? |
| Coral Breakout | The coral reef, where the submarine's adventure begins | Number and letter recognition, Spelling, Facts about the sea, Hand-eye coordination | Literacy; Mathematics; Physical development; Understanding the world | Spell a sea word with toy blocks or magnetic letters, then draw the creature it names. |
| Bubble Pong with Cecil | Playing in the shallows before the dive | Counting on, Counting in 2s, 5s and 10s, Taking turns, Hand-eye coordination | Mathematics; Physical development; Personal, social and emotional development | Pat a balloon back and forth with a grown-up and count how many times it goes up. |
| Bubble Muncher | Diving through the coral reef | Counting in order, Counting in 2s, 5s and 10s, Skip counting, Finding a route | Mathematics; Physical development | Lay a path of buttons or pasta round the floor and walk it, counting in twos as you collect them. |
| Bubble Shooter | Bubbles over the coral reef; an arcade visit, not a story scene. | Aiming and anticipation, Pattern matching, Planning ahead | Physical development; Mathematics | Blow bubbles with a grown-up and try to pop three the same size. |
| Pond Hockey | Henry draws a frozen pond on his bedroom rug, and his friends from under the sea slide over to play: pass the puck, score a goal, and Cecil cheers every one. | Taking turns and passing to a friend, Planning a route around obstacles, Left, middle and right | Personal, social and emotional development; Physical development; Mathematics | Roll a ball to each other on the floor, then roll it between two cushions for a goal. Who can you pass to? |
| Submarine Dash | Henry's crayon submarine comes to life and skims the seabed with Henry and Cecil inside, catching the shipwreck's treasure on the way down. | Left and right, Looking ahead and planning a path, Hand and eye together | Physical development; Understanding the world | Make a treasure path on the floor with cushions for rocks. Can you walk it left and right, and hop over the low ones? |
| Cheer-Up Reef | Sleepy sea friends from the book drift along a reef path; Henry's crayon helpers bubble, sing, paint and tickle until each one wakes up smiling and waves goodbye, while Henry and Cecil watch. | Planning where to place helpers, Cause and effect, Noticing what each sea friend likes best | Personal, social and emotional development; Mathematics; Understanding the world | Line up some toys as a path and be a helper beside it: sing, tickle or wave as each toy 'swims' past. Which toy needed the most cheering up? |
| Rock Pool Match | Henry's submarine finds a rock pool full of the book's sea friends; line up three the same and off they go to play, while Cecil cheers. | Spotting patterns and lines of three, Naming sea creatures, Planning one step ahead | Mathematics; Understanding the world; Communication and language | Find three things the same at home, like three spoons or three socks, and line them up in a row. Then wiggle eight arms like the octopus! |
Transfer: from the screen to the room
| On screen | Straight afterwards |
|---|---|
| Draw a submarine | Draw a vehicle that could take Cecil under the water. |
| Count the fish | Count five things that are blue. |
| Find the fish | Be a fish: swim around the room and find five round things. |
| Octopus colours | Find something pink, purple and blue. |
| The shark page | Find three triangle shapes in your home. |
| Read a guessing page | Stop the device and guess who comes next in the real book. |
| Quiet moonbeams | Turn the screen off and watch bubbles rise in a bath or a fizzy drink. |
A note on the science
Facts follow current marine science as described by aquariums, NOAA and the Natural History Museum. The story stays story; this section carries the checked version.
