Gorilla

Education and Participation Resource Pack

Key Stage 1 & 2

By Anthony BrownePublished by Walker Books

Adapted for stage by Rachel BarnettImage Copyright © 1983 Anthony BrowneGORILLA by Anthony BrowneReproduced by permission of Walker Books Ltd, London SE11 5HJwww.walker.co.uk

Dear Teacher/Parent

We do hope you enjoyed hearing the story of Gorilla online! Here are a few activities for your children to do after they have seen the story or performance.

The production of Gorilla is for children aged 3-7 years and the activities in this pack are for Key Stage 1 & 2. Please pass on any of the activities to your children to do at home to encourage and engage creative minds.

Background on GorillaGorilla is a beautiful picture book by acclaimed Author and Illustrator Anthony Browne – a story of a lonely girl, a friendly gorilla, and their enchanted night out.

Hannah spends all of her time reading gorilla books, watching gorilla TV shows, and drawing gorilla pictures. She has gorillas on her bedside lamp and even on her box of cereal. Hannah loves gorillas and longs to see a real one, but her father is always too busy - or too tired - to take her to the zoo. Then, on the night before her birthday, something extraordinary happens - and Hannah’s wish comes gloriously true.

The Polka production of Gorilla was directed by Roman Stefanski. Set Designed by Laura McEwan and Music by Julian Butler.

Hello From Roman Stefanski (Director)Anthony Browne’s Gorilla has been performed at Polka Theatre twice – it was great to revive this popular production as the story is a children’s classic. We enjoy creating playful and thought-provoking productions, using puppetry and additional songs.

The story of Gorilla is so popular with Anthony Browne’s many detailed drawings. The more you look at them the more meaning you can find. We also love gorillas! This story is also so popular as it focuses around a father rather than a mother in the main role, which makes it different and interesting. The idea of the distracted dad still resonates today.

To bring the book to the stage, we’ve worked with a really exciting writer, Rachel Barnett; a brilliant designer, Laura McEwen; a lovely composer, Julian Butler, and Phil Yarrow and Ceri Ashcroft, who are both fun and inspiring puppeteers and performers. We studied every page of the book very closely together and tried to find the core meaning of the story, and use the details of the book to bring the sights and sounds of Hannah’s world to life.

Gorilla is a picture book. Hannah loves gorillas so there are lots of big pictures of gorillas and other ape animals that Hannah meets - can you draw a gorilla or other ape? Here is an example below:

Picture Book Activity

Think about colour, shape, texture etc. If not a gorilla, draw your favourite ani-mal! Could it be an elephant, tiger or whale?

Share your drawing back to your teacher so they know who your favourite is.

Image Copyright © 1983 Anthony BrowneGORILLA by Anthony BrowneReproduced by permission of Walker Books Ltd, London SE11 5HJwww.walker.co.uk

Imagination Station

Look at your toys and teddies at home. Imagine they grow and grow and grow, just like Hannah’s toy gorilla does in the story. If your teddy bear grew and grew and grew, where would he take you? You’re at Imagination Station so you can imagine and go anywhere! I’d love to go to a farm, and meet all the animals there – let’s go with teddy bear! Where else could you go? You could take the train from Imagination Station or even fly like the Gorilla and Hannah!

How do you decide to travel with your teddy or toy? Let us know by making your own adventure story from Imagination Station. Filling in these sentences below might help you:

My ……………. grew and grew and grew one night at Imagination station. We ……………. through the night sky and arrived at ……………………

Next, we visited the …………………. and we ate lots of ……………………

It was so much fun travelling by ……………. with ………………………

Finally, we ………………….. home after our amazing adventures.

Gorilla Adventure StoryGorilla is a typical adventure story. The structure of an adventure story is shown in the first column of the table below. In the second column, can you fill in the blank spaces to answer the questions about this adventure story? Every detail explains how the adventure story of Gorilla unfolds! Top tip: some blanks can be filled with the same word.

The first part is the beginning of the story where we are introduced to the characters. Try and remember their names without peaking at the storybook!

Next there is a problem – do you remember what happens? There are some sentences that will help you work it out.

For part three, you’ll have to remember the main adventure, which solves the problem!

Finally, think of the resolution at the end of the story. Does the story end happily?

The characters Who are they?1.2.3.

The problem What is the problem in the Gorilla story?Hannah feels ……....... because her Dad is always ………...Hannah wishes she could play and go to the ………....

