Stories about animals behaving like people can help children explore difficult emotions by creating distance and allowing them to be objective.
In this book, a new arrival is ignored, discussed behind his back and judged - and this may resonate with children who are aware of the impact of unkindness and exclusion.
Carefully-handled drama activities can be an effective way to develop thinking around such issues, as well as helping children improve their speaking, listening and other language skills.  
Look at the first spread (the bear floating on the ice.) How does the bear feel? How can you tell? As a class, collect words to describe him and his feelings. Copy the bear’s posture, then find other ways to use your body to show sadness, loneliness and fear 

How do his emotions change throughout the story? Recreate the bear's postures, gestures and body language from other spreads in the book and find words to describe him at each stage. Is it helpful to understand how other people feel? Why? What happens if you don't understand their feelings?

Look at the second spread, showing the animals staring up at the bear in his cave.

Based on your knowledge of the book, what could the animals be saying and feeling, do you think?
Working in small groups, decide who will roleplay the bear and who will be the other animals. Create freezeframes showing the animals ignoring the bear. How will you use your body to show how your character feels?
Play ‘Find my Voice’ by tapping a child’s shoulder to hear their character’s thoughts and feelings. On a given signal, bring your freezeframes to life, allowing children to move, speak and show what happens next.

Repeat, with different children as the bear. Ask some or all of the groups to showback to everyone else. Talk about what's happened and what you think about it. How did it feel when your character was ignored and excluded by everyone else? How did it feel to be one of the animals ignoring the bear?  Deal sensitively with this if parallels are drawn with playground issues.

What could the animals have done to change things? Discuss possibilities and/or roleplay different outcomes.

Build on the activity by writing about the meeting from different points of view.

 

Every day they discussed the stranger...Initially the animals refer to the Bear as It. Eventually they call him Leaf - but as he hasn’t said a word, we don’t know who he is or why he came to the forest. 

Look at the fourth spread. What are the animals saying about Leaf? Is it true? Talk about facts, opinions and rumours. How could the animals learn the truth?

Look at the seventh spread, showing the animals in the clearing. What are they saying? Have their ideas changed? Tip: pay attention to the crows!

Group children and give them one copy of Leaf for each group, plus post-it notes. Look at each picture up to and including the seventh spread, and add dialogue or thoughts for different characters using post-it notes. Tip: use one colour for the animals and another for the bear. 
They let him speak and at last they listened...

Look at the spread showing the bear crawling out of the water. At last the crows are talking to him! What could Leaf be saying? Use post-its to add thoughts and dialogue to the remaining pages of the book. 

Why is it important to listen? And how do we know when it’s safe to talk to people we don’t know? 

 

Using a template, cut sets of wings from card. Give each child a set, making more available so that everyone can experiment. Supply equipment such as string, hole punchers, sellotape, staplers, scissors plus a variety of different types and thicknesses of card and other materials.

In pairs, ask children to find ways of attaching the wings to their back or arms. Encourage them to keep a record of their investigation by drawing what they've done and annotating it as they work – including ideas that aren’t successful, as well as those that are. Share and discuss frequently so that everyone can benefit. What works best, and why? Leaf made mistakes - why are mistakes important, do you think? 

Once you’ve worked out how to attach your wings, ask children to make a well-finished set of wings that they can wear. Decorate your wings 'Dieckmann-style' by painting and drawing leaves, cutting them out and attaching them to your wings – or choose a different way to decorate (collage, wax resist, scrunched-up tissue…)

Wear your wings. How does it feel? Take plenty of photos! Write descriptions of your wings and instructions on how to make them.

To take this further, retell the Greek legend of Icarus, look at Leonardo da Vinci’s birdwing cartoons or read My Dad’s a Bird Man by David Almond and Polly Dunbar.

 

Sandra Dieckmann is a ceramicist as well as a writer and illustrator. Visit her website at www.sandradieckmann.com to see her animal figurines. Which do your children like best? Which animal would they choose to model, and why?

