Father Christmas Needs a Wee by Nicholas Allan: Printable Activities and Worksheets

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Title: Father Christmas Needs a Wee

Author: Nicholas Allan
Publisher: Red Fox
Language: English
Themes: Christmas, food, numbers
Age-range: preschool-kindergarten, 3 – 5 years

“Father Christmas Needs a Wee” by Nicholas Allan is a counting book that goes from 1 to 10 and back again. A funny and festive book about Santa really, really needing to go. At each different house that he visits Father Christmas drinks and eats all the goodies left out for him. Before long he really, really, really needs to pee, so much so that he even forgets to leave the presents behind. But he dashes back, delivers all the gifts, and flies home at high speed to avoid an embarrassing accident… but there’s just one tiny problem… he’s lost his house key! Find out what happens and whether Father Christmas ever gets to relieve himself in this brilliant and fabulously funny counting book!

This book can be used to consolidate counting forwards and backwards to ten, but there are also opportunities to explore numbers bonds and addition. This is a great way to include maths at Christmas time. The illustrations are colourful and Santa’s expressions priceless. This book will certainly appeal to the younger kids and have them giggling away because they all love toilet humour. What a clever way to encourage kids to read! So join in the fun with “Father Christmas Needs a Wee”!

Culture and Vocabulary:

food and beverage (a hot chocolate, plates of stew, cups of tea, pops with pies, fruit mix, milk, cool milk shakes, lemon and limes, sweets);
Christmas (Father Christmas, an elf, Christmas trees, toys, a sledge);
numbers from 1 to 10;
animals (cows, a pup, beasts);
house and furniture (a lock, stairs, the loo, a door).

Grammar:

I need + something;
verbs forms: present simple (he needs, one pup that runs, it rises, he’s back, he feels, an elf appears, he thinks, he turns, he runs up, there is, he shuts, we hear), present perfect progressive (he’s been drinking), future (you will see), preterit (he forgot, he left, I found);
In the present tense, regular verbs are conjugated by adding an –s in the third person singular.

Phonology:

rhyming words (number 2/plates of stew, number 3/cups of tea, number 4/four more….);
pronunciation of numbers one /wʌn/, two /tuː/, three /θriː/, four /fɔː/, five /faɪv/, six /ˈsɪks/, seven /ˈsevn/, eight /eɪt/, nine /naɪn/, ten/ten/;
the pronunciation of -s at the end of verbs in third person can be pronounced in three different ways (/ ɪz /, / s / or / z /).

Teaching suggestions:

Make a list of the items that Father Christmas ate at each house and the presents that he left. How many drinks did Father Christmas have? How many presents did Father Christmas deliver?
Write the Christmas wish list that children might have written to Father Christmas.
Create a card game matching toys to the correct number on Santa’s toy sack.