The adventure (the problem is resolved by going on an adventure!)

Who takes Hannah on an adventure? Where do they go?Hannah meets a ………….She swings through the …….. with the …………They go to the …….. where they meet more gorillas and other monkeys, then they……………..

The end (the resolution/outcome at the end of the story)

How does the story end?Hannah’s …….. wishes her a …………Birthday!Her Dad ……… Hannah to go to the ……… to celebrate.

Now you have worked out the Gorilla story, why don’t you try and write your own adventure story. You can work out what you are going to do in the same way by using a blank table like the one below. Remember your imagination is amazing so think of the best adventure story you can.

The characters Who are they?

The problem What is the problem in your story?

The adventure (the problem is resolved by going on an adventure!)

Who takes who on an adventure? Where do they go? What happens?

The end (the resolution/outcome at the end of the story)

How does the story end?

Furry FeelingsThere are a lot of different feelings in the story of Gorilla. Hannah may feel independent on her own or she may feel lonely on her own. Hannah’s dad may feel responsible when working hard or guilty when he says he is busy. The Gorilla may feel excited to take Hannah on her adventure or he may feel reliable to take care and look after Hannah.

Have a think about all these feelings by discussing them with a teacher, parent/carer or family member. How does the story of Gorilla make you feel?

Using a pot – this could be a used yoghurt pot or jam jar - stick some furry material to the outside. This is now your ‘Furry feelings’ container. Cut out these furry feeling words below:

Love Reliable

Lonely Busy

Independent Excited

Hardworking Kind

Trustworthy Frightened

Sad Caring

Shy Happy

Once all your words are cut-out separately, fold them in half and place all them in your ‘furry feelings’ container. Give them a shake to mix them up well. Now the furry feelings game begins!

Take it in turns with your family members to take out a word and when it is your turn you have to read the word aloud and decide which characters – Hannah, Hannah’s dad, or the Gorilla feel that way. At which point in the story do they feel that way and how do you know? Keep taking it in turns to pull out the ‘furry feelings’ to match them to a character. The furry feelings could match more than one character – you just have to give a reason why you think they match the characters!

Look at all the fruit in this fruit bowl

Fruit BowlFun

What do Gorilla’s like to eat? Can you spot them! What’s your favourite piece of fruit? If it’s not there, draw it in.

Can you draw your own fruit bowl at home? Think about the different shapes – some fruit is in the shape of a circle, some longer like an oval. Think about the different sizes – some fruit is really small and some are great big shapes, like a pineapple – a large oval shape with spikes on top! Draw your fruit bowl and then colour it in. There should be different colours as well as shapes and sizes.

You can always rearrange the fruit in the fruit bowl so that you see everything and can capture it all – take a photo if you’d like to draw from the photo and then others can still pick a piece of fruit to eat.

This type of drawing where you are drawing still, household objects is called Still Life. You may have done some still life drawing already at school – it’s realistic and fun to experiment with shapes and sizes – practice makes perfect!

Alliteration Adventure

In Polka’s production of Gorilla, they sing a song about the foods that Hannah and the Gorilla like to eat, starting with bananas! See if you can sing along after listening to this song a few times. Pause it and play it again in different places as much as you like to get used to the words and rhythm:

Nah nah nah nah nah bananaNah nah nah.Nah nah nah nah nah bananaNah nah nah.Nah nah nah nah nah bananaNah nah nah.Nah nah nah nah nah bananaNah nah nah.

Biscuits are allowed I’m right,Whatever you like.Biscuits dunked in chocolate sauce will be alright,Whatever you like.Biscuits dunked in chocolate, nuts and raisins, pears & whatever you got,Peaches, plums and pears with a cherry on top.

Doesn’t matter what you’re doing where you start or how you stop,Life is a little bit better with a cherry on top.

If chocolate biscuits are allowed then chocolate bread must be OKChocolate drenched in chocolate if that’s what you sayA chocolate sundae!Biscuits dunked in chocolate, nuts and raisins, pears & whatever you gotPeaches, plums and pears with a cherry on top.

Doesn’t matter what you’re doing where you start or how you stop,Life is a little bit better with a cherry on top.

Ice cream sundae means ice cream,And ice cream means an ice cream dream,And ice cream screams for umpteen reams, Of tangerines and grenadine.Biscuits dunked in chocolate, nuts and raisins, pears & whatever you gotPeaches, plums and pears with a cherry on top.