| World | What it is | Child-sized fact | Grown-up fact |
|---|---|---|---|
| The coral reef | place | A coral reef is like an underwater garden, built by tiny animals. | Corals are animals, related to jellyfish. Reefs grow over thousands of years and are home to about a quarter of all ocean species. |
| The shoal of fish | creature | Lots of little fish swimming together are called a shoal. They all turn at the same time! | Fish shoal for safety and to find food. A sense organ along their sides, the lateral line, feels the water move, which is how they turn together so quickly. |
| The sea turtle | creature | Sea turtles have a shell like a shield and can swim across whole oceans. | Many sea turtles live for around 50 to 100 years. Females swim back to the beach where they hatched to lay their own eggs. |
| The dolphins | creature | Dolphins talk with clicks and whistles, and love to leap. | Dolphins are mammals: they breathe air through a blowhole. They find fish with echolocation clicks, and each bottlenose dolphin has its own signature whistle, a bit like a name. |
| The octopus | creature | An octopus has eight curly arms and can change colour! | Octopuses change colour and even texture in a fraction of a second using skin cells called chromatophores. They have three hearts and blue blood. |
| The shark | creature | A shark has a fin like a sail and lots of triangle teeth. Most sharks are not interested in people at all. | Sharks have been around for more than 400 million years, longer than trees. They grow new teeth all their lives, and there are more than 500 kinds. |
| The jellyfish | creature | Jellyfish drift like little glowing lamps. They have no bones and no brain! | Jellyfish are about 95 per cent water. Some make their own light, called bioluminescence, and they have drifted through the oceans for more than 500 million years. |
| The shipwreck | wreck | Old ships on the seabed become homes for fish and coral. | Sunken ships act as artificial reefs. Coral, sponges and fish move in, which is why divers and scientists study wrecks as living habitats. |
| The anglerfish | creature | Deep down it is dark, but the anglerfish carries its own little light. | Below about 1,000 metres no sunlight reaches. The anglerfish's glowing lure is lit by bacteria living inside it. |
| The whale | creature | The blue whale is the biggest animal that has ever lived, and whales sing songs. | Blue whales can reach about 30 metres and 150 tonnes. Humpback whales sing long, structured songs that can carry for many kilometres underwater. |
| Moonbeams | place | Moonlight shines down into the sea, and bubbles float up like tiny stars. | Sunlight and moonlight only reach the top 200 metres or so of the sea, called the sunlit zone. Bubbles rise because the air inside them is lighter than water. |
Henry and the Magic Crayon: On Safari
What each game practises
| Game | Story link | Practises | EYFS areas | Away from the screen |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Buckle, Beep, Vroom! | Cushion seats, VROOM and BEEP, page 6 | Sequencing, Listening, Numbers three to one, Cause and effect | Communication and language; Mathematics; Physical development | Build a jeep from cushions. Which button makes the BEEP? |
| Crayon Jeep Workshop | Henry draws a fine safari jeep with the roof folded down, pages 3 to 5 | Fine-motor and pre-writing movement, Colour, Creativity, Cause and effect | Physical development; Expressive arts and design | Draw a vehicle that could take Cecil across a wide golden plain. |
| Guess Who's Going to Pass | The repeating guessing pages before each animal | Vocabulary, Memory, Observation, Story prediction | Communication and language; Literacy; Understanding the world | Stop the device and guess who comes next in the real book. |
| Count the Meerkats | The family of meerkats standing to attention, page 21 | One-to-one correspondence, Counting one to ten, Comparing more and fewer | Mathematics | Count five things that are standing up tall. |
| Firefly Hop | A thousand small fireflies dance through the night, page 23 | Up and down, Anticipation, Counting, Persistence | Physical development; Mathematics | Hop like a jeep on a bumpy road: three little hops, then one big one. |
| Quiet Stars | A million bright stars over the plain, page 26 | Attention, Listening, Awe, Calming | Personal, social and emotional development | Turn the screen off and look for stars from a window or outside with a grown-up. |
| Zebra Stripes | No two zebras have the same stripes, page 9 | Pattern, Matching, Observation | Mathematics; Expressive arts and design | Find three stripy things at home. |
| Feed the Giraffe | Her neck is like a ladder to the treetops, page 11 | High and low, Comparing, Position words | Mathematics; Understanding the world | Find the highest thing you can reach on tiptoes, then the lowest thing near the floor. |
| Elephant Hum | A family of elephants humming a tune, page 25 | Listening, High and low, Long and short | Communication and language; Expressive arts and design | Hum the lowest note you can, then the highest. Which one is the elephant? |
| Meerkat Crossing | The meerkats on their lookout mound | Number bonds and sums, Times tables, Number and letter recognition, Planning a route | Mathematics; Physical development; Understanding the world | Make a stepping-stone path of cushions and hop across, counting each hop. |
| Monkey Climb | The monkeys swinging through the trees | Counting in order, Counting in 2s, 5s and 10s, Skip counting, Planning a route | Mathematics; Physical development | Count in twos up the stairs with a grown-up, one step at a time. |
| Meerkat Pop-up | The meerkats standing lookout on their mound | Number and letter recognition, Number bonds, Times tables, Quick looking | Mathematics; Physical development | Play peekaboo with cushions: one of you pops up holding up fingers, the other says how many. |
| Safari Snack Link | Out on the golden plain, Henry's crayon draws each animal its favourite snack while Cecil cheers, and every full tummy brings the crayon jeep to life. | Matching and grouping, Seeing which things touch (beside, above, below, corner to corner), What safari animals eat | Mathematics; Understanding the world | Lay out a snack for each toy animal: a leaf for the giraffe, some grass for the zebra. Which animals eat the same thing? |
| Henry's Safari Parade | Henry leads a parade across his crayon safari drawing, with Cecil right behind him; each animal he reaches joins the line, and when everyone is there his drawing of the jeep comes to life. | Planning a few steps ahead, Position words: up, down, left and right, Cause and effect: things drop when nothing holds them up | Mathematics; Understanding the world | Make a parade at home: line up your toys behind a 'Henry', march them over a cushion bridge, and see how long the line has to be to get across. |
Transfer: from the screen to the room
| On screen | Straight afterwards |
|---|---|
| Draw a jeep | Draw a vehicle that could take Cecil across a wide golden plain. |
| Count the meerkats | Count five things that are standing up tall. |
| Firefly Hop | Hop like a jeep on a bumpy road: three little hops, then one big one. |
| The zebra page | Find three stripy things at home. |
| The giraffe page | Find the highest thing you can reach on tiptoes, then the lowest thing near the floor. |
| Read a guessing page | Stop the device and guess who comes next in the real book. |
| Quiet stars | Turn the screen off and look for stars from a window or outside with a grown-up. |
A note on the science
Facts follow current descriptions from the Natural History Museum, the WWF and National Geographic Kids. Story lines stay in the story; this section carries the checked version.
