Last Sunday we went to the Doodle Bar in Battersea, a nice place where you can go and relax with the children. They can scribble on the chalkboard wall, they can play in the outside area, there is also a Beach area (but it was quite cold and windy last week so we couldn’t try it), they offer movie night on Sunday and they host a lot of events too.
That was the reason why we actually got there.
It was Storytime Sunday, organised by The Bright Group to present to book Hippobottymus 🙂
If you read my blog you know that my daughter Amy loves books, reading, storytime so we had to go to this event! We arrived a tiny bit late (always hard to get ready on a Sunday morning!) but just on time to take a sit in the colourful mattresses that were laid on the floor and enjoyed the story.
The story is quite funny, a little mouse inspired by a bubbling creek started to add some squeaky sound to make a tune. Little by little a bunch of jungle animals join him with tweeting, tapping, booming . . . creating a lovely sound of rhythm and rhymes.
And surprise surprise! All the tune came out of that naughty hippo hidden in the creek that ate too many beans and made bubbles in the bubbling creek 🙂
The book was read by the actual illustrator Ada Grey, who knows the story very well, interpreted it brilliantly.
She encouraged the children to impersonate the animals ever time she was mentioning them, they were squeaking like a mouse, tweeting like a bird . . . they all had great fun and they all were involved in the story! In the end, they kind of summarised the book going through a few actions the animal did during the story and of course the funniest one: pretending to make bubbles from the botty 🙂
After the story, every child received a bag with crafty stuff to make their own hippobottymus! Cardboard, googly eyes, glue, paws, bubbles, stick, everything to make one. Other activities like colouring, decorating bunnies and making an ester egg were all part of the morning. Donations were collected for the Great Ormond Street Hospital.
I still can’t remember how I found this in the first place, but they told me they are doing this event once a month, so I highly recommend to check them out. Next event will be on 17th May.
Amy liked the story and we bought the book (and got a signed copy!)
If I raised your curiosity you can grab the book on Amazon!
[…] This Friday I wanted to talk about the book Bob ad Flo the missing bucket, that we discovered last week at the Storytime Sunday at the Doodle Bar in Battersea. This is our second time to this fabulous monthly event and you can read about last month book here. […]