Funnybones by Janet and Allan Ahlberg / Snapdragon at Norwich Castle

Funnybones was used as a basis for an activity session that we went to at Norwich Castle last week. We've read it on and off over the last year but I think that Rosie will probably be requesting it more since our day out! The book itself has a lovely rhythmic quality and gathers speed as you read the first page 'In the dark, dark street, there was a dark, dark house.' The story follows the adventures of a big, little and dog skeleton who go out to have fun in the middle of the night and want to find someone to scare. The dog skeleton ends up falling apart and they try to put him back together. Then they go to the zoo and although all the normal animals are asleep the skeleton ones are awake, so they have some fun together!

It's a simple great story that has been around for years and is always a favourite of libraries at Halloween. Our local one was doing quite a lot of drawing competitions based around it. You can understand it being used in so many different ways since it really lends itself to extra activities. Funnybones is part of a series and there are quite a few more including Mystery Tour, and The Ghost Train.

The activity session at the castle was called Snapdragon and for 2-4 year olds. It's run once a month on a friday. The next one is on December 14th. It's £2.50 for an hour and really well organised. We started off looking at different bones and all the kids had to guess what animals they came from (tiger skull, woolly mammoth calf bone etc) and then we were given binoculars (made out of loo roll inners!) and told to go and find the animals in the museum. After that we read Funnybones and then did activities that were bone related, including rubbing fossils through to paper. It was great! I really recommend it if you live anywhere near Norwich.