| World | What it is | Child-sized fact | Grown-up fact |
|---|---|---|---|
| The great plain | place | A savannah is a huge grassy plain with only a few trees, and lots of animals live there. | Savannahs are grasslands with scattered trees, such as the flat-topped acacia. Weaver birds really do weave hanging nests from grass, often dozens in one tree. |
| The zebras | creature | No two zebras have the same stripes. A group of zebras is called a dazzle! | Each zebra's stripe pattern is unique, like a fingerprint. Scientists think the stripes help to confuse biting flies, and 'dazzle' is a real collective noun. |
| The giraffe | creature | The giraffe is the tallest animal on land. Her neck reaches the highest leaves. | Giraffes can be over five metres tall, yet they have the same number of neck bones as we do: seven, each one very long. Their dark tongues are about 45 centimetres long. |
| The monkeys | creature | Monkeys swing through the trees and chatter to each other all day. | Savannah monkeys such as vervets live in noisy troops and use different alarm calls for different dangers. Unlike some South American monkeys, they cannot hang by their tails; they use them for balance. |
| The hippos | creature | Hippos spend the day in the river with just their eyes and ears poking out. A big yawn is their way of saying 'this is my river'. | Hippos cannot really swim; they walk or bounce along the riverbed and can hold their breath for about five minutes. They come out at night to graze on grass. The wide 'yawn' is a display to warn others off. |
| The lion | creature | A lion has a big golden mane, and his roar can be heard from very far away. | Lions are the only big cats that live in family groups, called prides. A lion's roar can carry about eight kilometres. Only the males grow the mane. |
| The flamingos | creature | Flamingos are pink because of the tiny food they eat, and they stand on one leg to rest. | Flamingo chicks are born grey; the pink comes from pigments in the algae and tiny shrimps they filter from the water. Standing on one leg helps them save energy and keep warm. |
| The meerkats | creature | Meerkats live in big families and take turns being the lookout, standing tall on their tiptoes. | A meerkat family, called a mob, lives in underground burrows. While the others dig for food, one meerkat stands sentry and gives a special call if it spots danger. |
| The fireflies | creature | Fireflies are little beetles that make their own light to find each other in the dark. | Fireflies are beetles, not flies. Their light comes from a chemical reaction called bioluminescence, which gives off almost no heat, and each species blinks its own pattern. Thunder is the sound of lightning heating the air very fast. |
| The elephants | creature | Elephants are the biggest animals on land, and they hum and rumble to talk to each other. | Elephant families are led by the oldest female, the matriarch. A trunk has around 40,000 muscles. Elephants make low rumbles, some too deep for us to hear, that carry for kilometres. |
| Stars over the plain | place | Far from town lights, the night sky fills with a million stars, and you can see the Milky Way. | Away from city light, the Milky Way appears as a soft band across the sky. The Southern Hemisphere savannah offers some of the darkest skies on Earth. The same Milky Way appears in Henry's first adventure. |
| The meerkat mound | place | A meerkat mound is the sandy hill above the family's burrow, where the lookout stands. | Meerkat burrows can have dozens of entrances. The mound of dug-out sand makes a good lookout post. |
Early Years Foundation Stage crosswalk
England's EYFS names seven areas of learning; the first three are the prime areas. The mapping below is a light touch, so practitioners can see where an activity fits without turning a bedtime story into a worksheet.