Examine Dieckmann’s animal artwork in Leaf and compare with the ceramic models on her website. Using plasticine or clay, model an animal head inspired by Dieckmann’s work. 

Look closely at the plants on the book cover - use magnifiers! – and talk about the shapes and colours you can see
Draw your own plants, copying Dieckmann’s ideas and inventing new ones. Experiment with pastels, watercolour, coloured pencils, wax resist, scraperboard and other media.

Cut out your leaves and plants and stick on a sheet of card with a hole in the middle. Display so that your model animal can peep through the hole, surrounded by your forest plants.

Invent a name for your animal and tell the story of how he or she came to be living in the forest you’ve created, and what happened next.

Flying Eye Books is a relatively new imprint that really cares about high-quality design and production

Books today have to compete with lots of other media, so making a picturebook that’s great to touch and hold (as well as look at) is important, and ‘extras’ like Leaf’s printed cloth spine on a hardback edition can make a big difference.

Let Leaf inspire you to create beautiful handmade books of your own. Online tutorials will teach you how to make a simple hardback book, or you can use single sheets of textured card and bind with washi tape (easy-to-use Japanese masking tape) to add Flying-Eye-style impact to your finished books.

To fill your books with good things, why not find out about the Arctic and the animals that live there, and write illustrated reports? Or you could write the story of what happened when Leaf rejoined his family...

Look at the pictures to see Leaf being carried away from home on an iceberg. How do you think he feels, and why? How can you tell? How do you think Leaf and his iceberg became separated from his family? There are lots of possible scenarios - the book isn't specific -so encourage lateral thinking and come up with as many as you can! From what the book shows you, which do you think is the most likely backstory? 

Invite children to explore what happens when ice cubes float in water. How long does it take the icecubes to melt? Why doesn't Leaf's iceberg melt on its way to the forest, do you think? 

Talk about the ice covering the Arctic and Antarctic regions, and the icebergs floating in the sea. Collect words to describe ice and snow, and how it feels to be very cold. What animals and other creatures live in these icy regions?

Find out as much as you can about polar bears (and other animals living in the Arctic.) Why is the ice important to polar bears? What happens if the ice breaks up, or melts? Should we be worried about polar bers and their environment? Who is trying to help? Can we do anything?

Write about what you've done and what you've learned. Create a display, or present your research at an assembly or family event.

Really good picture books like Leaf give you lots of opportunities to inspire richer and more satisfying writing experiences for children, with higher quality outcomes.

Explore key moments in the story by choosing an image and using multisensory approaches to experience and interrogate it. For example, you could choose the spread showing Leaf’s paw sticking out of the water. This is when the crows decide to talk to him!

Discuss what you can see in the picture and the questions it raises. What can Leaf see, hear, feel, smell and taste as he falls into the water?

Touch some large, black feathers and view through magnifiers. What do you notice? Sketch using thick graphite and charcoal, then blow on the feathers to see what happens in the wind. What would it be like to wear a coat of feathers, do you think? 

Fill a large bowl with water. Look closely at the surface. How does it move when you blow on it? Agitate the water to make little waves. How do they move? Make small splashes and notice how the water behaves. What does it sound like? Recreate using your voice and/or percussion instruments. 

How has Dieckmann chosen to depict the northern sea? Investigate ways to draw and paint a seascape using different media (watercolour, pastels, wax crayons...) Share working methods and discoveries.

Ask children to use their voices to explore sounds that could be made by water, wind and birds, then choose their favourite to add to a communal soundscape. Conduct your orchestra, using signals to raise and lower the volume. Talk about what you’ve done and how it felt to take part. What can the bear hear in this picture, do you think?

Collect words to describe everything in this image: water, sky, feathers; flying, falling, splashing, swimming; how it feels to be a crow or bear. Set up whole-class wordbanks and use to tell stories about the bear falling in the water. 

Now ask children to write about the moment shown in the picture. Encourage them to involve their readers by using vivid words, descriptions and ideas.