Could you spot a Treekeeper house? Go for a walk in the countryside or your local park, keeping your eyes wide open to spot signs of the thumb-sized Treekeepers. Where do you think they'd choose to live, and why? What would they have to think about before building a home?
Use natural found materials (twigs, leaves, grass) to construct a tiny Treekeeper house. If you like, you can make furniture, too - or bring some dollshouse furniture with you and use it to furnish your houses.
Sketch your houses (making notes to remind you how you made them and the materilas you used) and take plenty of photos.
Who will occupy your house when you leave? Invent names and back-stories for your Treekeeper characters. What adventures will they have?
Build on your experience back in your setting by painting pictures, constructing models, telling your Treekeeper stories and writing about what you did.

To extend this activity, why not take a supply of mini cardboard doors with you on your walk? Set them up secretly and challenge children to find them all, then talk about who lives behind each door. What are their houses like? How do these tiny people care for their environment? Supply mini letter blanks and envelopes for children to write letters to the Treekeepers, then play postmen and deliver them. 

Treekeeper children enjoy playing energetic games. Examine the text and pictures to discover what they're doing.  
Can you invent rules for Catch the Acorn, Twig Tag and Tug the Vine - and have a go at playing them?
What about dancing the maypole or swinging on an old-fashioned rope swing hanging from a branch?

What games do you enjoy playing? Talk about how to play a particular game and agree on the rules.
Ask a small group of children to pretend they are Treekeepers. Can the rest of you teach them how to play your game?

What games did children play in your area in times past? Talk to mums, dads, childminders and grandparents and discover new games to play!

Treekeeper games. Image copyright Gemma Koomen for Frances Lincoln

Next time you're walking in a park, wood or other natural environment, keep your eyes open for interesting stones, leaves and other natural objects you can (safely and legally!) collect and take indoors.

Examine your objects, noticing everything you can about their shape, size, colour, texture, smell. Do they make a noise? What do you know about them, and what can you find out? Draw your objects carefully using different media, observing light and shade and experimenting with techniques to capture textures. 

Look at Flock and talk about the natural objects Sylvia has collected. What can you see? What has Sylvia done with these objects?

Using some of your found objects together with twigs, leaves, pine cones, berries and other materials, make items inspired by those in Sylvia’s hollow - dolls, kites, animals, tea sets, birds, flags, garlands...
Refer to the pictures (and your imaginations) for inspiration!

Sylvia's 'making space'. Image copyright Gemma Koomen for Frances Lincoln

Talk about museums and galleries, and the collections they display. Have you visited a museum or exhibition? What did you see and learn?
How do people decide what to collect? How do they choose what to put in an exhibition? How do they decide what to leave out? 

Curate an exhibition of your found materials, your artwork and the objects you’ve made. Don't forget labels and a catalogue!
Sylvia made the paintings on her wall with oak-gall ink, but you could draw with charcoal. Or try toasting and grinding a little earth and mix it to produce a natural pigment!  

Look at the pictures of Sylvia riding on Scruff’s back. How do you think she is feeling in each picture? How can you tell? Copy Sylvia's facial expressions, body postures and gestures, and talk about what you notice. Does this help you understand her better?  
How would you describe Sylvia’s feelings in each picture? Write your chosen words on post-its and add them to the right pages.

It isn't easy.... Image copyright Gemma Koomen for Frances Lincoln

What can Sylvia and Scruff see from high in the sky that they can’t see from ground (or tree) level?
Look carefully at the Whooosh! illustration and compare it with the landscape shown in the first double spread. What would Sylvia and Scruff see if they could fly over your house, library or school?
Could you paint a large-scale picture to show what they can see, like the Whooosh! illustration?
Alternatively you could draw a diagram or map, and label it.

Look at the picture showing Scruff (and Sylvia) meeting the other birds for the first time.
What could be Scruff thinking? What do you think the other birds are saying to him? As a whole class (and then in smaller groups) roleplay Scruff meeting the other birds.

Look at the picture showing Sylvia and the birds flying at sunset. How do the birds move when they’re flying together? Find out about starlings and their 'murmurations' - when they flock and fly together in great loops and swirls before roosting. 
Watch them flying in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOGCSBh3kmM 

Scruff joins his flock. Image copyright Gemma Koomen for Frances Lincoln

In a large-clear space, try swooping and looping gently together, letting your “wings beat as one.” How do you know where to go? How will you avoid collisions? Must you have a leader, or can you work it out another way? 

Using an earthy palette, paint pictures of flying starlings. Cut them out and arrange on a background to create a frieze inspired by Gemma Koomen's artwork. Can children draw themselves riding on a starling's back? Cut their pictures out and add them (one per starling!) to your frieze. 

Write about what you’ve done – or tell the story of what happened when you went for a “wild dance in the sky....” 

Extend by talking about decisionmaking. How do we decide what to do when we're alone? What about when we're in a group? 
Are the decisions we take as a group always positive? How could we make better decisions as a group?

Do you like being alone? What kind of activities are fun to do alone? What do you miss when you're not with other people?

How does it feel to be lonely? Is it the same as being alone? Are you always alone when you feel lonely? What is loneliness?

Look carefully at the pictures in this book and listen to what the text is telling you about being alone. When and why is Sylvia alone? When and why is she lonely? What does she do about her feelings of loneliness? What happens as a result?

Talk about friendship. Where and how did you make your friends? Is it difficult to make new friends? How could you go about making them? What would get in the way of making a new friend? What does friendship mean to you? 

Sylvia and her new friends. Image copyright Gemma Koomen for Frances Lincoln

Can you think of a way to help people who would like to make new friends? Perhaps you could set up a friendship bench, for example, where children can sit if they’d like to chat to someone new. What other ideas can you come up with?

Like Sylvia, lots of people enjoy their own company and solitary activities. How could you celebrate and share the things you enjoy doing alone? Perhaps you could take photos to create a display, or make a collaborative scrapbook. Can you think of anything else?

In a wood or other outdoor place, collect fallen twigs, leaves and other materials and make yourself a nest. Sit in it - very quietly! - and use all your senses to observe the world around you. 
Use your experiences to help you tell a story, write a poem or paint a picture.

Image copyright Gemma Koomen for Frances Lincoln

"Nurture and mend, gather and tend..."
The Treekeepers look after the natural world around them. What can you see them doing in this book? How do their actions help the environment? Does it need their help? Why?
What would you do if you were a Treekeeper? What can you do as you?
Make a poster telling everyone how to care for the environment.

The paintings in this book are accurate pictures of real flowers and other plants.
How many do you recognise? Use a handbook to help you identify them.

Go for a walk or expedition in a park, garden or other outdoor area and observe plants and flowers. Draw what you can see, make notes, take photos and try to identify each plant. Be very careful not to pick or damage them!  

Imagine this picture is a window into the story-world. What do you think you'd see if you could open the window and peep around the corner? What could be happening just out of the reader's sight?
Now imagine stepping through this picture-window. Can you smell or taste anything? How do you feel? 
What can you hear now you're part of this story-world? Using your voices, found objects or percussion instruments, make the sounds of the wind in the branches, woodpeckers tapping, children playing and small animals rustling through the grass.  
Pass some natural woodland objects round and find interesting words to describe them.
Now tell the story of how you walked across the grass and said hello to the Treekeepers. What happened next? 

Image copyright Gemma Koomen for Frances Lincoln First Editions