Doesn’t matter what you’re doing where you start or how you stopLife is a little bit better with a cherry on top.

Nah nah nah nah nah bananaNah nah nahNah nah nah nah nah bananaNah nah nah

Doesn’t matter what you’re doing where you start or how you stop,Life is a little bit better with a cherry on top.

Life is a little bit better with a cherry on top.

Listen to the original recording on Spotify and sing along!

Cherry on Topby Julian ButlerFrom Gorilla (Polka production, 2015)

There are lots of fruits with the same first letter, like, banana and blueberry and blackberry. From the fruits below, see if you can make an alphabetical list of the fruit, showing the fruits that have the same first letter. When you write something with the same first letter, this is called alliteration. It’s an alliteration adventure we’re going on!

See if you can find fruit from all different letters of the alphabet (there might be some letters that have no fruit):

Apple Banana Pear Lemon

Clementine Nectarine Apricot Mango

Grapefruit Orange Melon Lime

Mandarin Blueberry Damson Tangerine

Guava Papaya Durian Yuzu

Kumquat Pomegranate Rambutan Tangerine

Greengage Tangelo Peach Cherry

Plum Strawberry Raspberry Kiwi

Dragonfruit Quince Gooseberry Lychee

Passionfruit Sharon fruit Watermelon Starfruit

Blackberry Tomato Date Grape

Fig Blackcurrant Redcurrant Jackfruit

Loganberry Mangosteen Pomelo Satsuma

Pineapple Avocado Cranberry Goji berry

Hannah thinks about gorillas a lot and understands that gorillas have families too. They play with their family members, and especially in this story, Hannah likes to see the daddy gorilla playing with his baby gorillas, just like her and her dad could play.

If you could have an animal family, what sort of animal would they be?

They could be gorillas too, swinging through the trees together and eating lots and lots of bananas. Or they could be a shoal of fish, with the daddy fish swimming at the front, leading the way through on an exciting ocean adventure!

Once you have decided which animal your family will be, draw your family members as these animals.

Don’t forget to draw the background of where they live – the jungle, desert or down in the deep dark sea. Colour them in, cut them out into shadow puppets – you can do whatever you like with your animal family – share them with your family members to play with too and even give them new names!

Animal families

My family is always

hanging around!

Animal ZooHannah really wants to go to the zoo in the story! Eventually she does go with Gorilla and is asked later to go with her Dad – she feels vey happy at the end.

Can you match the animal to the food they eat? Draw a line between the animal and the food. Pick another colour pencil and match the animal to what they like to do in the zoo - what we call a ‘verb’. A verb is a word to describe an action - it’s a ‘doing’ word.

ROARING

STOMPING

DIVING

SWINGING

BANANAS

FISH

LEAVES

MEAT

GRAZING

PLANTS

Fun FactsAt Polka we are nuts about Gorillas and we have found out some amazing facts about them

Gorillas are herbivores (this means they don’t eat any meat) and they eat leaves, shoots, roots, vines and fruits.

They are native to Africa. (Cameroon, Central African Republic, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea and the Democratic Republic of Congo, to be precise).

Their arms are longer than their legs because this makes them much better at climbing trees.

There are four different types of gorillas: the Eastern Lowland Gorilla; the Mountain Gorilla; the Western Lowland Gorilla; and the Cross River Gorilla. They are all classed as endangered.

When gorillas go to bed at night, they build a nest out of leaves to sleep in. They sleep for 13 whole hours a day!

Gorillas live in family groups of between 6 and 12, and these groups are called troops or bands. They are very social animals.

Each group has one big male gorilla who is in charge and decides when his group wakes up, eats, moves and rests. The big male gorilla is called a silverback, as they have a strip of grey hair on their back.

Gorillas can live for between 40 and 50 years.

They can use simple tools and learn sign language, which means they are very intelligent animals.

Gorillas are closely related to humans. Our DNA is like a blueprint that tells us how to grow and what we will look like – 96% of human DNA is the same as Gorilla! Scientists think this is because we evolved from similar animals.

For more activities, videos and resources, visitpolkatheatre.com

Based on the book ‘Gorilla’ by Anthony BrownePublished by Walker Books Ltd

You can enjoy your own copy of GORILLA by contacting your local bookshop, and quoting the ISBN NUMBER: 9781406352337 Purchase a copy of Gorilla: https://bit.ly/2K4zPpj