| Area | Opportunities in the ecosystem | Activities |
|---|---|---|
| Communication and languageprime | Listen to narration, follow short instructions, answer prediction prompts, learn planet words and use the grown-up conversation prompts. | Guess the World, Read Together, Earth from Space |
| Personal, social and emotional developmentprime | Cecil's caution at the Sun, Henry reassuring Cecil at Neptune, home and belonging, taking turns and a calm bedtime transition. | Too Hot for Cecil!, Neptune Wind Ride, Quiet Milky Way |
| Physical developmentprime | Broad tracing, tapping, optional whole-body movement and the print activities. | Crayon Rocket Workshop, Sideways Like Uranus, Make |
| Literacy | The repeated refrain, rhyme, story sequence, vocabulary, prediction, retelling and age-appropriate sound play. | Read Together, Guess the World, Home Before Bed |
| Mathematics | Counting one to ten, comparing quantities, pattern, order, matching and spatial words. | Jupiter Moon Count, Saturn Ring Builder, Mars Mountain Mission |
| Understanding the world | The Sun, Earth and how the planets differ, observation, hot and cold, clouds, landscape and our home planet. | The whole planet journey, Tell Me More facts |
| Expressive arts and design | Drawing, colouring, musical repetition, imaginative role play and inventing new spaceships. | Crayon Rocket Workshop, Sing, Make |
| Area | Opportunities in the ecosystem | Activities |
|---|---|---|
| Communication and languageprime | Follow the guessing refrain, name sea creatures, describe fast and slow, big and small, and use the grown-up conversation prompts. | Guess Who's Swimming Past, Read Together, Whale Song |
| Personal, social and emotional developmentprime | Cecil's gulp and brave grin at the shark, Henry reassuring Cecil in the deep dark, and the calm floating finish. | Read Together (shark and deep dark pages), Quiet Moonbeams |
| Physical developmentprime | Broad tracing, tapping, steering up and down, and whole-body play: wiggling like seaweed, leaping like dolphins, moving slowly like a turtle. | Crayon Submarine Workshop, Fish Finder, Make |
| Literacy | The repeated refrain, rhyme, story sequence, prediction and retelling from dive to home. | Read Together, Guess Who's Swimming Past |
| Mathematics | Counting fish to ten, comparing more and fewer, eight octopus arms, biggest and smallest, left, right, up and down. | Count the Fish, Fish Finder, Treasure Sort |
| Understanding the world | Coral reefs, shoals, turtles, dolphins, an octopus that changes colour, sharks, jellyfish, the dark deep and whales. | The whole sea journey, Tell Me More facts |
| Expressive arts and design | Drawing a submarine, colouring, sea songs, pretend diving and inventing new underwater vehicles. | Crayon Submarine Workshop, Sing, Make |
| Area | Opportunities in the ecosystem | Activities |
|---|---|---|
| Communication and languageprime | Follow the guessing refrain, name savannah animals, describe tall and short, loud and quiet, and use the grown-up conversation prompts. | Guess Who's Going to Pass, Read Together, Elephant Hum |
| Personal, social and emotional developmentprime | Cecil's gulp and brave grin at the lion, Henry reassuring Cecil in the storm, the elephant family, and the calm starry finish. | Read Together (lion and storm pages), Quiet Stars |
| Physical developmentprime | Broad tracing, tapping, hopping the jeep, and whole-body play: trotting like zebras, stretching like a giraffe, balancing like a flamingo, standing tall like a meerkat. | Crayon Jeep Workshop, Firefly Hop, Make |
| Literacy | The repeated refrain, rhyme, story sequence, prediction and retelling from drive to home. | Read Together, Guess Who's Going to Pass |
| Mathematics | Counting meerkats to ten, comparing more and fewer, high and low, patterns in stripes, biggest and smallest in the elephant family. | Count the Meerkats, Firefly Hop, Zebra Stripes, Feed the Giraffe |
| Understanding the world | Grasslands, zebras, giraffes, monkeys, hippos, lions, flamingos, meerkats, fireflies, thunderstorms, elephants and the night sky. | The whole safari journey, Tell Me More facts |
| Expressive arts and design | Drawing a jeep, colouring stripes, safari songs, pretend driving and inventing new animals to meet. | Crayon Jeep Workshop, Sing, Make |
How Henry and Cecil talk
We say
- "You found Mars!"
- "Let's look again."
- "Cecil thinks it might be the red one."
- "Great exploring!"
We never say
- "Wrong"
- "Game over"
- "Faster!"
- "You lost"
- "Try harder"